It is Thanksgiving morning, and I am currently on a train ride home. I ended up having to come home later this year due to my work schedule, and I realized something as a result of this: I take holidays for granted. This whole week leading up to today has been filled with self-pity. It was discouraging to see friends go home to their families earlier this week while I found myself home alone, sulking on the eve of Thanksgiving. It was my first time experiencing this and, as dumb as it seems now, it really sucked.
As I sit here at the train’s café, I can’t help but laugh at myself. I look out the window and watch all the houses pass by. I see apartments, restaurants, and construction sites. I see fields, forests and rivers. Every building, window, car, or street I pass reminds me of the many, many people that surround me, and the different lives they lead. Maybe they have family over and it is stressful and messy. Maybe they are too busy with work to even see family. Maybe they are ill and have no one near them to spend this holiday with. Yet here I am, on my way home. In a matter of 3 hours I will get to be with family – family that is loving and well.
How can I allow myself to feel such despair over something that won’t matter in the end? There are people who don’t have much of a family to spend time with and I’m sad just because I have to wait a little longer to see mine? This holiday I’m thankful for a reminder of how good I have it – how incredibly blessed I am. This is the season of being thankful; however, I find it important to always be aware of how good we have it – to always understand that there is someone out there who is worse off than we are. Rather than treating Thanksgiving as the one day a year we “give thanks”, I feel we should always find reasons to be thankful. Wonderful things and wonderful people surround us. So, rather than pay attention to the bad aspects of our lives I say we focus on what is good. When I choose to take a step back and put things into perspective, I am always overwhelmed with the good in my life.
With all this to say, I am thankful for my little setback in getting home. This year - more than ever - I am choosing to focus on what is good.
