As we approach thanksgiving, I just want to share some thoughts about why it is hard to be thankful sometimes.

    First, for many of us, our expectations of life are much higher than the rest of our world. I remember taking a shower and expecting warm water to come out when I turn the faucet one way. Then I remember where I grew up in the Philippines, we did not have warm water coming out of the faucet. You will have to warm it yourself or just tolerate the colder water. I think about all the insurance we have. We expect to have life insurance, health insurance, auto insurance. Many people in the world don't even think about insurance. Unfortunately, our governments and circumstances sometimes make us have higher expectations. States mandate auto insurance. The federal government now mandates health insurance, and with certain benefits that some people find to be more than they need (and costing more). Healthcare costs are so high that health insurance has become a necessity. If it was not so high, we would not be in this place of "needing" insurance in the first place. Our world and our own flesh raise our expectations about life to unnecessary limits, and these expectations drive our anxieties, anger, depression. 

     Second, our sense of self-reliance prevents us to see our connectedness to the rest of humanity. One character flaw I have is wanting to do things on my own, and not to have to ask help from others. I realized that my sense of self-reliance has made my thank-yous shallow, since there is a part of me that says I could have done it myself. However, we should remember that a vast majority of things we need to live are there because of the work of other people (good or bad). Think of roads we use everyday. Those who build them work so we can drive easily, and even more, we don't have to make them ourselves. You may say we pay them, but that does not detract from the amount of toil it takes to make roads, a burden we don't have to bear. Unless we admit that we can't do everything- that we need other people's kindness, toil, talents; our sense of gratitude will be shallow and we will not appreciate others deeply.

     As we reflect on thanksgiving, let us remember that most of us have more than what is needed to live, we have so much extra "things" that we should feel overwhelmed with gratitude. Read up about life in pre-modern environments where order and resources are scarce. Let us also humble ourselves and remember that we can't meet all our needs, that other people are involved in getting our lives together. We are dependent on each other for our physical and emotional needs. Hopefully, our gratitude will make us open our hearts to others.