Thanksgiving Edition

If you are more fortunate than others, build a longer table, not a taller fence.

The Thanksgiving holiday is wrapping to a close, which for many of us means a return to our own homes, to our regular diets, and to our own routines. Add to that an unusually tough return to the regular work week come Monday.

Before we put this wonderful holiday too far behind us, I’d like to share three things on my mind during this year’s festivities. Thanksgiving inspires us all to think differently for a few special days, and there is no reason why we can’t take those lessons with us into the rest of the year.

Everyone Celebrates

Thanksgiving is an American holiday. It’s not unique to any particular religion, ethnicity or set of politics. It’s built upon the country’s national identity, however flawed and misunderstood. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and the people you love around a dinner table are all that is required.

What that means is that we all celebrate in one way or another. Your insufferable boss sits down with their children and aging parents and eats the same turkey that you do. The politician you despise, the a**hole who cut you off this morning, the irritable TSA agent who shouted at you on your way through security – all of them sit down to a Thanksgiving dinner just like you. They’re all thankful for something like you are.

Viewed this way, our typical self-centeredness becomes much harder to maintain. Maybe the TSA agent is upset because they’re working while everyone else is home with family. Maybe our boss is dealing with an illness at home that makes it hard to bring their full self to work each day. Maybe the people cutting us off on the road are not so different from ourselves the week before, driving home to our parents.

So much of the language we use to talk about each other is negative and divisive. Think of the vaccine conversations you have and the way you talk about those you disagree with. The problem is almost always with them and their ineptitude, rudeness or stupidity.

Next time you find yourself going down that rabbit hole, picture those same people laughing at the dinner table just like you. Or dealing with a drunk uncle or uncomfortable dinner conversation. Remind yourself that everyone celebrates just like you do.

And when Thanksgiving is well behind us, keep up the same practice. Remember that the choice is always yours to consider your commonality with the people around you, and to believe that the ineptitude, rudeness and stupidity you encounter are really just good people caught on a bad day.

Gratitude Is An Everyday Practice

Each year, in the weeks surrounding Thanksgiving, everyone talks about gratitude. All the major papers have pieces about being thankful. Your boss might send an email giving thanks for a great year or a wonderful team. Friends might text you, or post on social media about the things they’re thankful for. There might be dedicated time at your dinner table to express gratitude.

This concentrated period of thankfulness is awesome. It feels great to be caught up in the Thanksgiving spirit with everyone around you, and in my experience, the holiday can provide an opportunity to say things to the people you love that you wouldn’t otherwise feel comfortable saying. But gratitude has its place throughout the year – not just on Thanksgiving. As Arthur Brooks writes in The Atlantic:

“Thankfulness has been strongly and consistently shown to raise human beings’ happiness. It stimulates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, part of the brain’s reward circuit. Gratitude can make us more resilient, and enhance relationships by strengthening romantic ties, bolstering friendships, and creating family bonds that endure during times of crisis. It may improve many health indicators, such as blood pressure and diet.”

Or, from Tim Urban:

“Perhaps the first thing Jack needs to do is learn to feel more gratitude, another scientifically proven route to happiness and the area in which he falls the most woefully short. Jack spends so much of his time looking up at the great things that will come his way and planning his future happiness and not nearly enough time looking down and thinking about how badly he used to want so many of the things he currently has.”

So how do we develop a daily practice of gratitude? Brooks goes on to suggest a thankfulness list as a first step, a concept I’ve written about before. Here’s mine, which I keep in my wallet and pull out anytime I need a reminder of the big stuff I should be thankful for:

Another suggestion, from Ryan Holiday, is to find ways to appreciate the setbacks in life as much as the things that go your way. Not getting that dream job you wanted might have highlighted knowledge gaps you needed to work on. A bad break-up might have set you on a path of self-improvement. As he puts it, “you can look at the obstacle or get a little closer and see the opportunity.”

Lastly, consider your own death and the death of those you love. How much worse would life be if my parents were no longer here? If I died tomorrow, how would I want to spend this last day and what in my life so far would I be thankful for? Focus on the worst case and use it to highlight the things you should be grateful for.

There’s no reason why we should limit gratitude to a single week each year.

Thanksgiving Is What We Make It

The Pilgrims were not benevolent visitors who invited Native Americans to dinner. Hopefully everyone knows that by now. And while it’s important to correct the version of history we tell about Thanksgiving, it’s equally important not to let that distract from the values that make the holiday what it is today.

Communion. Inclusion. Gratitude. Generosity. These things remain true regardless of how we came to celebrate Thanksgiving, and will continue to be true no matter how the holiday evolves in the future. The original Thanksgiving story can be a tragedy and it can be used for good in our lives today: both to tell the story of the original Native Americans, and to spread the values we’ve come to associate with that original, idealized Thanksgiving dinner.

We can do something similar for the American story as a whole. We can revisit our country’s history and re-examine what we stand for today without discarding the things that make us great, like freedom of expression and self-government. We can take a nuanced approach instead of falling into an everything or nothing debate about which parts of our national identity we should retain.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and, as always, I’m extremely grateful for your readership and engagement with this newsletter.

– Emmett

What I’m Reading:

Always Ask For What You Want: A Lesson In Asymmetrical Risk – Chris Guillebeau
“The easiest asymmetrical risk you can take is to simply go through life asking for what you want. Just think about it: if you ask for what you want and don’t get it, oh well. That happens. Meanwhile, creating the possible outcome of not getting it also creates a possible outcome of getting what you really want.

Ask Lighthouse: How to Keep Employees From Quitting – Lighthouse Blog
1. Ensure They’re Making Progress
2. Praise Them
3. Help Them Grow In Their Careers

What I’m Listening To:

Ed Sheeran – Armchair Expert

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Semi-regular thoughts on the good life and personal growth.