Thankful, grateful, nifty

It’s thankful time again. All week my Facebook timeline has been flooded with optimistic, gratified statuses from friends and Facebook people I knew at one point in my life.

They are mostly all the same, you know the shtick, “I’m thankful for my family, they’re the best. I love them so much.” Or “I’m thankful for a great weekend with the best friends anyone could ever ask for.” Or, “[insert a line about the sun coming out tomorrow Annie-style yada yada]”

I guess it was this Facebook phenomenon that I had never heard of where every day of November you post something you are thankful for.

I think that's a really great idea, honestly, I know it sounds like I'm making fun of it, but it's a good idea in theory. Many of us truly have a TON to be grateful for and proud of. But it’s one of those things that you’re going to post, people are going to “like” it, you’ll feel all warm from the attention and proud of how humble you’re being, then you’ll probably forget about it in 24 hours.

Example (I’m making this up, but I bet you all are going to know what I’m saying here):

Facebook post = “I am thankful for my job. There are so many people out there that aren’t fortunate enough to be working or they’re having a difficult time getting hired. I'm blessed to be in a good place professionally.”

FAST FORWARD 24 hours

Conversation with a coworker = “I am so pissed, I can’t believe no one appreciates my work. Also, come on, who works on the Friday after Thanksgiving? …mumble mumble, slave drivers.”

Don’t get me wrong; I am just as guilty as the next person of this stuff. Who doesn’t come home after a pretty nifty* day at work and immediately become this grumpy bear-animal as if everything bad in the world happened to you. 

I think I actually did that yesterday. 

I'm not sure how to remedy this ridiculousness, but I suppose it could start by legitimately being grateful for the things we have. You know, not just for the day you say it, but for all the time and all the days of all the year. 

It's like how we're supposed to keep the Christmas spirit (charitable, family-fuzzies, goodwill toward men and so on and so forth) all year long. We all know that doesn't happen. We are total Scrooges the majority of the time. So, with Thanksgiving a day away, let's try for TWO days, as opposed to one, to be thankful for, at least, the fact that we're here and able to do and experience stuff.

Thankful to what you might ask? Well, that's up to you. Maybe it's accident, evolution, happenstance, God's will, nature, science, serendipity, chance, destiny or the flying spaghetti monster. Whatevs. You're here and even if we're all just little creatures in a giant being's ant farm, that's something.

Don't I sound optimistic right now? I should join the Optimist club or something (I bet you thought I was making up the Optimist Club. Oh no, my friend, that's real.) Everything is a little "Kumbaya" at the moment and I'm not sure where it came from but I'm rolling with it. 

*For those of you youngins, “nifty” means pretty darn good, in case you were confused.