Thanksgiving

by Roy W. Bakos

Thanksgiving.  A great concept for a holiday where we can reflect on what we have been thankful for in the past year and throughout our lives (although Yom Kippur gives it a run as a great reflective holiday…a day when you atone for all of your misdeeds should be a public holiday for all in my book).  Reflection is what this holiday is all about and figuring out and realising all of the things that we have to be thankful for.  My short list is as follows:

I am thankful for the people in my life, both friends and family, that I love and that love me back and am thankful for all of the times when they have forgiven me for being a pain in the ass in some way;

I am thankful every day that I wake up and air goes into my lungs…life is pretty cool most of the time;

I am thankful that I live in a society that is rich enough to confuse inconveniences for problems…although I wish more people were aware of this nuance;

I am thankful for all of those that labour to make the things that fill my life with joy and those that labour to protect those in the world that need protecting;

I am thankful for the sacrifices made by my Mother, Aunt, and Grandmother that insured that I received a quality education and a fairly well-balanced upbringing;

I am thankful for self-awareness and the human capacity for altruism and love;

I am thankful for all of the “self-evident” stuff in our founding documents and I still believe that we can live up to all of the promise that our system of governance stands for…and I am thankful for the ability to be selectively naive when I state all of the above;

and finally, I am thankful that I have the time to reflect upon all of this stuff and have a forum upon which to drop my thoughts upon the world.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and those that you hold close.