Are You Thankful or Too Spoiled to Notice Your Good Life?

[Qui-Long Gone]

Times are tough in the USA, but you'll never see me on a raft to get into some other country.

Life can be a biatch somedays, but this is the greatest time to be alive!

With Thanksgiving around the corner, what are you thankful for?

1. My wife
2. My awsome kids
3. My health
4. My opportunities
5. Forums like this that make life silly
6. That tonight my family and I will go to bed and not have to fear that drug lords, dictators, or soldiers will come execute us in our sleep.
7. I've been working with the homeless this year, I'm thankful I'm not homeless.
8. There are things like SW that let you dream fantastical dreams.
9. Finally got my dissertation proposal accepted.
10. Got my roof fixed before winter!

[pbarnard]

1. My wife. The month I spent alone with her in China really enforced this one
2. My senators and their staff for the arm twisting to get my wife her green card after 18 months of delays and non-answers by ICE officials
3. Health Insurance
4. New Job with decent benefits, both real and fringe
5. The ability to let go
6. Odd ball activities like here, FFURG, the trading buddies it brings
7. Pepsi and coke for finally making things that taste like the regular but are sugar/calorie free
8. MONKEYS. Specifically New World Monkeys.
9. The undeserved credit I got for writing platform planks at the county, district and state level
10. Millions of other people here getting it right, finally

[Tycho]

Actually, I'm ungrateful. Here's some of my list of things I'm ungrateful for:

1. My health (which sucks and has disabled me).
2. Most of my Star Wars collection being put into storage by my uncle.
3. The way girls I'm interested in probably regard me now that I'm ill.
4. Religious people who make emotional decisions I know are completely illogical.
5. Hypocrisy - and that so many people can't think clearly enough to recognize it.

I do have things I'm thankful for, but one stagnates unless they are always striving to improve their position - or help others improve their status in life.

[Qui-Long Gone]

I do have things I'm thankful for, but one stagnates unless they are always striving to improve their position - or help others improve their status in life.

I hardly think thankfulness - true, humble gratitude for the priviledge to be alive - causes stagnation....If one cannot be thankful for the opportunity to "improve their position," or for the help others give them to improve their status, does that really "improve" you? That strikes me as the most ironic form of hypocrisy.

[sith_killer_99]

I am thankful for:

1. My wife and daughter (plus one on the way)
2. My health
3. The rest of my family
4. My friends
5. My career, which has provided for my family and I.
6. Being home (not deployed) during the holidays this year.
7. Having no debt.
8. Everyone here of SSG, many of whom fall into #4 as well.

[bobafrett]

I am thankful for:

1. My family
2. My health
3. That I still have a job this Christmas
4. I have a roof over my head, (and my collection)
5. That I still have the freedom to make a choice
6. My Star Wars collection
7. GNR finally is releasing their long awaited new C.D.

[Mr. JabbaJohnL]

Lately I've been feeling down for a variety of reasons - I'm not liking college, I don't know where to go, I have a medical issue that I thought was done several months ago but I have to deal with again (nothing very serious, but I'm mad that it's back), and my underbite is coming back for the first time in many, many years (my retainer has been tinkered with by the orthodontists to the point where it's actually making it worse instead of keeping it stable; this is after five years of braces which I was done with in early 2005). The last one seems trivial, but still.

However, I then have to realize that I'm pretty damn lucky if these are my biggest problems. Things are much worse for many people. I've got a loving family and supportive friends. I'm extremely happy with the outcome of the election and its probably future implications. There are still plenty of things to be thankful for and it's important not to let the bad ever overcome the good.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

I have been in a long-term cynical mood, so I don't feel I can honestly reply here. I have been aware of my "good life" for some time now, but as a natural pessimist, I tend to notice the negatives more than the positives. I'm also a notorious miser and saver, so whenever there's been an economic downturn, I act little differently than normal.

My worst feeling is that as bad as I think things get (and '05 made me wish for a protocol droid memory wipe), I know they really aren't that bad, in comparison to others in the world. The fires near here the past week are evidence of that.

[LTBasker]

I think I'm definitely spoiled with alot of things in my life, there are many things I've taken for granted and I've started to suffer the consequences for quite a bit of it. Despite the newfound consequences though, I still have trouble saying things I'm thankful for. I think mostly because I generally spend my time regretting the way my life is that I easily overlook the things I should be thankful for.

One thing I'm most definitely thankful for, however, is our house. Granted, I complain about it alot as it's got quite a few faults, but it's been a major stress relief, and I have no idea what we would have done last December otherwise. Last December we were in the middle of the major ice storm that plagued Oklahoma, and the house we were in we rented. The ice storm caused a branch to break and fall on the powerline yanking the circuit breaker right off the house. Fortunately, not only did we not have to deal with it financially due to renting the house, but also we didn't have to live with it since we were in the process of moving to our now-current house.

[Tycho]

I think mostly because I generally spend my time regretting the way my life is that I easily overlook the things I should be thankful for.

I catch myself doing that, too. What I meant in my previous post is that I think it makes great use of one's time to cancel the regretful look back into one's past, and instead think outside-the-box as to how one will change their future. I have been teaching myself to REJECT all conventions of common culture and popular "morality," and see where I am and where I want to go. Then I determine the course of action for myself which will take me there (or the steps along the way).

I think we only know we have one life to live, so we must take everything we can for it.