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Sunday, January 4, 2015

Meditations on Thankfulness: Day 7

"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."

Throughout this venture, I have kept talking about all of the benefits of thankfulness. However, might there be negatives? The only one that is on my mind right now, and the purpose of this post, is the idea of complacency. I think that thankfulness as an attitude should motivate you to act, however I have also frequently discussed the idea of being firmly content with what you have, even for small things. I think when that fails is when that contentment grows into complacency and leads you to not try to improve things when they are not as great as they could be. Do not get me wrong: complacency and contentment are not the same thing. But, if thankfulness leads to complacency then it can be said that it has a negative consequence.

However, I do not think that this is a natural outcome of thankfulness. The contrary is a reality wherein you are so thankful for something that you desire to make it great, make it better. It is in this that the secret to defeating complacency, which some may say is a natural by-product of thankfulness, lies. Thankfulness can lead to a burning desire to be great, just as much as it can lead to complacency.

This all begs the question: where does the line form? Where is the line between contentment and complacency, between a lazy, eyes-closed satisfaction and a burning desire to be great that has resulted from thankfulness? Right now, I do not have the answer to this question. I believe that it is a case-by-case scenario and that perhaps I will find the answer in further meditation, but perhaps the line is an invisible one. I just encourage everyone to be thankful, and be a man/woman of action and of greatness because of your thankfulness, not of lazy complacency.
This has been the seventh day meditating of thankfulness.

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