Thanksgiving, unfortunately and commonly overpowered by Halloween and Christmas, contains importance to many people. To take a day to be with those we cherish is priceless, among our busy lives. Often our hectic schedules limit our time we can dedicate to truly think about what we are genuinely grateful for. We succumb to the stereotypical items to show thanks for and forget about the more unique things we take for granted every day and should not! Moreover, we witness the superficial things to show appreciation for rather than understanding the deeper meaning within the relationships, experiences and freedoms we contain in our lives. To prevent you from failing to see the hidden purpose in our thankfulness this Thanksgiving, here is a list to engender your more genuine appreciation.
- Circles, Triangles and Squares
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Geometric shapes may not be the exact thing to be grateful for this Thanksgiving season; while generating a list of thanks, usually friends and family rank in the first spot. Undeniably friends and family generate vast importance in our lives, but so do the people who have left our lives. Instead, we should be grateful for the people and experiences that have shaped us into who we are today. These experiences may be positive and they may be negative. People who have taught us how to not act are just as important as the people who have modeled for us how to carry out our lives. It might be easier to focus on the beneficial influences of our lives, but both carry significance in building us into the people we are today and has lead us to the relationships and accomplishments we have had thus far in our lives.
- Glue and Tape
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Glue contains a more permanent influence that tape does. Connections we form and build give us the choice to choose glue or tape. We can either maintain our relationships with others by selecting glue to attempt to keep people close to us for our entire lives or we can decide to use tape and temporarily keep people in our lives. I believe the power to keep people in our lives that make us better people and love and support us is taken for granted. This ability also comes with the opposite power that we are enabled to end unhealthy relationships in our lives and move forward to benefit ourselves long term.
- Cellular Towers
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The cellular towers that we see as an eyesore and an obstacle in our lives hold the utmost importance in our lives. With technology at our fingertips today, we see social media, Snapchat and texts as an easy form of communication, but we take the simple phone call for granted. Being distanced from the people we love only by a short phone call can be like no other experience. The amount of love conveyed from just hearing another person’s voice brings a sense of comfort that words displayed on a screen cannot generate. Listening to their unique voice, tone and laugh creates a sense of their presence that a phone can only bring about. A phone call has the ability to form a small sense of you home away from home by transporting people’s voices across any land or ocean.
- Red Lights
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Red lights may seem like a pain, whether you are stopped at one in a car or at a crosswalk. They force us to pause — and if that is not enough, they prevent us from getting to our destination in a designated time period. We fail to acknowledge that pausing and taking a step back from our chaos is a gift. Red lights enable us to do this daily whether we want to or not. This is powerful. Our hectic schedules prevent us from stopping to appreciate the little things. Red lights force us all to break from our lives and not get caught up in the mess. Without the capacity to relax, re-energize and reset we would fail to enjoy the simplest moments and witness the beauty in the world around us.
- YOU
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This last one may seem selfish as Thanksgiving is a time to show our gratitude for others, but everything else becomes hard to appreciate without giving thanks to yourself first. We must love and be grateful for all we have endured, experienced and accomplished within the past year. Recognizing that you deserve a dose of the thanks you are giving to everyone else is important. Look at everything you have done since last Thanksgiving. There is no one else except the beautiful and amazing you that has done that! Now that is something to be celebrated and therefore be thankful for this Thanksgiving.
Challenge yourself this Thanksgiving to be thankful for the overlooked things. Search for what created the things you are typically grateful for and show thanks for the underrepresented ideas. Instead of following clichés, enter the deeper level of gratitude that we often fail to notice and take time to comprehend. Attempt to state why you are grateful for the person, object or freedom this season instead of following the superficial trend of just declaring you appreciation for them. Do this and your thanks will generate a whole new meaning for you and those in your life this Thanksgiving.