There’s plenty to sorrow about. There are thousands of reasons to be angry, numb or terrified. However, there are also thousands of reasons to feel joyful. The world is full of things to love, enjoy and confide in. The past is full of pain, but it’s full of pleasure too. The future will offer more of both, but never all of either.

 

By Johnathon Lee

A lot of people are going to be asking themselves, “What is there to be thankful for this Thanksgiving?” 

Many of us can barely afford Thanksgiving this year. Even more are dreading the idea of family gatherings. They can be stressful in general, but now it’s all cranked up to 11. How many disagreements before shouts and forks go flying? 

Others find themselves downsizing their dinners, having exiled family and friends who chose the wrong the side. The empty seats could bring some peace, or sit there taunting us, unwilling to cushion the hard silence. 

I’m fine with skipping the whole thing altogether. My parents hate each other so much now that my dad said, “Fuck Thanksgiving.” My childhood home is a battleground of neuroses and ideologies. I’m outside of it now, and there’s no path back in. It’s an odd thing, watching your parents self-destruct without being able to defuse it. Their home is a symbol for America: Divided. Decrepit. Struggling to get by. 

Yet, despite it all, I refuse to let the cynicism win. Stress and sadness have a way of consuming attention to the point that there’s nothing beyond the dark room. Sorrow says, “Things aren’t just bad; they’ve always been bad, and they’ll always be bad. People are bad. Life is bad… you are bad.” 

There’s plenty to sorrow about. There are thousands of reasons to be angry, numb or terrified. However, there are also thousands of reasons to feel joyful. The world is full of things to love, enjoy and confide in. The past is full of pain, but it’s full of pleasure too. The future will offer more of both, but never all of either. 

Pondering this isn’t just an exercise in gratitude.

It gets at the distorted mentality behind all of the strife and misery sweeping through the world: polarized thought. A polarized mind sees thing in black-or-white, for-or-against, all-or-nothing. It doesn’t have the patience for subtlety, or the passion for self-actualization. It stakes absolutes into a relative universe, like stabbing swords at the sky. 

With a deep breath, and trust in our own strength to grow, we can let the ice melt and watch their waters merge, flowing toward the horizon. Our lives are never this-or-that, and if you lift up and look at the entirety of your life, you’ll see that it’s an indescribable blend of everything. Gains and losses, pleasures and pains, joy and sorrows, partings and joinings all swim together as one whole. That whole being you here and now. 

You are also part of a whole.

Your life united with countless others within this moment in time. Through this, we can fumble for gratitude, as we see that we’re all astonishingly big and infinitely small at the same time. 

This isn’t a plea for you to reconcile with others or to put on a happy face. It’s a reminder to not be confined by any one feeling, situation or belief. When it’s night here, it’s day somewhere else. Unlike the other side of the earth, we can see the other side of our lives. You can look right and see a midnight mountain range. You can look left and see a green plain beneath a brimming blue. 

It isn’t always possible to think gratefully. Sometimes, the words just come out stagnant and hollow. It’s always possible to remember the complexity of life, and with that, feel a whisp of gratitude that stands without a reason. 

It sounds cliche and ridiculous, but it can always be worse, and others do have it worse. It can always be better too, and others do have it better. This insights puts our minds where they need to be: in context. 

I hope your Thanksgiving goes well, and if it’s just another day for you, I hope your Thursday goes well. Be mindful of the Earth’s turning. Turn with it. 

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

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Johnathon Lee
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