Thankful. Grateful. Humble. Three words that surround not only Thanksgiving day, but the entire holiday season. Words that float out of all of our mouths without thinking twice about it. We all sit around a bustling table full of food while having lively conversations with relatives we have not seen since last Thanksgiving. In the moment, we are either extremely thankful for the relatives we are surrounded with, or we are extremely thankful when they leave at the end of the night.
That leaves me to ponder the question though, why do we limit only today to be thankful? Thankful for the food in front of us, for the family sitting across from us, for the opportunities we have all be presented through out the year. As college students, we often live a life of deadlines, paper writing, binge watching, and the occasional sleeping. We too often bypass the positive things that happen to us and focus on the negative. What would happen if we were thankful for the good and the bad on the other 364 days of the year? This has definitely been the hardest lesson I have tried to learn as a Christian. I fail at being thankful on a daily basis. Would being thankful on a daily basis make us better people? Would it make us happier? Would it make us kinder? I don't think this is the correct approach though. We should not be thankful because it would make us more likable. We should be thankful to be thankful.
We are granted with only so much time on this earth. We should be thankful for every second. The good, bad, and the in between. I challenge you to try to find at least one thing a day you are thankful for. Write it down on a post-it note or on a mirror. See how many things you are thankful for. Before you know it, you can be thankful for all things for the next 364 days and beyond.
