365 Feasts!(What If We Were Grateful Every Single Day Of The Year?)

“Never let the phrase thank you stand naked and alone…”

This post was written in 2020, when my dear grandmother was still alive. May her soul Rest In Peace.
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The other day, my cousin randomly said

“We should celebrate Thanksgiving this year Jaja. We should have a feast!”

My Jaja (grandmother) looks at him, a confused expression on her face, and asks ,

“Thanksgiving. What’s that?”

So I try explaining to her that it’s a tradition, a day where people celebrate, and are mindfully grateful for the good things in their lives and eat! Really eat!”

“So it’s Christmas?” She asks

“…ahh, No. It’s a bit similar because of all the food, but the two days are very different. Thanksgiving is a day to practice gratitude, ” I further explain.

She pauses what she’s doing, looks at us, then bursts out laughing.

“How can you create a day for Thanksgiving? One day!”

She laughs even harder, “You cannot exhaust everything you have to be grateful for in one day. It’s why you have to give thanks everyday!”

We all start laughing because she’s such a sight when she’s laughing so hard.

Then my cousin says,

“Well then, we should have a feast everyday!”

Later, when the laughter died down,

I thought about what she said and how much sense it made.

With all due respect, I’m not kicking anyone’s traditions or being disrespectful. What I mean is there was truth to what she was saying,

“we cannot only choose to look into our lives for what we are grateful for on one day out of 365 days a year.”

There is so much to be grateful for! Every Single Day!!!

There is so much that we take for granted, that we overlook sometimes and at other times we underplay because it doesn’t serve our self serving, self-obsessed-pity party, get-everyone-to-feel-sorry-for-us agendas.

Now, I am not saying we should simply ignore our problems, that is NOT what I am saying!

What I am saying is that;

Focus is a precious thing. Attention is a precious thing. What you give your attention and focus too, that’s what grows.

You can choose to focus on the negatives; how big your nose is, how small your house is, that breakfast you couldn’t afford to buy at that fancy restaurant, that job you haven’t heard back from, the bills you have to pay. Sickness. Poverty. Belonging in certain circles etc…

Or YOU can CHOOSE to acknowledge your problems but focus on what you do have. Your house maybe small but it’s still a roof over your head. Your nose may be big but your not breathing through tubes. You couldn’t afford that specific breakfast but at least you have options. You haven’t heard back from the job but you were able to walk through those doors and do the interview (that’s a privilege in itself) etc

Finding reasons to be thankful is not easy, it really isn’t. Finding things to complain about however, is so easy.

Our brains are designed to ignore what’s going well and focus on everything that’s going wrong in our lives.

It is easy to get lost in fear and uncertainty. It is easy to complain and be annoyed about the inconveniences in a day.

It is harder to let go of those feelings and appreciate the people we have in our lives, the privileges many of us experience and take for granted…

So how do we start?

It is simple…

Find a moment a during the day,

stop what you’re doing and scan what you’re experiencing internally and outside yourself. Connect to what it is you are grateful for in that moment.

And do that everyday!

Not just one day in a year, but every single day.

Do it with intention, be specific about what you are grateful for.

Like I talked about here (It’s In The Small Things…)It’s very hard to take something for granted when you have already specified it to yourself as something you are grateful for.