Thursday, November 22, 2007

Being Thankful: Good and Good for You

The day after Thanksgiving is the kick off for the big holiday shopping season. At least it used to be. The greed mongers also known as giant retail chains have been pushing us to start our great dance into irretrievable debt even earlier than usual. The weekend before Thanksgiving KOLS Magic 95 started playing Christmas music. Not just here and there interspersed amongst the usual play list, but all the time. This is just wrong! Not only was Christmas more than a month away, but global warming was in full bloom pushing the temperatures well above anything Frosty, Rudolph, and all the Whos down in Whoville would think indicated St. Nick was even contemplating pulling the sleigh out of storage. If I am driving to the store wearing shorts and sandals I want Surfin’ USA not Winter Wonderland.
You can call me a Scrooge if you want, but I will not believe the purpose of pushing the Christmas season up earlier and earlier on the calendar is motivated by people looking for peace on earth and good will towards men. It is motivated by people who want a piece of the action and are unconcerned if the general public spends their nest egg and needs the help of Goodwill Industries to eat next holiday season. Actually, when you stop to look at it the people who are trying to skip Thanksgiving and go right into Moneygiving resemble the Scrooge at the beginning of the Dickens classic rather than the altruistic one at the end.
In my own mini-form of protest I would like to elongate Thanksgiving rather than go right into Christmas. Let’s make Thanksgiving a full weekend, not just a day. We eat leftovers past Thursday. Many of us have Friday off from work already. Football games are on television Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. If we think about it the great majority of us have enough going right in our lives to be thinking thankful thoughts beyond one day, a day we spend a great chunk of the afternoon sleeping through because we have unbuttoned the sans-a-belts, stretched out on the couch, and settled in to watch a game featuring the Detroit Lions which easily allows the tryptophan to kick in sending us to Sleepytown.
Giving thanks is not only a good reason for a day off, but it has been shown to improve one’s health. Martin Seligman holds a Ph.D. and has written books meant to help people raise the level of happiness in their lives. One prescription he offers for a jump on the happy meter is to take time to be grateful. He sites a psychological study which had people spend just a few minutes each night writing short notes on what they were grateful to have. It did not have to be anything all that momentous, just stuff you are glad pops up during the day. The people who did this actually showed growth in their general feelings of contentedness.
Mr. Seligman goes on to explain that the act of being grateful amplifies the good memories from the past. This increases the number of times good things simply pass through your mind, and if you are thinking happy thoughts you will be happier (add Tinkerbell dandruff and you can fly). If you stop to think about it, this seems pretty obvious and the next thought has to be, “Is this all it takes to get a Ph.D?”
Here is my own way of teaching people the process Mr. Seligman suggested. I cannot say what you personally should be grateful for, but if I apply it to people we all know it becomes more concrete.
Alex Rodriguez: I am thankful the priorities of the planet are so far out of whack that I get over 27 million dollars a year to lead my team somewhere near the World Series.
Keith Richards: Even though I died ten years ago and that is why I look the way I do, I am grateful no one has actually checked my pulse and blown it for me.
Bill Gates: I am grateful survival of the fittest has changed from being fast enough to outrun a tiger and strong enough to skin a mammoth to smart enough to create software which confounds and frustrates, but people will spend good money to have.
Mark Mangino: I am thankful my team follows me each and every Saturday. I realize part of the reason is I have reached a mass which creates its own gravitational pull and much of the team functions as moons and satellites.

Christopher Pyle is thankful for many of the little things in life: cookies, giggling children, music, and the fact he is not required to do algebra.

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