Stop feeling owed. Start feeling loved.

So: last week, we talked about how saying “thank you” doesn’t always make the cut of hakaras hatov. As Bircas Hamazon and Bikkurim teach us, hakaras hatov is about getting in touch with the depth of the chesed we’ve received. All the effort it took on the giver’s part. All the levels on which it impacted us.

Good. So we’ve learned how to express proper hakaras hatov. Next time a friend gives us a ride, or orders us lunch when we’re going through something tough, we know how to really give back with our thanks.

So are we done yet?

Not quite. Because we’re missing something.

We think that “chesed” means “favor.” “Chesed” means “unexpected gift.” Chesed means “unnecessary.”

We’re forgetting that most of the chesed we receive in life, we don’t even think of as chesed.

Because we think we’re entitled to it.

It’s our wife’s job to make dinner. And to make sure we have clean, matching socks lined up in our drawers.

It’s our kids’ job to clear their plates and hang up their coats. Kids need to pitch in – that’s how it works.

It’s our secretary’s job to keep our business organized – isn’t that what we’re paying her for?

Well… so what?

So what if it’s the wife’s job, the kids’ responsibility, the secretary’s raison d’etre? Does that take away the fact that they put effort into what they do? And that they do it for us? And that it makes our lives better?

According to the Gemara (Pesachim 8a), if one gives tzedakah as a z’chus for his child’s life, he’s considered a “tzaddik gamur,” completely righteous. Even though he really gave the tzedakah for his own benefit.

That means, Rav Yerucham Levovitz explains, that chesed is always chesed. Even if the giver benefits from it. Even if they’re being paid a salary to do it, or they’re just doing what’s expected of them.

As humans, we’re conditioned to focus on the negative. To look at the world as a place where “survival of the fittest” rules people’s drives and actions. Where people don’t really give; they just make transactions so they can get what they want.

But the Torah perspective is different. This world is filled with so much good. People are good. Hashem is good. Everything we have is because of goodness and kindness – Hashem’s desire to do chesed for us.

So hakaras hatov isn’t just there to make us more appreciative. And its power goes beyond helping us “give back” to those who gift us.

It’s there to help us experience the world as good. To feel flooded with kindnesses and gifts and love and care and support. From Hashem. From those who “owe” us. From those who do “extra” things.

For the big gifts. The small touches. The glorious and the simple. The chair you’re sitting on as you read this email? Chesed. The incredibly useful machine you’re using to read it? Chesed. The shirt you’re currently wearing, which is clean – because it got washed – in a washing machine (when’s the last time you brought your clothes to the river?) – with highly formalized detergent – and then dried in that ingeniously designed wonder of a drier – chesed, chesed, chesed, chesed, chesed, chesed.

Let’s start building this perspective today. Let’s pick one person to whom we owe hakaras hatov, and stop telling them “thank you.” Instead, we’ll do a little thinking. We’ll articulate what we were lacking before their help, and how their chesed made things better. We’ll elaborate a bit on what went into their gift. And we’ll start building – for ourselves, and for those around us – a brighter, more positive, more secure experience of the world.