We've all seen the "30 Days of Thankful" posts on Facebook, where our friends take time every day to name something they're thankful for as Thanksgiving approaches. I have friends who love these posts, and do them because it helps them remember to take time every day to be grateful for what they have. I also have friends who can't stand them--find them boring, trite, or just plain annoying.
I'm somewhere in the middle: I appreciate the idea behind it, but aside from my one hilarious friend who posted things like, "I'm thankful for prescription narcotics" and "I'm thankful I haven't stabbed the b*tch who drives me crazy at work--and she should be thankful, too," I'll admit that I tend to scroll right past these posts. Personally, I don't do "30 Days of Thankful," because
a) I figure the things I'm thankful for are the same things everyone else would say and expect: family, friends, home, "Friends" reruns...the usual, and
b) unlike many bazillions of other New Year's Resolutions I've made over the years, taking time to be grateful every day for what I have is actually something I've been successful at. Every single time I take a hot shower, I think of people who don't have that luxury. Every night, when I tuck the girls into bed, I think of how many kids go to bed hungry, miserable, neglected, or in danger. Every day, I think how lucky I am to have a job that I love, and that lets me spend so much time at home with the girls. When something breaks in the house or on one of our cars, I remind myself how many people don't have homes or cars at all. I may not have lost those 10 pounds or remembered to floss every night, but I have conquered the fine art of gratitude! Huzzah!
So, goody for me. But before it starts to sound like I'm congratulating myself here, allow me to share a realization that hit me this month:
I don't think being thankful is enough.
Being thankful helps us, ourselves. It makes us happier, reminds us to appreciate what we have despite our problems, and maybe even squelches a little bit of that greed and selfishness that lives in every single one of us. If we're religious--which I'm not--it probably also helps our relationship to God or whatever higher being, to be thankful for the blessings He/She/It/They have given us. But what does being thankful actually do?
I think the answer is, nothing. I realized this last week while sitting in my classroom, watching my students do oral presentations on the things they're thankful for. One after another, they came up and said things like...
"I'm thankful for my house, because lots of people don't have houses."
"I'm thankful for my parents, because some kids don't have parents."
"I'm thankful for my toys, because some kids have no toys."
And that's when it hit me: almost all of their gratitude--and mine, and probably most people's--comes from recognizing, "I have something necessary or wonderful that other people aren't lucky enough to have." When I thought of it that way, all this talk about being thankful really started to come across sounding kind of smug!
Now, I know that's not the way anyone intends to sound when we say we're grateful for what we have. But gratitude without action--recognizing how lucky we are without sharing that good fortune with anyone else--does feel a little inadequate, doesn't it?
It'd be kind of cool to see some of that November gratitude turn into action, rather than being mostly forgotten once the last leftover turkey sandwich has been eaten. All of us do the occasional good deed--we pick up a tag off the Angel Tree at Christmastime, we donate our old clothes instead of throwing them away, we (sometimes) remember to bring reusable bags to the grocery store--but I know I spend a lot more time feeling thankful than I spend doing anything about it. Maybe you do, too. As food for thought, then, here are some links to websites and blogs that are full of "do something" ideas that might help:
Kiva Loans: change someone's life for $25
Donate soda can tabs to Ronald McDonald House
Register online to be a bone marrow donor
Charity Navigator's list of 4-star charities
GiveWell's list of top charities with greatest impact
One thing is for sure: it would be awesome / obnoxious if people on Facebook followed up their sweet / annoying thankful posts in November by celebrating / bragging about all their good deeds every day in December! (Wink.)
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