THANKS

“What are you thankful for?”

We’ve all been asked this since kindergarten, around this time of year.

Not to put words in mouths, but I think most of us would answer with some combination of

  • Family

  • Friends

  • Community

  • Significant Other

  • Food and Shelter

  • Job or Income

  • Safety

  • Good Health

  • Opportunity

Recently I was thinking about this in terms of how I distribute my time, which gave way to this thought:

Do we actually give precedence to the things that we are most grateful for?

I mean, sure, you might tell people that you love them when you hang up the phone or be grateful for happy endorphins, post-workout.

But can I say that I make the most time for the things I value most? Probably not. I love my friends, but juggling schedules is work. It seems only in bad health, do I actually realize how lucky I am to function as a normal human everyday. We complain about our jobs with coworkers, even if we are doing something we love. Many of us also take safety and shelter for granted; aka we don’t exist in war zones so we don’t fear for our lives while doing day to day activities.

What do we spend our time on instead?

I bet if I asked people what they were most grateful for, they wouldn’t say things like, my iPhone or the internet, and yet we spend such a large majority of the day consumed by media. We are grateful for food and nourishment, but sometimes even food becomes our enemy…so instead, we starve ourselves to lose weight when our neighbors are starving. We cherish our friends and families and significant others but are culprit to taking daily stressors out on, these people we are most thankful for, because they are there for us, through good and bad. What we have to remember is:

We are grateful for the real.

Real support.

Real conversation.

Real community.

Real homes.

And most of the time, we live in our own heads or in virtual realities.

We are grateful for the tangible

Big hugs

Affirming words

Thoughtful gifts

Time spent with another

And we forget to acknowledge these things, because we take them as a given.

This Thanksgiving, I want you to think about how you are honoring the things you are most thankful for, and put that into practice.

Gratitude is a practice.

Thanksgiving is just a reminder.

With Gratitude,

Christina

Christina Morrison