Today is Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday intended and dedicated to offer thanks to God for the bounty of the year. Though, for many it is a day to gather with family and friends to offer thanks to each other and plainly just say thanks. To me, is just another day.

Let me explain. If you have read my blog before or know me, you probably know then that I am from Puerto Rico. When I was a child, Thanksgiving was not a big deal to us. At least not to my family. What I remember most it was the day after when we planted a tree and celebrate El Día del Árbol or the Tree Day. I remember going to school and we would have some sort of gathering and plant a tree. However, perhaps my memory fades since while doing a search on Google it came up with different dates for it. I don’t have memories at all of making a turkey, eating sweet potatoes, cranberry sauces, or anything like that. If something was going to be eaten in Puerto Rico, it would be lechón asado (rosated pork) con arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas). In short, my attachment to turkey and any food that might be considered traditional for this day, is very minimal.

If we need a day to say thanks to God or each other, we have a immense deficit in gratefulness.

 


But here is my problem. If we need a day to say thanks to God or each other, we have a immense deficit in gratefulness. I am amazed at how much we take for granted each day. We take for granted the fact that we are able to sleep, wake up, walk, see, talk, take a bath, exercise, eat, buy food, a job, school, books, movies, friends, family, technology, children, freedom of speech, freedom to be silent, freedom to criticize, freedom to praise, the ability to type an email, the fact that we can think about that email, the weather, a good day at work, a bad day at work because we learn, and many, many other things to be grateful for. There are so many things to be thankful for but we do not wake up every morning and say “thank you.” Or we don’t go to bed and say “thank you.”

Because being thankful is not a day in the year, it is, it should be an attitude and an action even if it is small.


I believe thankfulness is an attitude and the day of Thanksgiving is not an attitude, it is a day we nationally have chosen to say thank you. Some watch the football game, some have elaborate celebrations, and some do not have any of these. The next day we get up and continue without the acknowledgment that we are living and thus we continue to take our lives for granted. As I am writing these few words, I am thinking of the homeless outside the train station in Chicago. I am thinking that it is my responsibility to ease their pain in a very small way as I go about my duty to go to work and teach design. Thus, I have been doing a very small thing every Wednesday. It does not take much out of me, it is not out of my way, it just involves to remember to do a short stop and then as I am walking, ease— at least for one of them— their burden. The result, it has given me more joy to do this simple act of kindness that takes only 3 minutes than the joy I could experience by making a huge dinner. It makes me grateful to work in the city and be able to provide something small to someone. Because being thankful is not a day in the year, it is, it should be an attitude and an action even if it is small.

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