Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
This holiday comes at a particularly good time of year, not just because it is a season of harvest and bounty but also because we are heading into days with increasingly less daylight … and that makes it particularly important to rally our spirits and focus on what is right with our lives.
We encourage you to not place overly lofty expectations on yourselves during this Thanksgiving and the season of festivities soon to follow. In the challenging whirl and hubbub of the entire holiday season and its seemingly endless string of obligations, stress, and exhaustion, is easy to agonize so much over the details and minutiae that we largely miss the point of this longtime tradition—which is to celebrate our blessings, contemplate our gratitude for everything that is going well, remember those who are less fortunate in some way, and—if we choose—to break bread with loved ones. Our holidays need not be Hallmark moments; setting ourselves up for such an expectation may not be to our collective advantage.
In fact, simplicity is often preferred.
If at all possible, consider taking some time to rest and relax, to breathe deeply, and to reflect on the goodness in your lives.
In closing, we offer these wise words:
It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy.
—Author unknown