Sunday, November 4, 2012

The Nature of Thankfulness

On Facebook and various other social media I’ve noticed people doing a countdown to Thanksgiving in which they post each day something they are thankful for. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is great. But I must admit to being a bit disgusted by this. These are the same people who ten minutes later are complaining.

Let me stop right here and be very clear. I am not on my high horse finding fault with others and trying to pass myself off as the paragon of thankfulness. I am not. Hence the reason I’m not participating in this. I have not cultivated a spirit of thankfulness within myself to the point where I feel I have any right to take part in this. It’s not that I’m not thankful, I simply don’t see myself as thankful enough.

It is this whole thankfulness countdown phenomena that pops up every November that got me to thinking about the fleeting nature of human thankfulness. I find that on average people tend to be thankful only when they are reminded that they should be. And I find that thankfulness doesn’t make it through even the smallest of disappointments. I read a Facebook status update in which an acquaintance expounded upon her thankfulness for her family and children and so on and so forth. A very Norman Rockwell moment indeed, full of eloquent loving language. Then report cards came home. Apparently the end result wasn’t what was expected. Suddenly her children were a burden, her family didn’t help out enough and, wonders of wonders, her family went from Norman Rockwell perfect to dysfunctional in about three sentences. Suddenly her kids and family were nothing but a burden she wanted to be away from. That theme lasted the rest of the day. But come the next morning she had to write her thankfulness post for the day and once again she was gushing. This time about being so thankful for her house. Too bad the water heater went out later that day…

This month of thankfulness seems rather forced and empty. It seems people mouth the words, but don’t actually live it. This made me examine myself. And I realize that, yes, there are things for which I am thankful, but there is far too much I take for granted. I could rationalize it away and say to myself, “Well, with all that has happened to me recently surely I need not blame myself.” Wrong. Life happens. If I use that as an excuse to forget the blessings I enjoy every day, then I should be careful lest I find those blessings suddenly absent from my life.

So back to square one I went. I don’t want to be an ungrateful brat. I don’t want to be fakely positive either. I want to be truly thankful for what I have but not in the way of those that are fakely Christian on Sunday but get drunk and beat their wife and kids every other day of the week.

I quickly realized that it’s very easy to let the negative overwhelm your thoughts and be the thing that drives you. I’ve been focusing too much on the negative. That makes me feel helpless, hopeless and overwhelmed. If I’m feeling helpless, hopeless and overwhelmed there is no room for positive thoughts. Obviously if there is no room for positive thoughts, I’m not going to be thankful.

My plan is simple. I’ve got to focus on the positive. And, truly, there are plenty of positive things in my life. The plan for this week is to simply replace a negative thought with a positive one. Simple enough. It recalibrates my thinking. I can be whiney because I’m sick at home with a fever. And, yes, that really isn’t fun. Or I could be thankful that I have a job to be sick at home from and be thankful for the extra time at home that allows me to catch up on my reading. I guess this is what my grandmother always meant about finding the silver lining in even the worst circumstances.

I wonder though, is this going to work when I’m forced to make a trip to Wal-Mart?