BERNEY WILKINSON: Year end is a good time to pause and reflect and find thankfulness
Thanksgiving 2022 is behind us. Hopefully you survived Black Friday with minimal damage to body and bank account, and you are already well into the holiday hustle and bustle.
As 2022 winds down, it is an appropriate time to once again pause and consider what we have to be thankful for.
This time of year, we are reminded to show thanks for all that we have. For some, however, this is a challenging task. We look around at the discord in our community, the divisiveness in our country, repeated episodes of violence here and abroad. It makes us wonder that with so many suffering, what is there to be thankful for?
Perhaps we should begin by considering the idea of being thankful.
While the word “thankful” simply means to be pleased and relieved, the spirit of the term goes far deeper. Being thankful suggests a sense of gratitude and appreciation. It also implies an acknowledgement of some benefit, advantage or opportunity that has become available. Being thankful extends beyond the usual, albeit important, things we generally think of.
Unfortunately, it seems as though we are just paying lip-service to the idea of being thankful. For example, many of us say that we are thankful for family and friends; and yet more than half the population (58% according to a survey by Cigna) report feeling lonely.
MORE "MENTAL BREAKDOWN" FROM BERNEY WILKINSON:
Similarly, we say that we are thankful for our health, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly 60% of American adults have at least one chronic illness. These discrepancies should give us pause and leave us to question: Can we do better?
We know, for example, that those who rely primarily on social media as a way to connect with others actually report feeling lonelier. Nevertheless, the use of electronic devices by our youth has significantly increased over the last few years. Perhaps we should consider putting down our smartphones for a few minutes and interact with others — face-to-face — as a step toward improving our connectedness.
Also, considering that heart disease and diabetes are the most common chronic diseases, perhaps we should adopt a lifestyle of healthy eating and exercise that can not only reduce our risk, but could even reverse the effects of some chronic health conditions.
In addition, we might consider digging even a little deeper. It is no secret that political divisiveness weighs heavily on all of us. Many of us continue to battle over issues that are turning us into enemies. There are battles over what our children should be taught in school, battles over women’s health care, and battles over religious freedom.
We should not forget that our Founding Fathers, in just a little over a century from the first Thanksgiving, had the courage, the wisdom and the foresight to craft a Constitution that continues to allow us the freedom to pray to the God of our choosing, to educate all of our children, and to question without fear.
Yes, there is discord—but there has always been discord. Yet, we can be thankful that we live in a place where there are opportunities to be better.
Of course, equal opportunity is not yet available to all, and we should be doing better. And doing better begins with each of us recognizing what we have and being thankful for the paths that have led us here.
Berney Wilkinson, a licensed psychologist with Psychological Associates of Central Florida in Lakeland, is a national speaker and the co-author of "Handbook for Raising an Emotionally Healthy Child." Listen to his podcast, "The Mental Breakdown,” on iTunes and YouTube.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: BERNEY WILKINSON: Year end is a good time to reflect on thankfulness
