So… 2016’s been kind of a rough year, am I right? It seems like everything just went downhill after David Bowie died. Does anyone even think there are things to be thankful for, anymore? Sometimes, it can feel that way, but I’m here to tell you that we still have a lot to be thankful for in 2016, despite the never-ending runaway train/train wreck we’ve been presented with.
1. We may have climate change, but we can be thankful to live on a planet full of beauty.
I know that in a lot of places in the Northern Hemisphere, November through February can be bleak and depressing for a lot of people who don’t count themselves among the people that actually like winter, but I challenge everyone reading this to at least once a day either go outside and find natural beauty or look online at pictures of beautiful places. Remind yourselves that, yes the ice caps are melting and yes the rainforests are rapidly disappearing, but we still, as of right now, have immense beauty all around us every day.
2. We can be thankful that we have the ability to create.
Maybe a lot of you are semi-professional stick figure artists or feel as if you couldn’t even churn out “Fifty Shades of Grey”-level writing, but there’s still nothing stopping you from trying. There are no laws that state that you can’t go out and buy cheap acrylic paints and pour them all over a cheap canvas, or that you can’t keep a journal, even if you’re just writing absolute nonsense.
3. We can be thankful for the spirit of adventure and exploration.
Sure there’s probably little to no grand discoveries left to be made on our planet that aren’t buried however many leagues beneath the sea, but every exploration you take yourself has the potential to uncover miniature grand discoveries. Last spring, a friend and I drove to look at a dam that we’d never seen before. Neither of us gets particularly jazzed about dams as a whole, but we still drove and discovered the thing for ourselves and allowed the spirit of adventure to leak into our hearts.
4. We can (and should) be thankful that we have the internet.
Yeah, I said it. Before the internet was around, it was almost unfathomable that we could literally find the answer in a matter of seconds to almost any question we could come up with. We used to have to talk on the phone and send letters, letters that could take weeks before a reply was received, in order to talk to our loved ones that don’t live near us, but now we can shoot them an email or an instant message and receive a reply nearly instantaneously, relatively speaking. (Unless you’re messaging me, which that reply may not come for a few hours or days, but the point still stands.)
5. We can be thankful for the ability to be curious.
The world seems a whole lot more fantastical if we stay curious. Curiosity is free, technically speaking, and it drives us to find answers. It can keep us motivated and sane and feeling alive.
6. We can be thankful for animals.
Non-animal lovers may want to skip over this one, but for the rest of us, we can be thankful every day that there are animals out there. Yes, some of them need our help for whatever variety of depressing reasons, but they are still out there. They’re living their own little complex lives and some of them even invite themselves into our homes and hearts and allow themselves to be companion animals for us.
7. Why not be thankful for music?
Everyone has music that speaks to them on a level that no conversation could ever reach, and the world would be a more depressing place without the presence of music in our lives.
8. Be thankful for the people around you.
There are likely very excellent people that you’ve surrounded yourself with over the years. Imagine a life where these people weren’t in your life, and I can guarantee you that a rush of gratitude will wash over you.
On a related note: a lot of people out there during the holidays feel alone and as if they have no one to be thankful for. Although it may be a myth that suicide rates tend to spike during the holidays, suicides still happen every single day. If any of my readers out there are feeling alone, isolated, or suicidal, please know that, even though we’ve never met, I love you, and I value your existence. I am immensely thankful that you’re still with me on this planet.
9. On that note, we can be thankful for the ability to love.
I know that many people have said and will continue to say that loving is much easier than hating. This may be true, but having unconditional love for other people, even strangers and people you can’t stand, is extremely difficult. Going through every day with love in your heart isn’t easy, especially if you feel jaded, angry, and/or apathetic. But, most, if not all, of us have the ability to do so. And, while loving may be difficult, you may find that going through life with love in your heart makes other things easier.
10. Finally, we can all be thankful that we’re still alive.
No matter what you believe happens in the afterlife, or if there even is one, we can all acknowledge that life is a weirdly precious gift. It can be taken from us, at any time, and without warning. But, right now, we can breathe and acknowledge that we are still alive, and that life holds many possibilities if we allow it to.
