Thanksgiving Thoughts

On this day of Thanksgiving
in this month where we list what we are thankful for
I'd like to implore you to practice gratitude daily if you don't already.

Every day of the year, even - no, especially - on days that suck, days where nothing is going your way, days you think you will not survive. Find a plain rock on a turd beach and be thankful for it.

I can tell who doesn't practice daily gratitude. They say why me all the time not in a joking manner and think the world is against them. The world not against anyone...it is just not interested in throwing anything else good someone’s way because they don't appreciate what they already have. When we spend more time looking at what is right in our lives, we simply have less time to spend on what's wrong.

Pain in this life is a given. Suffering is optional, and the length and depth of your suffering is often completely up to you and your reactions (systemic repression not included). Find something to be grateful for because practicing daily gratitude will turn things around for you faster than anything else and will make those inevitable nothing is going my way days easier to bear.

Does daily gratitude keep bad things from happening? Hell no, you guys. This is life. It’s not perfect or without wrinkles. There will be hard and terrible things. There is absolutely no shield for that. There will be days so dark we can’t see our way out of them. On those days we have to dig so deep for something to be grateful for that it can feel like turning yourself inside out. Personally I need to be inside out every once in a while to grasp the depth of my power to keep my life on my terms, if only in my mind. 

There is no limit on gratitude, so you can extend it as often as you are able, even on those horrible life feels like it’s ending days. Let gratitude over something small and seemingly insignificant be the rope you use to pull yourself out of the abyss. When we lose people who are of life sustaining importance, there’s a reason one of our first reactions is to thank the people who stood beside us in our pain. Gratitude connects us to each other and to the universe. 

Nothing has had a greater impact on my life than practicing gratitude daily. Nothing.

Thanks for reading here, friends. Happy Thanksgiving.

And happy happy birthday to my longtime great friend Gwen.