A few years ago, a prisoner was struggling to sleep. After all of the pain and tragedy he caused in his lifetime, his dreams haunted him. The endless nightmares continued, but once he began valuing others—writing letters to his family from prison and telling them how great it is to thank people, he finally slept peacefully.

At the same time in a different place, Masato Kawahatsu is waking up. Looking at the sun, he says “thank you” to its rays that shine down on him. He looks at a white rectangular notebook with over 500 names in it including his family, cousins, friends, and people who he simply talks to or meets. He says thank you to each name—and he repeats this routine five times a day.

Masato Kawahatsu has been promoting the “Thank You Movement” for six years now. It is the same movement that inspired the troubled prisoner, who was once haunted by nightmares, to value others. In the beginning, his goal was to say “thank you” 100 times a day. After a couple of years of practicing this ideal, he realized that 100 thank yous was not enough. People still had time to complain. His goal then changed to say thank you 1,000 times daily.

Thanking others can help people to eliminate several kinds of mental frustration, anger, worry and disappointment, says Kawahatsu. He believes that relationships between people will improve through the appreciation of others.

Six months prior to starting his Thank You Movement, Kawahatsu was diagnosed with a large duodenal (small intestine) ulcer. During this difficult time, his family and friends cared for him, brought him medicine and cheered him up by making him laugh. But his health was not improving.

“I was always asking myself, ‘Why am I the only one suffering?’” he says. “Then, I realized I had been thinking about myself the entire time, giving very little thanks to all those around me who helped me in what ways they could to speed up my recovery.”

He realized the importance of thanking his loved ones for their concerns more often. And while at it, why not thank everyone else around him and thank everything in the universe -- nature, water, air, sun, trees, food—every little thing. He also discovered that he has never thanked himself for being who he is, or has never been grateful for the functions within his body and mind, and the spirit he believes in.

Once he began acknowledging the goodness of everyone and everything around him, his health improved and his ulcer healed. Kawahatsu believes that his gratefulness for others is a significant contributor to his improved health.

There is also another reason why Kawahatsu commenced the Thank You practice. He thinks people always complain, grumble, and don’t thank others enough. Parents and children fight. Couples divorce. Countries fight wars. All are divided by negativity. He asked himself, what would happen if people cherished others instead of complaining? What would happen if people loved others before hating?

“People go to the bathroom, and do their own business every day. But they will not do the same when it comes to stress and negative feelings,” Kawahatsu says. “People should let go of any negativity like they flush the toilet every day.”

At 10.45 a.m., Kawahatsu teaches a Japanese Calligraphy class. The classroom is small, fitting only 10 people at most. The room smells of newsprint and Chinese ink, creating a fragrance that is reminiscent of incense. A small bookcase in front of the room is filled of Kawahatsu’s Japanese novels and Calligraphy instruction books.

“Do you ever think about how many people a person is involved with in their life before one is 15 years old?” Kawahatsu asks students. “I don’t know…like two hundred?” a student says, mixing the Chinese ink with water.

“No, much more than that,” Kawahatsu replies.

“Two thousand?” another student guesses.

“The number two is right, but there are many more. It is two million,” Kawahatsu explains. “Those people might be your parents, your family, your friends, your school mates, your cousins. They are even the people who serve you at restaurant, help you at a store, doctors, nurses, teachers, neighbors and people you don’t really know but you say ‘hi’ to every time you see them."

Kawahatsu tells the story of a girl he knows who wanted to commit suicide. She didn’t desire to live in this world, but wanted freedom from its struggle. He told her that before she decides to take her life, she must thank every person who has ever been involved in it. After thinking this over, she realized it would take forever to say thank you to everyone who has ever touched her life.

“In doing so, no one will have time to commit suicide,” Kawahatsu says.
After his parable, Kawahatsu starts asking everyone in the class how their week has been. Scott McBride, a Japanese Calligraphy student, says thank you while he jogs, running several miles almost every day.

“It takes about three miles to say thank you 1,000 times and five miles to say thank you 2,000 times,” McBride says. “Just saying thank you in [my] mind makes running a lot more enjoyable.” McBride says he not only thanks people but also gives thanks for the food he eats, the clothes he wears and everything that makes him feel alive.

Richard Grange, a San Francisco resident, was walking around the city one day, when he stopped to think how great it is living in San Francisco. “I started to thank even the sun,” Grange says. “And I said thank you for being here in the nice city.”

Several researchers proved that people have a higher quality life if they treasure others everyday instead of complaining. According to a research project on gratitude and thankfulness by Robert Emmons, a psychology professor at UC Davis, people who kept gratitude journals and gratitude lists, or who focus on gratitude in daily life, feel better about their lives as a whole and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded the hassles or neutral life events.

Milam Freitag, a licensed clinical psychologist in San Francisco, says if someone focuses only on what other people are doing wrong or what they aren't doing at all, that person’s life is one of disappointment and deprivation. However, if the person practices mindfulness and is aware of others' kind acts, one remembers that life and humanity are about great amounts of generosity and compassion.

“Imagine how many people are involved in the salad that you might have for dinner. Those who grew the vegetables, those who picked them, shipped them, sold them to us, and those who prepared the salad for us,” Freitag says. “If we can practice not only the saying of thank you to them, but also the mindfulness and gratitude, I believe it makes everyone happier.”

Kawahatsu recalls the tale of a monkey who started to wash a potato. After other monkeys saw the monkey washing his potato, 100 monkeys copied him and the act spread around to other monkey communities, according to Lifetide, a book written by Dr. Lyall Watson, a Ph.D in ethology. Kawahatsu says he wants this movement to carry on in the same way.

His task now is to spread this simple act of saying thank you to as many people as possible. “I don’t care if people actually say thank you, write thank you, or even think thank you,” Kawahatsu says. “I just want people to always appreciate others...and try not to destroy relationships because of complaining."

Just like Kawahatsu says, we all have time to complain 1,000 times every day. So why not change this energy to do something nice, something that makes people happier instead.