The importance of Thanksgiving every day
Thanksgiving is the most important holiday of the year.
Oh, sure, Christmas is grand, and I know it has many, many fans.
I'm not knocking Christmas, but The Thanksgiving story is more
important. And Easter has its fans, too. Rebirth is a wonderful
thing, but I still say Thanksgiving is more important. Yes, kids
jump for joy at the thought of Halloween. I am sure they enjoy
the costumes almost as much as overdose on sugar and chocolate,
but the Thanksgiving story is even more important.
Why?
Because the two most important words in the English language are
"Thank You". This is true for business success, for social
pleasure, even for self-actualization.
For business success, a thank you tells a prospect or partner
that you are appreciative of what she has just done. It shows
you have a genuine interest in that person and the business
relationship.
For social interaction, expressing gratitude is equally
important to show how you value the other person and the social
relationship you have with him. Thank you is a bonding phrase.
But thanksgiving is most important on a personal level for our
own happiness. This is true for anybody who has ever lived, but
it is even more true for us today.
Consider how much we have. More than any of our ancestors, we
live in the Land of Plenty. We have more than anybody who lived
at any time before. And for those of us who live in the
developed world, we have more than most people on our little
planet even today.
I'm not just talking about our abundance of "stuff". Oh sure, we
have ten-foot tall digital color televisions with
594,798,345,691 channels and computers that send us around the
world faster than the speed of a race car on growth hormones.
And we have 31 flavors of ice cream waiting for us on every
second street corner. And we throw out more "junk" than we ever
could find a use for in the first place. But we have so much
more than just stuff. Consider the following:
FREEDOM: More of the world lives in a democracy than ever
before, and democracy is becoming more open or "democratic" with
every year (perhaps in part due to the Internet).
OPPORTUNITIES: With freedom and affluence comes opportunity. We
have more opportunity to make more money, to earn it the way we
wish, to choose our profession, our location, even our
lifestyle. Women have just about reached equality with men in
most of the developed world, and more people are able to flee
oppressive regimes. Actually, does that not sound like a
continuation of the original Thanksgiving story?
KNOWLEDGE: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? With
freedom, comes the ability to satisfy our curiosity: knowledge.
And with knowledge comes a thirst for freedom. Let's face it,
the idea of "the ignorant masses" has become an anachronism.
Even the dumbest among us has more knowledge than most people
who lived a couple centuries ago. (I said more "knowledge", not
more "wisdom", but that's another topic.)
HEALTH: Just surviving past childhood used to be a major
accomplishment. Now we expect to live into our 80s or 90s. And
we expect