Thanksgiving, according to law, is a national holiday based on colonial tradition that allows people to get together to appreciate what they have. Since the pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1648, Thanksgiving allows for families and friends to come together, eat lots of food, enjoy the weather, and just be happy to be alive in the present day. It is definitely an important holiday to celebrate, as it allows for our rapidly increasing materialistic society to have the opportunity to slow down for a day. While it is ironic that Thanksgiving, a holiday dedicated towards non-materialism, it is followed up by arguably the most materialistic day in the U.S.A. calendar, Black Friday.

For me, Thanksgiving is a time where I get together with my grandparents and intermediate family, and enjoy a quiet meal together despite most of us having very busy lives. There is a lot of things that I am thankful for, but not in a very conventional way. Therefore, I will talk about a lot of the things that I am thankful for in this article, and explain why I am thankful for these things. I think that it,s important to not just acknowledge how the good things helped you, but also the bad things. Therefore, here is just a small list of everything I am thankful for.

To start it all off, I would like to say that I am thankful for my family. Whether its my intermediate family, extended family, family friends, or even friends who are practically like family, I am incredibly grateful for all the support and kindness I have received over this year.

I appreciate all of the honesty, integrity, and selflessness that has encouraged me to become a better man each and every day. I would also like to say thank you to my friends, who have stuck me through thick and thin, who have challenged me to come out of my comfort zone, to sick up for what I believe, and inspire me to try new things each and every day. I am grateful for the sports teams I competed on and continue to compete on, the bands I have played in, the classes I have taken. I am thankful for the teachers who gave me the knowledge to explore my passions, the coaches who wouldn't stop critiquing me in practice, and the other adults who encouraged me never to quit.

To my band conductors who inspired me to look at music in a new way, and my football coaches who had a passion for the game that took precedents among all other things. I thank God, as a Christian, for continuing to bless me with all the gifts I have been given, and the opportunities I've had to expand my career while I am in college. Whether it was working for PBS, volunteering at the Ryder Cup, or working for the Tommie Sports Network, I am so glad I can put these experiences on a resume when I am looking for job after I graduate college. These are a few of the many positive things that I have impacted my life, and it is refreshing to know that many new positive things will come my way.

I would also like to state that I am thankful for my failures, my mistakes, and my misconceptions. I'm thankful for all the missed tackles, one-point losses, and overblown notes. I am thankful for all the varsity football games that I didn't play in, the wrestling matches I should have won, and the test scores and assignment scores that were less than satisfactory. All of these things have kept me humble about my shortcomings, and provided motivation for me to become a better student, athlete, and musician in college.

I would also like to say thank you to people who kept strong when I wronged them, for you made me realize that being a good person takes no off days, and I've become more humble and cautious because of it. To people who didn't believe in me, to the girls who never gave me a chance, to the coaches who didn't think I was worth the effort, thank you for helping me learn that I needed to rely on the approval of myself versus other people. I realized that progress in life is a constant battle, and you can easily be on the losing end if you let up.

I realized as life goes on, that I need to be thankful for everything my life has been, regardless of whether its the good things or bad things. To the countless times my parents, family, and friends got angry at me, thank you for making me reorganizine my priorities in life. I learned throughout the years that nothing good in life comes without a struggle. I realize that if i don't appreciate the bad things in life, I will never fully appreciate the good things that come in life.

In the end, I've realized the bad things in my life really have influenced the good things in my life. If I never made mistakes, I would never appreciate my success, and if I was never hated, I would never feel important when I am loved. I'm thankful for the friends i've made, and for the memories that I will never forget. It is easy to say I had a lot to be thankful for this past Thanksgiving. I hope that everyone realized this Thanksgiving that life is a struggle, but we would have nothing to be thankful for if it wasn't.