Thankfulness

Today, thinking about thankfulness, I realized that I don't feel genuinely thankful very often. Of course there are special events, such as receiving a gift, that prompt the giving of thanks, but the overarching feeling of being happy to be alive, the feeling that life has given us so many wonderful things from music to waterfalls to travel to most everything I write on this blog and quite a lot I neglect - that feeling is hard to come by naturally. It has to be induced.

That's a big reason I like the Thanksgiving holiday weekend so much: a non-religious holiday designed for people to feel thankful (and even if your heart's not into it the four-day weekend isn't too bad either!). Of course there are religious holidays that serve the same purpose, as I feel is the case with Passover especially. But the point isn't about spirituality for me. It's about feeling how there are things in our lives that could easily not be there, about celebrating that we have it pretty good in this life.

So today, on this obligatory day of remembrance, I feel the best homage would be to feel thankful for what we have, what could not and did not get taken from us, either ten years ago or at any point in our lives when we faced whatever external threats we faced. Most of all I want to feel thankful for safety - not security, as in "national security," mind you, but for the safety of my friends and loved ones. Safety not in the sense that they are being protected but safety as a state of being, a characteristic, ranging from the caution they use when driving to the ease at which they fall asleep at night comfortably assured that they're outside of harm's reach. The safety, in other words, that you can only feel by living.

Feel free to share what you're thankful for today in the comments section.