"Thanksgiving enables us to be fully present in each of the moments of our lives and, at the same time, be fully present to the eternity which is crashing into those moments (for those who have eyes to see). We have the ability to resist the culture of despair by bearing witness to life and hope! Cynicism loosens its smugly fearful, icy grip, warmed by winds of thanks."
Where does thankfulness come from? That is the question that I find myself wrestling with today. I mean, if you find that you are not thankful, how are you able to make yourself so? Or is that even possible? Is it all a matter of genetics, the way you were raised, etc. and thus unable to be changed? I do not think that that is the case. However, if not, then what?
To best answer these questions, the logical first starting point is to ask myself why I am thankful. If I can get to the root of where my thankfulness comes from, then perhaps I will be able to discern how one who is not thankful can change and become so. But before I even begin this mental excursion, I must clarify something. I have been talking about thankfulness and its benefits and implicit in this is the notion that you should be thankful to receive the benefits therefrom. This is a tactic that I have been subconsciously using in order to try and convince you, the reader, to be thankful. But let us get something clear: while I think it is incredibly beneficial to have thankfulness as an attitude and while I think you should be thankful, I think that the reason that you should be should be entirely selfless. You should be thankful because having thankfulness as an attitude just makes the world a better place. Be selfless in your reason for thankfulness because thankfulness itself is selfless and I have already discussed how dependent thankfulness is on humility, which is a bedfellow with selflessness. I just felt the need to clarify why I think thankfulness should be adopted as an attitude.
All that being said, I do think that my thankfulness originates from a place of suffering and lack of. Whatever it is that I am thankful, I am thankful for because I used to not have it. For instance, I am thankful for loving relationships because there have been periods of my life where I have lacked these things. I am thankful for a job because I have lacked a job at times in my life. This is where particular thankfulness comes from, but I think that thankfulness as an attitude is a result of a conglomeration of these little thankfulnesses. I do not know how many of these thankfulnesses are required before you really have an attitude of thankfulness, but I do believe that that is where you come from. But this begs the question: if you are not thankful, how can you become so? This is, after all, the original question we set out to answer.
I find myself unequipped with that answer at this time. I guess I would say, you do not really value something unless you lack of it. Perhaps further meditations will help expound on this question, but for now I would just say that you need to lack something before you can really value and be thankful for it to the fullest.
This has been the third day meditating on thankfulness.
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