Thanksgiving in March?

Thanksgiving ... in March?   Sure!  Gratitude is a thing in the concept and in the science of happiness!  It is not, however, a spinning of a view for the sake of GETTING happy.  It is actual gratitude  - a true assigned thought, an assigned view and perspective that is genuine to the eys of the beholder.  Why is that?  Well, you don't need someone to TELL you what you already know ... "be grateful!" they say.  And many times it is a politically correct way of also saying "and shut up, I don't want to hear that you are upset about ANYTHING."  Being thankful is finding something, maybe even ONE thing that you hold dear and that you have some degree of thanks for ... whatever that is!  I recall once spending three days with what is called an out of instructional control youth - he had been cursing at me, yelling at me, throwing things through doors and windows and just being so damn tired of it all.  I knew I was at my "wits end" so I called my boss and said something like - "if this doesn't stop I'm going to quit!" She said the most counterintuitive thing of all ... "right now what you need to do is walk into that destroyed room and find one thing that kid is doing right - a real thing - and tell him that you are glad that he is doing it."  In my exasperation I said something that was MOSTLY sarcastic: "okay, like hey, I'm glad that you are breathing?"  My boss said, without missing a beat -"Kurt, if that is all you have then yes, go tell him that you are glad he is breathing. I know it seems like the craziest thing given how awful he's been, but try it."  I was pissed for the chaos, the days of sleep deprivation, the impact on my family and the other youth in the home ... but ... the ONE thing I was okay with  --- it was that this kid was breathing...and at that moment,  it was the ONLY thing.   As I said it to him, conscious of just how stupid this might seem or sound, it was all I had and my angst turned to understanding.  In all of the things that mattered, the material, the time, the interference, the disruptions --- what mattered the most was that he (and I) were alive.  My angst shifted ... just enough to bring a bit of joy.  Today, in hindsight, that view is a memory that contributes to today's happiness.  Getting through, trying something new, and being true about that which I was grateful - reshaped my entire paradigm ... at that time in looking at the moment, in looking forward, in prioritizing, and now in hindsight!  K. LaRose  

PHOTO CREDIT: Amy Reed, Unsplash.