And a little bit pain, a little anxiety and little bit of unhappiness. Wait, what?
We are humans. We come to Thanksgiving and start giving thanks to a lot of things. But, behind the surface there is the reality of things… there is inconvenience, pain, anxiety, despair, worries, suffering and unhappiness. There are also spurts of calm, happiness, peace and thriving in nuggets of joy. We focus on giving thanks this day, but we could very well do that every day. Or even better, every bit of everyday. And yet, we paper over our problems and challenges and focus on it for just one momentous day instead.
But look at it from a different perspective. We are humans. And humans are most in the state of flow when we create something, when we can show what we created and when we are seen and heard as humans. To create something, we need some pain, some unhappiness, some problem to solve and sometimes being forced into a corner. Then, we fight back. We come up with ideas (forced or unforced), we innovate, we defend ourselves and thereby take care of ourselves.
So instead of just thanking each other just this one day lets us wish ourselves for some inconvenience, pain, anxiety, and unhappiness every day, so that we push ourselves beyond to enjoy the joy of being better humans. We excel a little bit more, when we push ourselves a little beyond what we are capable of. By the joy of creating something, and the joy of thriving from it. By creating and innovating something for ourselves, our families, our communities, our planet. And, because we are capable of it and we can.
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” — John F. Kennedy
— John F. Kennedy Source:
Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, 1963
Picture credit: Pixabay.com
