Thanksgiving, Thankfulness is not finite


What am I be thankful for?  It is an easy question to ask but may be difficult to answer. When I look through Facebook posts or watch little vignettes of stars on TV (we are watching the Macy's parade). I see a plethora of the usual things.  I am thankful for the same things, family, friends top the list.  In the end it is friends and family are all we need.  Look just below any of my accomplishments and you will see the support of friends and family.  Maybe I should be thankful that friends and family have been far more of a joy in my life than a source of pain and hardship.  It is a hard reality that some people in this world count family as the main source of pain and hardship in their life.  Thankfully I am not among them.

Friends, family and health are things to be thankful for but they are easily taken for granted as well.  They surround our life everyday.  With the current pandemic my wife and I are together almost 24X7.  I am definitely grateful for her companionship. It is incomprehensible how anyone could remain sane over the last 8 months without a relationship like I have with my wife.

I could stop here convinced that being grateful for friends and family are enough.  In some way they should be enough.  To look for more may seem selfish.  However, gratefulness is not a finite virtue.  I believe that seeking to be grateful for things beyond friends and family does not diminish my gratefulness of them.  In fact to search beyond these special things only enhances and solidifies the love I have for them.  Sharing my gratefulness for NY Giants football with friends and only makes me more grateful for them.  Although being a NY Giants fan does not go over too well in Dallas.  I guess I should be grateful for friends that endure me and my NY Giants fandom.

What am I looking for?  Am I looking for a quirky off the wall item to be grateful for?  Am I trying to define or explain myself by what I am grateful for?  I think I am trying to get a better understanding of what makes me tick and how I can use that to enhance my life, or at least get me through this pandemic and into eventual retirement (retirement will be a source of another post or entirely separate blog).

After much babbling what am I grateful for?  I am watching a movie (Indiana Jones and the last crusade).  I enjoy it and am thankful for the people that write and produce them, as well as the actors and actresses in them.  they provide an escape.  I am grateful for bike rides and by extension trail stewards who maintain the trails. I am thankful that people write books that I enjoy.  These all may seem trivial compared to friends and family.  As I said earlier thankfulness is not finite.  The more I can find to be thankful for the richer my life can be.

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