‘Beautiful Things’: Benson Boone, Marcus Aurelius, and the Importance of Gratitude

The message of gratitude shines through in his song, and echoes some ancient wisdom.

While I was driving home from a baseball game last summer, a song came on the radio.

“Turn it up!” my 11-year-old son said.

I dutifully turned up the volume and began to listen. The music was unfamiliar, but I liked it. Later I would learn the tune was Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things,” a song released in January 2024 as the lead single from Boone’s debut album, Fireworks & Rollerblades.

To say that the song, which Boone co-wrote with Jack LaFrantz and Evan Blair, has become a hit is an understatement.

The tune, which has racked up 390 million views on YouTube in just nine months, reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the charts in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and several other countries.

That summer day, when I was listening to the song for the first time, I knew none of this, of course. And though it’s fair to say I liked the song immediately, it was not until I began to really listen that it began to resonate.

‘I Think I Might Have It All’

“Beautiful Things” is a song about a young man getting a hold on life and learning to find happiness. He’s found love, and is learning to appreciate the little things we often take for granted, including family and peace. But as his life gets better, fear creeps in.

This message of fear is expressed most clearly in the chorus, which Boone sings powerfully:

Please stay I want you, I need you, oh God
Don’t take These beautiful things that I’ve got
Oh Ooh

When I first listened to the song, these words didn’t hit me. It was not until listening carefully to the opening of the song, which describes the man emerging from a rough patch, that the message came through.

For a while there, it was rough
But lately, I’ve been doin’ better
Than the last four cold Decembers
I recall

He then explains why he’s feeling better.

And I see my family every month
I found a girl my parents love
She’ll come and stay the night
And I think I might have it all

The source of his happiness isn’t career success. It’s not wealth. It’s the fact that he’s now seeing his family regularly and he’s fallen in love. He’s not just happy; he believes he might “have it all.”

And the next words are important.

And I thank God every day
For the girl He sent my way
But I know the things He gives me
He can take away

When I realized what the young man was saying, I was moved. He’s found happiness, and he’s deeply grateful for that—but he’s terrified that God might take from him the things he loves.

‘How Much You’d Crave Them If You Didn’t Have Them’

There’s both honesty and wisdom in the lyrics of “Beautiful Things.” Wisdom because the young man is deeply grateful for the happiness he’s been blessed with.

During the Thanksgiving season, it’s important to remember that gratitude is essential to human happiness. It is a quality that does not come easily to humans; it requires discipline to practice it, something the Ancient Stoics understood.

In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius begins his classic work by listing all of the people in his life who’ve influenced him, listing the virtues he’s learned from each of them.

From his brother Severus: “To love my family, truth and justice.”

From Maximus: “Self-control and resistance to distractions. Optimism in adversity—especially illness.”

His adopted father: “Compassion. Unwavering adherence to decisions, once he’d reached them. Indifference to superficial honors. Hard work. Persistence.”

On and on the list goes, and it’s an expression of gratitude from the philosopher king for those in his life who’d made him the man he had become.

This message of gratitude runs throughout Meditations, and in Book 7 Marcus Aurelius reminds himself to cherish the precious things in his life (he uses the Greek word Kalon, which literally means “beautiful things”) and not focus on the things he doesn’t possess.

“Treat what you don’t have as nonexistent,” the Roman Emperor wrote. “Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them.”

‘Be Careful’

Marcus Aurelius’s message is an essential one, and not just for Thanksgiving. The Ancient Stoics understood that human happiness stemmed from our ability to control not just our actions but our thoughts.

So often we focus our attention on things we don’t possess, and we long for them. To covet things we don’t have is a road to misery. Appreciating the things we have is a path to happiness.

But Marcus Aurelius understood there was also a danger in valuing the gifts we’ve been given too much.

“…be careful,” he warned. “Don’t feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them—that it would upset you to lose them.”

The Philosopher King may be right, but this is easier said than done. The things in our lives that bring us joy and meaning are things we’re naturally going to cling to, which is why I identify with Benson Boone when he sings about the fear of losing all the beautiful things he’s been given.

Nevertheless, the message of gratitude shines through in his song. In an era in which Americans seem blind to the miraculous prosperity around them, Boone recognizes some things are even more important.

“I know I’ve got enough. I’ve got peace and I’ve got love,” he croons near the end of the song.

These are indeed beautiful things, and they should not be taken for granted.