Thanksgiving, as celebrated in America, traces back to Plymouth colony in 1621. Without the help of the Native Americans, providing seeds to the colonists and teaching them how to fish, half of them would have starved to death. After a good harvest, a feast and thanksgiving was celebrated to honor their good fortune. Since then, it has become customary for U.S. presidents to issue a proclamation of thanksgiving for various things including our peace, our prosperity, and The Constitution. You can read them all here.
What all the proclamations have in common is that Thanksgiving is a time of gratitude. I’m all for ambition, drive, accomplishment, results, results, results, go go go. But a life without pause…
…is a life without meaning.
By ‘pause’, I mean to stop for a moment and actually reflect on the gifts that life has bestowed upon you, as well as the gifts you have created out of your own hands and your own heart. Think about all the things we take for granted–family, friends, the roof over your head, or even the technology that allows you to read these words. We don’t live in an age of computers or an age of information. We live in an age of wonder. What would our ancestors think about how we can talk to someone on the other side of the earth at the click of a button? How electricity is at our command at the flip of a switch, or how water is at our whim at the turn of a handle. What would they think of our ability to fly?
By ‘life without meaning’, I mean a life without excitement and joy. Most of the time when people question the meaning of life, they are not actually pondering the cosmos so much as they are looking for something that will make them feel alive. Before you start thinking about what you will accomplish, start by thinking about what you have already accomplished. Bask in its warm, sunny glow. If you wait to celebrate only at the end of your journey, you are going to be one sad sap. You won’t suddenly become happy as you arrive at the top. It is an illusion. The end of one journey is simply the beginning of the next.
So instead, celebrate every milestone and every success, because the meaning of your life is not to be found in the future at the roof of the world, but in the present. Today. Now. And in this very moment.
Happy Thanksgiving!
//P.S. ::gobble gobble::
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When you talk about the the meaning of Thanksgiving. I think of china’s mid-Auntum day. It also celebretes the harvest of the year.every family members have to go home no mather how busy they are. The whole family could get together have a dinner and think about the meaning of the full moon. The full moon stand for reunion. That was my favour ferstive. However it is gone. I didn’t feel the meaning of that holiday any more. I would cry everydtime I think of it.
*mid-autumn day
Mid-Autumn Day sounds great. Family, friends, and food. Why is the festival no longer celebrated?
Oh I see. You’re saying it’s gone because you’re no longer in China, but some other country that doesn’t celebrate that holiday. FYI, Vietnam also celebrates Mid-Autumn Day.
Thanks Thomas.
Thank you Krysten :)