Thankfulness For What I Lack

This one might leave an ego bruise.

Thanksgiving Day is approaching and many of us will gather with friends and loved ones for that awkward moment just before we eat abundantly. Someone (usually a mother, but not always) will want to go around the table and have everyone state something they are thankful for.

Do I have a show stopper for you.

Tell them you are thankful for what you don’t have. And I don’t mean what you don’t have yet. I mean what you will never have.

If I didn’t have needs I would have a wrong perspective about life and what is most important. It isn’t the turkey I need although I’m grateful for it. I need connections — and healthy ones at that. And over my life I have discovered that I don’t connect well with others and with God if I am self-sufficient. I need to appreciate that what I lack God supplies me often through others.

You may look at your work and wonder, in the grand scheme of things, what’s the point?

Our lives are blessed through the invisible hands of millions, if not billions of people. Every road we drive, every building we enter, every life we interact with are all there because each one did something or received something from others. I guess what I am doing is destroying the idea of the self-made man or woman and the arrogance behind the thought that lowers the value of any and every human life to objects we can use and manipulate.

And as to what you contribute, even if it is a smile or an honest days work, thank you.

And thank you Norman Rockwell.