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Blogs by Dr. Ronald D. Bissell
The day after 11/24/2006 4:15:18 AM
Here we are the day after Thanksgiving. Some of you ate too much while others for the sake of their waistlines kept from over indulging. Which were you? For myself I found a happy middle road where I ate a little of just about everything but kept from overindulging. My wife and I had the good fortune to be invited to my daughter-in-laws family home for what I would describe as one of the most spectacular Thanksgivings I've ever seen. Family, friends, distant relatives and of course us the newbies all met and ate an incredible meal. The meal started at 2pm and lasted late into the evening. We left around 7pm so I could get home to rest before a storm arrived. It was a wonderful event where we met many old friends and began new friendships.
How was your Thanksgiving? Did you have familhy and friends around you? Did you celebrate alone? Either way being thankful comes to humans naturally without effort. Gratitude I feel is built into our genes and can be given in so many ways. Last night my wife and I experienced a profound sense of family even though our relationship to those present was through my son's wife. That didn't seem to matter at all and we were accepted into their family seamlessly. What a gift!
My family have all moved to Florida and my wife and I are now here in Maine alone now. That is quite a shift from the days when we would have 15 to 20 people at the table. We found it strange to not be cooking and preparing our home for our family but being offered an invitation of another family was incredibly delicious. Meeting new people and renewing friendships with others is one of life's great gifts. Being accepted into another family without anyone missing a heartbeat was so pleasant that words fail to describe the closeness you felt to everyone present.
So, here we are one day after one of the great Holidays of the year. As they say on the news "now onto Christmas" if they even dare to use the C word. I hear on the news all the scrambling that is going on in the world over material gifts where manufacturers failed to produce enough for the demand. It seems to be a repeat each year. For me, its not the shortfall of a particular gift that intrigues me but seeing people wasting their lives standing in line for sometimes more than 48 hours to get a "thing" is mind-boggling. Have we become so material conscious that we do such crazy things? I guess the answer has to be a resounding yes.
It's interesting how quickly our society moves from a day to celebration for the bounty we are given by our Creator to fighting over this or that gift. How strange it is to watch people become blinded by instant gratification. How upsetting is is to hear companies say that they have such a huge following that they know they will have an instant sales revenue boost without even trying. Money, money, money. From love to the material is the move that occurs so fast we fail to notice the bump it creates in our life's roadway.
Take a moment and see where you fit along the love/material timeline. Which is more important to you? Were you one of those who stood in line "to be the first" to have something? There is no right or wrong here but just an observation that we should all make to keep our senses on a life course that will lead to great satisfaction or sidetrack us and derail our personal growth in favor of 'things'. How silly it is to be engulfed by wants and desires. How foolish to become lost with glazed eyes to the hypnosis of our age.
I'm in favor of returning to family, to love, to giving through ourselves to others. Like my son's in-laws what greater gift can you give than the gift of your time and talents to present an evening of food, fun, laughter and joy while surrounded by loved one's. What even better is to continue that love and all the feelings you shared throughtout the year. Every moment, hour, every day, and every week should be full of giving your love to others. Only then will we as a society become richer in the real meaning of life.
