The Best Time to be Thankful is Now!

Thanksgiving is near and it officially kicks off the holiday season and for many, myself included, this is the most wonderful time of the year. People begin to make an effort to think of others in kindness.

Thanksgiving, if you strip away the veneer of the modern traditions and actually do stop to ponder the many blessing in your life; Thanksgiving takes on more significance than just a day of football and eating too much.

A couple of weeks ago Linda, my wife of 43 years, had a colonoscopy scan that revealed a large polyp in her colon. The reason she was having this scan, her second in 10 years, was because her family has a history of cancer; her mother and grandmother were victims of colon cancer and her father also had colon cancer but passed away for other reasons. 

Upon receiving the news Linda and I were stunned but the upside was the Dr. had said he believed he removed it all. However, she must have another scan to verify it and so she has to have one every 3 years going forward. Luckily the lab results for the polyp were benign and all concerned were thankful for that.

Are you putting off being thankful to some future date?

I believe today in our high-tech society many people are stressed and distracted and have lost their sense of being and are spiritually unconscious; hence the epidemic of prescription drugs and the host of other addictives. As a result to this problem people take-for-granted and cannot appreciate the wonderful gifts they do have in their lives.

For many people, they will be thankful sometime in the future when; they get the raise, the new job, the love of their life, the big sale, the kids have graduated, the retirement account is worth $XXX, when they lose X amount of pounds, if he calls or she calls, etc.

Don’t put off being genuinely thankful to some distant future; be thankful for the good in your life now!

Thankfulness cannot be found in the future; you are either thankful this moment or you are not. Don’t convince yourself of anything just check within; are you thankful now? Is there a sense of gratefulness? Are you consciously aware of the blessings that surround you at this very moment?

Well, you might say I am busy and have deadlines and really don’t have time to be thankful or to even check within, I will check with myself later. Later will never come because later your mind will be filled with the next thing that needs doing and the next and before you know it days, weeks, months and years go by.

Thinking may be obscuring the obvious!

One reason you may not have a sense of thankfulness at this moment may be due to some thought about something that has happened in the past or not happened,  which is presently occupying your mind and obscuring the current blessings for which you can be thankful in this instant.

Or,  your mind might throw in a thought about something nice for which to be thankful and then quickly go ahead to move on to the next thought and the next without you ever really becoming consciously aware of the person, place or thing for which you can truly be thankful.

What I am attempting to point out is that people have become so unconsciously addicted to the thoughts that arise in their minds that they no longer are present enough to notice the wonderful things that surround them such as their; spouse, children, friends, pets, the sun, the sky, the air they breathe, the birds, trees, their health, their body, their car, their bike, the clothes on their back, in Minnesota the heat in their home, etc. It is all taken for granted and not really appreciated.

The outer always reflects the inner!

Consciously being thankful or grateful for the blessings that surround you in this instant creates a sense of well-being that is calming in more ways than one. You find that the tension in your neck begins to loosen, you smile more, and your responses are not as negative. You perceive people and things in a new light of awareness and appreciation. People respond to you differently because you are responding differently to them. Synchronistic events are more likely to take place because you are not unconsciously repelling the good nor are you attracting the bad. Your energy field begins to shift from negative to positive.

The outer always reflects the inner not the other way around. It seemed like a good idea at the time is the mantra of those who are lost in their thoughts and then act them out. Although the faces and names may vary they continue to be the headlines of national and world news; their outer actions mirror their inner thoughts. Sound familiar?

 The value of any insight is in the experience and not the words

The art of living does not consist of some idea or belief system; words are simply pointers to an experience that is beyond the words themselves. Just as you would not eat the menu instead of the meal don’t take my word for any of this, experiment for yourself in order to directly experience what I am pointing to. No one can give away what they do not own and the value of any insight is in the experience and not the words.

No matter what circumstance you find yourself in, if you will look beyond your conditioned thoughts or the story your mind is telling you about the event and become still and present in this instant, long enough to notice all that is presently right and a blessing,  you cannot help but be thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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