On Gratitude

Ah...  All you turkey-lovers, I salute you.  I imagine you sitting around a huge, totally loaded table, surrounded by family and friends, mouth-watering aromas wafting around you and awakening your appetite.  Yeah, diets be damned tonight: tonight is about bounty, about excess, about reveling in life and enjoying it, free of guilt.  At least I hope you're free of guilt.

As a Mexican, I grew up without a Thanksgiving tradition.  My first Thanksgiving was when I lived in New York, must've been around eleven or twelve years old.  I was never much for food, so I can't honestly say I gorged myself (I actually remember being grossed out by sweet potatoes, haha), but I did enjoy it.  And even though I was too young to fully grasp its power, it touched me nonetheless.

Because gratitude is immensely powerful.  Beyond powerful, really.  Gratitude, in my limited experience, equals happiness.  To be grateful, truly--honestly--sincerely grateful, is to know joy of the most spiritual kind.  And this is from someone who doesn't really believe in religion of any kind here.  All right, then--maybe gratitude is my religion.

So this day of giving thanks, this day that celebrates gratitude, is an epiphany.  To give thanks for every little blessing, every little thing--because everything is something, and something always deserves gratitude--that's what lifts us to a higher purpose, a higher state of being.

Remember today.  Remember the feeling of oneness that saying thank you brings to the you inside.  And repeat it every day.  Every single day.  Because every day there is something unutterably beautiful and unique to be grateful for.

Happy Thanksgiving.  Today, and every day.