The 'Gratitude Audit' We All Need This Diwali

Our India. A land of vibrant cultures celebrates a multitude of festivals that go far beyond rituals and revelry. Amid meetings, deadlines and metrics, these moments are gentle reminders, asking us to pause and ponder, reflect and reconnect, with what truly matters.

Each festival — whether Diwali, Eid, Christmas, Gurpurab, Pongal or Navratri — carries a deep-rooted essence: the spirit of gratitude.

Every festival is, in a way, a moral report card. It looks beyond how we celebrate, into how we live. It reminds us whether we have grown more grateful or simply more comfortable. It is easy to decorate a home; harder to decorate our hearts with humility.

Gratitude, when seen that way, becomes the hidden blessing we rediscover each time the lights come on and the world slows down.

There’s something about festivals that makes even the busiest of us pause. During the festive seasons that we celebrate as holiday from work, the ever-spinning wheel of work slows down — if only briefly — and we find time to re-engage with life’s simple pleasures. Time spent with family, shared meals (sometimes even the overindulgences), meaningful conversations, and even the pre-festive rituals of cleaning and decorating homes become opportunities to reconnect — with ourselves and with others.

Office deadlines are put on hold, calendars make room for celebration, and people return to themselves and to one another. The roads seem brighter and more tolerable than other days. The air carries the scent of sweets, incense, and happiness. People smile more easily. For a few days, the world feels kinder.

But beneath these colour and music lies a quieter truth. Every festival is really a reminder to be thankful. From ancient scriptures to folk traditions, the act of giving thanks is woven into the very fabric of our celebrations.

Not the kind of gratitude we post online, but the kind that humbles us when no one is watching.

We often treat festivals as markers on a calendar. But they are much more than that. They are gentle mirrors that show us who we’ve been through the year.

Have we been kind?

Have we been patient?

Have we remembered to thank the people who make our lives easier every day?

Gratitude is how we take stock of our lives without a balance sheet. It’s a quiet moral audit of how we’ve shown up for others.

Somewhere along the way, gratitude turned into performance.

A post.

A polite message.

A one-time chocolate or dry fruit hamper.

But real gratitude doesn’t announce itself. It lives in small, invisible moments — in how we listen when someone speaks, in how we treat those who can’t do anything for us, in how we remember the unseen people who hold up our daily comfort.

And yet, despite its many benefits, gratitude remains surprisingly rare in professional settings. One survey found that while over half of people say thank you to family members, only about 15% extend the same courtesy at work. Even more striking — 35% say their managers have never appreciated them.

Many hesitate to express gratitude at work because they fear it signals weakness. Acknowledging help, they think, means admitting they couldn’t manage alone. That insecurity fuels what many now call the “gratitude gap.”

This Diwali, what if we tried to bridge that gap?

In many organisations, the festive season is marked by annual townhalls, team lunches, and traditional dress days. What if we went one step further and used these occasions to create a culture of genuine appreciation? Gratitude doesn’t need a grand gesture. A simple thank-you, a note of recognition, or a quiet acknowledgment can create a ripple that strengthens trust and morale across teams.

Interestingly, many leaders who are hard on themselves often struggle to express gratitude to others. For such leaders, it begins with being thankful for what they have achieved — and from that place of grace, extending appreciation outward. A true Diwali, in that sense, begins with gratitude towards oneself and expands to embrace others.

If you think about it, every Diwali is a kind of gratitude audit — not just of our finances, but of our conduct.

How did we speak to the driver who waited late for us?

How did we treat the person who cleaned our space before guests arrived

Gratitude binds us to one another. When it disappears, we drift apart. Festivals are our chance to pull those bonds closer again.

There’s another gift that gratitude brings: it slows us down. It helps us see that not everything needs to grow or move faster to have value. It makes us notice what has quietly gone right — a friend who stayed, a parent who still calls, a meal shared without fuss. Gratitude reminds us that abundance isn’t about excess; it’s about seeing what is already enough.

And maybe that’s what every festival is really trying to teach us. It isn’t about repeating the same rituals every year — it’s about renewing our purpose. It’s about remembering what matters and returning to it. Gratitude turns celebration into connection. It transforms success into service and joy into generosity.

Gratitude helps us reframe challenges, find meaning in setbacks, and remember that even in difficult times, there is still good in the world. It doesn’t erase hardship, but it helps us carry it with grace.

As the lamps are lit and families gather, it might be worth asking ourselves one small question: What am I truly thankful for this year? And who am I thankful to?

This Diwali, make a list — of people you know and are grateful for, of those you don’t know but benefit from, and of the natural forces that sustain life without asking anything in return: sunlight, air, water, the quiet generosity of nature itself. Every festival is a good time to thank the unsung miracles that surround us every day.

Let this Diwali not just be a festival of lights, but a celebration of boundless gratitude that connects us all. Because the true brilliance of Diwali lies not in the lights we hang, but in the light we become.

Happy Diwali to you.

Srinath Sridharan & Nishchal Joshipura are, respectively, corporate advisor and author of ‘Family and Dhanda’; and lead, private equity and M&A at Nishith Desai Associates.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of NDTV Profit or its editorial team.