Giving Thanks

For what?

Thanksgiving is one of those interesting holidays that "seemed like a good idea at the time." I mean, heck, if you'd come to a new continent, survived the winter in mud caves courtesy of the friendly natives, then managed to actually plant and harvest some crops the next year so you could scrape out a meager existence... yeah, I could see being a little thankful for that.

As someone who does freelance, contract and consulting work - none of which generate much of anything resembling a "steady income" - I can relate a little to the whole thing of celebrating simply having survived another year.

But overall, since the first Thanksgiving? We've gotten progressively more (to the point where most of us now have too much, and I don't think I'm an exception to that rule)... and we take it for granted. Yes, we pay lip service to thankfulness one day out of the year, but even then, we don't stop and think about it all that much. What if we did?

"I'm thankful that there are twice as many computers in my house as there are people."

Hmmm. One or two of those computers aren't even used for anything, anymore. Sure, they're old, but not too old to run, say, Windows 95 or Linux. Somebody, somewhere, would probably be pretty excited to have one of those.

Maybe Thanksgiving should be a time to look at what we have, give thanks for having what we need and want, and try to think of ways our excess could better serve humanity.