Thanksgiving is over, which means Christmas is coming, then the New Year. And in just a short amount of time, the “thankfulness” season will be over.
This week, social media was filled with thankful posts. The media was saturated with thankful feelings near and far. People are thankful for the lives they’ve been given, the family they have, their significant others, the friends they’ve made, etc. There is a lot to be thankful for.
All of this is wonderful. One of my favorite things about the holiday season is the feeling of gratitude it creates among people.
But here’s my biggest thing: let’s not let our thankfulness end with the season.
Soon, Christmas will have come and gone, and the New Year will be here with new resolutions. Everything will reset, and all of a sudden people will forget about the wonderful things they have and start focusing on the wonderful things they want.
We want a new car, a new house, a new body, new look, new stuff. We want our lives to be better than they are—better being a subjective term. We go from thankfulness to wanting in the blink of an eye, and forget the gratitude season of the past two months as if it were nothing but a time to party.
It’s easy to forget about being thankful. We get swamped in work, school, responsibilities, and stress, and all of a sudden we’re more focused on things that are going wrong than things that are going right. How can we make our lives better? How can we improve our current situation? What can we do to just be happier?
One of my favorite quotes is by Abraham Lincoln when he said, “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Therefore, happiness = thankfulness = mindfulness.
Practicing mindfulness allows us to focus on being in the present moment, accepting it entirely for what it is without judgment, and then choosing to be thankful for it. Thankfulness doesn’t just come naturally to us. It’s a step we have to take, a choice we have to make every day to focus on what we have to be thankful for. Practicing mindfulness in the moment makes us aware of everything around us, and, whether it is currently benefiting us or not, we can choose to be thankful for how it shapes us into the person we are meant to be.
When we are truly mindful of ourselves and our lives, we can be thankful for everything we have and do not have. I’m thankful for the amount of homework and stress I’ve been given, because it means I am blessed enough to go to school. I’m thankful for the bills I have to pay, because it means I have enough money to pay them. Mindfulness accepts the present for what it is and focuses on every positive thing it brings.
When we practice mindfulness, it creates thankfulness, which produces happiness. And who doesn’t want to be happy?
This holiday season, don’t let your attitude of gratefulness reset with the New Year. Carry it on throughout the rest of the year by practicing mindfulness every day. Take a moment to consider all of life’s beautiful and ugly moments, and be thankful for them in how they shape you.
Produce happiness among others and yourself by creating thankfulness through mindfulness. Because if we all take steps to be thankful every day, the season of thankfulness won’t just be a season anymore—it’ll be a way of life.
