An Open Letter to Thanksgiving
Dear Thanksgiving,
Thanksgiving 2018 is less than a week away, and I've been thinking a lot about what has happened since this time last year. This week, like all others, has spelled chaos for this country and its citizens. Deadly wildfires continue to ravage California, and have left 66 dead and over 600 missing. Voter fraud still threatens our democracy. The president remains as an enemy to the free press.
In the past year, we have seen even worse things happen, from the separation of immigrant families this summer to the devastating preservation of racism and anti-Semitism this month.
All of the horrible stuff going on in our political sphere has gotten so bad that a meditation app that I use, Headspace, has added a category for "Approaching Politics," including exercises with titles like "Feeling Overwhelmed," "Losing Your Temper," and, straight up, "Panicking."
What else are we supposed to do in these trying times? For many of us, the trudge to 2020 grows slower by the day. Personally, the idea of having to wait until 2024 makes me want to throw up my hands and just give up. I'm still upset by the fact that Rick Scott has a chance of winning the senatorial election in Florida.
Through all of this, what could we possibly be thankful for? Climate change will kill us all, the political parties are forever polarized, hate persists, the media is threatened by a president who deliberately seeks to delegitimize them, wars are being waged, and it feels like there is no justice.
I don't blame you for feeling this way; I feel a little hopeless too. Today is the first sunny day that we've had in Atlanta all week. It's been cold, dark, and rainy. Not really conducive to happy-go-lucky optimism.
So, how can we find the good in a world with so much bad?
I know that on this blog I can get pretty cynical, but that doesn't mean that I am not a strong believer in kindness. Kindness is something that is unfortunately scarce right now, but it is one of the most powerful strategies that we have to make life suck a little bit less.
That's because doing good makes you feel good. Something as small as holding the door open for the person behind you, or expressing appreciation to someone can go a long way. The human ability to be kind and to show compassion is something that I'm thankful for this year, even if we haven't seen it in every facet of our society.
Trust me when I say that I'm not going to stop fighting for what I believe in or stop debating people who disagree with me. Political arguments are important. But, I have been trying to be that person who can offer a little bit of kindness in a bleak world.
Sometimes we are going to make mistakes, and end up hurting someone's feelings. Lord knows I've definitely done that this week. However, our ability to recognize when we've made mistakes and to be cognizant of how others are feeling proves that we are considerate people.
Probably more considerate people than the president of the United States, but I'm not going to go there.
This Thanksgiving, I encourage you to take some time to appreciate our capacity to be kind. And, after you appreciate it, exercise that capability. I just finished watching the first two seasons of NBC's The Good Place (highly, highly recommend), and it ponders what it means to be 'good.'
One of the characters, Chidi, is a ethics philosopher. After finishing the show, I decided I wanted to learn more about philosophy. As I was doing so, I came across a pretty famous quote by Aristotle:
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
Kindness is something that we can do everyday, and it becomes more natural the more that we practice. I know that it can be challenging to be kind in a world that oftentimes tries to beat you down. If you're not the most politically charged person, but still feel passionately, exercising kindness is your way to fight back.
Oh, and happy Thanksgiving!
Yours truly,
P.S. There will be no Open Letter next week because of the very legitimate reason that it's Black Friday.