Thanksgiving

Usually at this time of year I write about perspective.  Black Friday yields plenty of good behavioral examples.  It is common for people to throw perspective out the window, pay no attention to the distinction between wants and needs, line up or camp out in anticipation of the “door-buster” sales, and in some cases literally risk their lives and those of their neighbors in a human stampede to secure the best bargains.

This year I’d rather write about perspective from the standpoint of yesterday’s celebration, Thanksgiving, one day set aside for gratitude.  

We live in such a comfortable and convenient world.  Even those considered poor in America today have far more than many people living in the rest of the world.  The vast majority has access to indoor plumbing, refrigeration, microwave ovens, color television, the Internet and much more.  They can play games on their smartphones to pass time while waiting in line for free winter clothing for their children.

And the rest of us are much better off.  As we sit in front of the wide screen HDTV watching football, we don’t need to get out of our seat to change the channel or to run our own instant replays using the DVR.  The house is heated and the food plentiful.  A major worry is how to recover from having eaten too much, not where the next meal is coming from or how we are going to pay the rent.  This is a big step forward for many families over only a few generations, but we take most of this for granted.

Instead of appreciating all the conveniences and comfort, instead of being thankful for what we have, we complain about more and more trivial things.  We have hot buttons.  We experience outrage and offense at insignificant words and actions of others.  No one is allowed to tell jokes unless they are the right kind of jokes – “A shopping mall Santa Claus in Florida is out of a job for telling a 10-year-old girl that Hillary Clinton was on his ‘naughty list.’”  (The mother explained that the girl was a Clinton supporter.  So we have a politically savvy 10-year-old who still believes in Santa Claus!)

Gratitude, on the other hand, draws us toward the present.  It focuses our attention on what we have and how lucky we are to have it.  When we don’t take the time for gratitude, regrets from the past and worries about the future overwhelm us.  We make up scary scenarios about possible future disasters.  What if this happens?  We dwell on disappointments.  This may be the result of having too many possessions, too much food and too much free time, but it’s probably more of a case of searching for things to upset us to publish our distress and get sympathy from likeminded friends on social media.

When I teach yoga, I emphasize the need for gratitude.  It draws students to the present, to spending one hour on the mat away from the stresses and worries of a typical day.  Being grateful for just one circumstance or one relationship can drive out fears and worries.  Focus on the breath, and as you feel the cool inhale at the tip of the nose, know that even that single next breath was never guaranteed to you.  But we all take it for granted and instead compound our misery with imagined slights, while we play the prophet by manufacturing a future of ruination.

Our ancestors saw everyday as gift, as they struggled against nature to stay alive.  Our struggles are so minor that we have time and energy left over to stress over tomorrow’s possibilities and to be nasty to people who didn’t vote the same way we did in the last election (or the ones before that). 

That Thanksgiving Shopping Thing

Anticipating another fuss about people having to work at Wal-Mart (and other stores) on Thanksgiving, I remind everyone of my comments several weeks ago:  companies don’t create jobs and governments don’t create jobs – although governments can make the environment more favorable for jobs to be created.  No, customers create jobs.

It follows that if someone objects to people having to work at Wal-Mart on Thanksgiving, don’t be customers.  They wouldn’t open a store and pay a lot of workers to stand around at vacant cash registers waiting for the business to happen.  For that matter, if you object to Wal-Mart’s business practices, don’t shop there at all.  Remember, though, there are some people who are very happy to have a job at Wal-Mart and even some people who are willing and able and happy to give up Thanksgiving to make a little extra needed money.

No, if you don’t want to see people working at retail stores on Thanksgiving, stay home and watch the football games.  Don’t be the least concerned about the number of people it takes to participate in and broadcast a game, many of whom are not only working, but working far away from their homes on Thanksgiving.  And if you are lucky enough to attend one of these games and would like to buy a hot dog and a beer, keep in mind that it would be impossible if the people who worked in the concession stand insisted on having Thanksgiving off.  You also may hope that a gas station is open on the way home.  Many people like to be righteous, but only when it fits their lifestyle and convenience.

Face it, many people have to work on Thanksgiving and some of them have jobs that pay little more than working at Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart seems to be a sort of symbol for this kind of protest – big, evil Wal-Mart.  Personally I wouldn’t care if the Wal-Mart down the street from me just disappeared, but I know there are many people who are glad to work there and many people who are glad to shop there so for their sakes I hope it doesn’t.

Remember the economy is not just a bunch of numbers reported in the news.  The economy is you and I making choices every day, choices that affect many other people.  In turn the choices of others can come back to help us or haunt us.

The Real One Percent

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day in the US.  Although some people think it’s about watching football, over-eating or sitting outside for hours to be first to the bargains, Thanksgiving is really about perspective.  We are asked to stop for a moment to be grateful for the good things in our lives:  family, friends, health, basic necessities, and living in America.

Despite talk about a widening gap between the rich and the rest, most of us are relatively well off.  Relative to the whole world, not just our isolated corner, more than half of the top 1% by income live in the US.  Spending power for people in most other counties pales in comparison.  We should spend some time being thankful for what we have instead of envying those with more.

We should even be thankful for things we take for granted, like indoor plumbing. Last Monday was World Toilet Day, to highlight the need for basic sanitation for almost one-third of the world’s population.  It sounds to us like a joke, but it’s deadly serious.  I found this article with a good summary of the situation.

“Despite all the advances in technology and modern conveniences, over 2 billion people around the world still do not have access to toilets. More than 1 billion people defecate out in the open! Lack of adequate sanitation is not only humiliating, it is a serious health issue that causes thousands of deaths every day.

“Diarrhea is the second leading cause of death for children under 5 which is attributed to the lack of accessible toilets. 1 child dies every 20 seconds.”  Without perspective, these facts are easy to ignore.  Even average Americans have a lot to be thankful for.

On a personal note, there’s not enough space to list all that I am thankful for, but I want to mention my gratitude to you, my readers.  When I started this project in June 2011, I was lucky if 4 or 5 people read my opinions each day.  By the beginning of this year I reached my first 1,000 pageviews, and by the middle of July I was up to 4,000.  As of yesterday morning I surpassed 20,000. with pageviews running at a pace of about 50,000 per year, most from the US, but also from 60 other countries.  Now that’s peanuts compared to the big websites, but still I am thrilled to be able to share my thoughts with so many.  So thank you, all!

Appreciation

On our walk around the block a while ago, my wife made a very good observation.  She said, “Don’t ever let me take my health for granted.”  People don’t usually think about their health unless they are sniffling, coughing or hurting in some way, or unless they see someone much worse off than they are.  We normally take it for granted.

I thought this was especially insightful, because I think it speaks to a core idea behind Perspective.  What makes people think (and act) like watching the football game on Sunday, being the first to get the latest videogame, wearing the latest styles, finding out the latest Hollywood gossip or having the coolest car is the most important thing in the world?  They often set aside or ignore those things that they claim to value:  family, friends, a steady job, retirement security, and sometimes their health.  They don’t take time to appreciate them, too busy pursuing the latest fashion or “in,” cool, gotta-have toy or accessory.  Most don’t appreciate that a little over 75 years ago there was no Social Security and 150 years ago there was not even the concept of a weekend.  We take a lot for granted.  Appreciation would help us keep perspective and live our lives more moderately (and probably more happily).

This is usually my reaction to people who are passionate about some trivial causes or offended by some off-hand remark.  I wonder what they expect and why they aren’t thinking about what they have rather than what they lack.  A few weeks ago on the CBS Sunday Morning Show, one of the stories was about people objecting to the use of leaf blowers, to the point that they were proposing local ordinances to ban their use.  The issue was that the leaf blowers were noisy and blew around dust and dirt as well as leaves.  A few cities have banned them already.  I was struck by the size of some of the houses these people lived in and the beautiful view they enjoyed.  How many hours out of the year they did they have to endure the “suffering” of leaf blowers?  Talk to some people who live near an airport where the loud noises happen daily.  Buy some earplugs.  Look at the big picture.  Get some perspective.

In America our glass is not half empty/half full, rather it’s about 90% full for even the worst-off.  Yet many spend their time dwelling on the 10% or 5% or less.  We spoil ourselves, spoil our kids, and continually look for the easy answers (to weight loss or any number of other problems).  It is no wonder that some people in the rest of the world find it so easy to envy or hate us, or both.