Thanksgiving is tomorrow and as I spend the day helping my fiancee's family prepare the enormous spread of food, I notice the meaning of the holiday has been lost. Isn't it called thanksgiving for a reason? We spend all this time seasoning the turkey, baking the pumpkin pie, making mashed potatoes, mixing up the cranberry sauce, cooking the green beans, and then eating everything once it's all finished in one sitting with a bunch of family and friends. Sure it's nice catching up with others that you haven't seen in awhile and it gives you an excuse to stuff your face with an ungodly amount of food, but why should all of that be called "Thanksgiving?" How is that any different than a birthday party or Christmas? Or course there's no birthday cake or Christmas tree, but those are both symbols of the holiday just like the turkey. Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful. You're most likely going to be thankful for the people surrounding you and for the large amount of food provided on the table, but is that all? There is so much more to be thankful for in life. How about having the privilege of being alive? Has the thought ever crossed your mind that you may not even be living today? I take the gift of life for granted everyday. The ability to wake up every morning is enough to be thankful for. Statistically, 1.8 people die every second worldwide. That means about 135 people died since you started reading this post. We should all be unbelievably grateful and thankful for still walking on this earth. I've never understood why we feel the need to eat so much on this holiday. There are about 925 million people who are hungry this second. Each day somewhere around 16,000 children die from starvation. These children are younger than you and I. They haven't had the chance to live yet and their life is already being taken from them, while we sit and shovel the food in. The amount of food that we have on an average day is enough to be thankful for. Most of us will be gathering to celebrate at someone's home or in a public place. The best estimate of how many people are homeless in the world is 100,000,000. This shouldn't be a number that we easily forget but most of us do, every day. A roof over your head should be enough to be thankful for. All the "things," the money, the achievements, they're all extras. They all deserve a special thanks as well. If you have money in the bank and in your wallet, you are in the top 8% of the world when it comes to wealth. We should be thankful for all of this on Thanksgiving but it shouldn't take a holiday to make us realize it. I'm going to try and make Thanksgiving part of my everyday life. Will you do the same?
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