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Students: Educational and Student Success Center

holidays

Being Thankful

It hard to believe that it’s already Thanksgiving! A time for reflection, a time to be thankful for everything in our lives.  The semester has gone by so quickly. It seems like I’ve had my head down, buried in my work, and when I finally look up, it’s time for the  Thanksgiving holiday! A friend once commented that the days drag, but the weeks fly by. Maybe that’s why Thanksgiving has taken me by surprise this year.

Gratitude

It’s hard to be thankful, but gratitude is the heart of our ability to appreciate what we have. Most of us don’t take the time for thanks. We are often too busy, buried in information, exams, friends, family, work, and all the other immediacies that compete for our attention. We complain about never having enough time, enough money, enough opportunity, and if only we could get whatever, we would make it, be successful, be happy. What we forget is that all our working and reaching keeps our eyes on what we want and we never celebrate what we have.

Thankful for What We Have

We can’t be successful in life if we only focus on keeping up, catching up, holding on, and getting more. We have to stop from time to time to think, reflect, and take stock. Reflecting on our lives, our achievements and our setbacks, helps us change and grow. I would argue that it is equally important to experience gratitude, and be thankful for for what we have, the people, opportunities, encounters, and adventures we  have experienced. Thankfulness increases appreciation, which increases satisfaction and contentment.

Whether you are celebrating a Thanksgiving with your family or enjoying a friendsgiving with your comrades, take the time to stop, reflect, and experience gratitude. Focus on what you have rather than what you don’t. Be thankful for what you have accomplished, for having direction in your life, and for all the people who support you. If you can, share your appreciation with others, but most of all, enjoy your holiday. Rest and refresh yourself and return ready for the end of the semester.

The Student Success Center will close at 6:00 pm on Wednesday November 22nd for the Thanksgiving holiday. We will reopen at 7:30 am on Monday, November 27th.

Notes on Thanksgiving and Gratitude

It’s that time again.  Lest we forget the holidays, TV reminds us.  Already round-the-clock Christmas movies are broadcast.  So it was that I recently honored Halloween by seeing “Addams Family Values.”  There is a delightful send up of all the awful, unhistorical, overly sentimental, school productions of “the first thanksgiving.”  Never mind that it wasn’t nearly the first thanksgiving day by European settlers on this continent.  Never mind that our current celebration has wandered away from what was originally a harvest festival with gratitude to God because it looked like enough food was stored in for the winter.  Many years in agrarian societies that is not a given.

The Official Thanksgiving Holiday

When President Abraham Lincoln, in the middle of the Civil War, proclaimed November 26, 1863 a federal holiday and unified the date of the celebration, he did so largely because of Sarah Josepha Hale who argued for a unified date during a period of military and political disunity.  In our day the holiday has become an occasion for food, family, and football.  Recently, we’ve added an economic aspect with Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  For college students and faculty it has become the last short breather before finals.

Your Thanksgiving

May your Thanksgiving honor one or more of these important themes.  The rancorous presidential election will be behind us.  It might be good to re-unify, even with that annoying, politically wrong, uncle.  Connect with your human family be it blood relatives, extended kin and in-laws, or other families of friends and associates.  Think and speak gratitude to those who have enriched you.  Indulge some delicious pleasure.  It’s healthful to splurge once in awhile.  Enjoy shopping amid the roiling crowd or at home in some cyber-boutique.  Breathe, rest, and ready yourself for the sprint to the finish of finals week.  Have a great Thanksgiving holiday!