Thanksgiving: The Attitude of Half-Full

Thanksgiving in the United States is one of the holidays where there are a lot of cultural traditions.  It is characterized as a family holiday where families get together and eat hearty, savory, and flavorful foods. Maybe people will pray a prayer of thanksgiving to God or the God of their understanding.

It seems that in a search to make it more meaningful or interesting, some reflection will be done upon the story of the Puritans or Pilgrims who sailed over in and landed in what is now the Massachusetts in 1621. They came for their religious freedom and almost all died except for the beneficence of the aboriginal people who showed them how to grow food and survive the harsh winter.  They held a feast and invited the aboriginals we still call (albeit erroneously) Indians (or now political correctly native Americans) in the name of gratitude and celebration.

The United States holiday of Thanksgiving came into existence in 1863 by the declaration of Abraham Lincoln as a day of

Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national           perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the  lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.  (http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm)

Advertising: the Shaping of our Attitudes 

Moving forward to the 21^st century, it has amazed me that it has become another day for commercialism, oh yes, there will be many people who will gather with close families and have their family traditions, but there will be far more people focused on the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping.

 The retail advertising machine has been pumping out commercials and ads for the past few weeks of fantastic sounding deals for this year’s hot deals on electronics, toys, and clothes.  The commercials as part of the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade Broadcast will be bright and festive and imparting a message that buying great gifts for the ones you love will make you complete because you are not complete.

We live in a world where the information overload of advertising has pointed out to the majority of us that there is more stuff that we do not have than have.  We are faced with the temptation of an attitude of focusing on the negative and the emptiness. 

Advertisers sadly do not encourage a positive attitude of fulfillment, they create an attitude of perceived need and discontent to motivate us to spend our money on their product.   One of the outcomes of the messages is that you and I do not have everything they think we are supposed to have.   They paint us as having a glass that is half empty.  We do not have everything to fill the glass, and they often create the illusion that they can fill the glass with their good or service that we should buy.

                Attitude: What you think and what you feel about it. 

Thanksgiving as an Attitude

In my job I have to think a lot about attitude.  Many parents come in and say, "my kid's got an attitude."  In those cases it is really an adolescent being defiant and oppositional towards the parent and the kid not really having "an attitude." To get some change going, I have to challenge the use of the term "attitude" and "what it means" if I am going to get the family to consider changes. 

I have came up with my own simplified definition of attitude as "what you think combined by what you feel". Our attitudes are dynamic--always shaped by our times, situations and expectations, but I hold that we can manage them. 

Thanksgiving seems to imply that we know we do not and cannot have everything: Our glass is simultaneously half-empty and half-full.  We recognize that we have something in the glass.  We look at what we have combined by how much worse it could be.  

Sometimes we do not truly have thanksgiving until we have suffered or been afraid in some form or capacity.  

Thanksgiving suggests our vulnerability as human beings.  Yes, we worked for things that we have, but as the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible notes, time and chance happen to all.  It could be worse as corporations fold, people lose their jobs, and do not have the money the use to.  People in other parts of the world do not have the food they need because of droughts and blights and war.  Suffering has taught us that we are subject to conditions outside of our control. 

If it is not suffering that has engendered the attitude of thanksgiving, it may be fear.  Many of us has had the near misses where our imaginations have taken us to the "what if" thought.  Our imaginations create the worst case scenarios.  We we pull ourselves back to reality, we might feel some relief and thanksgiving, and realize our glass is half full. . 

Sometimes We Must Count Our Blessings and Make Our Glass Half Full. 

The piece that I have tried to fit in is that when we are emotional, we tend to be concrete or black and white in our thinking.  We tend not to see the shades of gray.  It is all this or all that.  This can be the case when there has been a death.  We may have to drag ourselves to count our blessings in a way to get our minds into a better attitude. 

Counting blessings can be difficult if not seemingly in possible.  You are getting your mind on what you do have. There is an old Christian hymn "Count Your Blessings."  It suggests, to "name them one by one."   

As I mentioned my previous post, my father died about three months ago. I won’t be able to call him.  I may think about calling him a few times during the day because that is what people in grief and loss may do. Otherwise

• I aim to be thankful for my having had my father around for as long as he was. 
• I will be thankful for the times he put up with me.
• I will be thankful for the lessons he taught and the love he showed in the way that he could show. 
• I will be thankful that my mother is still with us.
• I will be thankful for my wife and kids.
• I will be thankful for my health.
• I will be thankful for what I have. 

I will be counting my blessings.

As noted before I have written 85 other posts about other topics.  Feel free to browse and see if there is something that may help you.  One more thing, if you like this, feel free to re-post and pass it on.