Practicing Thanksgiving

Because we live in such an affluent society, we often take for granted all that we have and all that we have access to on a regular basis. I don’t know about you, but I don’t wake up wondering whether or not I am going to eat each day, rather I try to decide what I want to eat each day based on what I am hungry for and what I have on hand. I don’t have a lot of clothing, but I wear something different every day (sometimes for weeks at a time), I don’t have to wear the same thing day in and day out. And these are just two areas where our affluence is apparent. We may live paycheck to paycheck much of the time, but we are still so rich compared to much of the rest of the world. And because this is the reality in which we live, we often times don’t give a second thought to the people and things around us every day.

We need to practice being thankful. We need to make ourselves do it on a regular basis. It’s not something that comes naturally in our busy lives, but we need to consciously take time to think about and talk about what we are thankful for, which can be anything and everything – people, things, circumstances (good and bad), etc.

That’s why, for the month of November for the last couple of years, I have chosen to use my Facebook status to state something that I am thankful for every day. We all have things that we are thankful for, but how often do we say those things out loud? How often to we tell the people we love how thankful we are for them? How often are we honest enough to say that we are thankful for stuff like microwaves and flat irons, cell phones and DVRs?

So, I challenge you, particularly in this Thanksgiving month, to practice thanksgiving. Whether you do it publicly or privately, increase your acknowledgement of being thankful.

Let’s start now. Leave a comment below with something for which you are thankful.