We Need to Learn to Be Thankful Again
It’s Thanksgiving, and Americans are gathering around tables loaded with turkey, stuffing, and all the trimmings. Some will pause to say grace. Others will go around the table sharing what they’re grateful for. Many will skip the gratitude part entirely and head straight for the food and football. Bruce just awaits his turkey.
Every year, it becomes more clear. We’ve become a nation that takes everything for granted while complaining about everything we have. We live in the most prosperous country in human history, with opportunities our founding colonists couldn’t have imagined, yet we act like victims of circumstance rather than beneficiaries of centuries of sacrifice, innovation, and yes, personal responsibility.
This Thanksgiving, I think we need to relearn what it actually means to be thankful. Not the performative social media kind of thankfulness. The real kind that recognizes what we have, acknowledges what it cost to get here, and accepts our responsibility to maintain it.
THE PROSPERITY WE IGNORE
Even accounting for inflation and housing costs, the average American today lives better than 99% of humans who have ever existed. We have instant access to information, entertainment, and communication that would have seemed like magic to people just 50 years ago. We have medical technology that extends lifespans and treats conditions, like type 1 diabetes, that were death sentences not that long ago. We have food security that means most Americans’ biggest dietary problem is eating too much, not too little.
I’m sitting here in a house Joe and I built on 4+ acres. We’re gay, married, and adopted two boys through the foster care system. We have choices about where our kids go to school, we can start businesses, change careers, move across the country, or stay put and build something locally.
This is not normal by historical standards.
Yet instead of gratitude, what do we hear? Constant complaints about how hard everything is, how unfair the system is, how someone else needs to fix our problems. We’ve become a nation of complainers who’ve forgotten that the very existence of our complaints proves how good we actually have it.
People in actually oppressive countries don’t spend their time on social media complaining about microaggressions. They’re trying not to get arrested for speaking their minds. People in actually poor countries don’t debate the ethics of their food choices. They’re trying to find food.
WHAT THE COLONISTS ACTUALLY FACED
The late 18th-century American colonists faced conditions we can barely comprehend today. They had to work hard just to survive. No welfare. No social security. No Medicare or Medicaid. No government benefits of any kind.
The work ethic and self-reliance weren’t optional, they were requirements. If you didn’t provide for yourself, you starved. If you didn’t defend yourself, you died. Natural selection worked exactly as intended, without modern safety nets to catch failures.
Those colonists built the foundation of American prosperity through backbreaking labor, personal risk, and genuine hardship. They didn’t complain about lack of opportunity. They created opportunity by clearing land, building communities, establishing trade networks, and eventually founding a nation based on individual liberty and personal responsibility.
They were thankful for things we consider basic rights: the ability to own property, to practice their religion, to speak freely, to govern themselves locally rather than being ruled by distant monarchs who didn’t understand their circumstances.
Today? We have all of that and more, yet we’re somehow less grateful.
WHAT THANKSGIVING SHOULD ACTUALLY MEAN
The traditional Thanksgiving story, whatever its historical accuracy, carries a powerful message: people facing genuine hardship, helped by neighbors who didn’t owe them anything, working together to survive, and being genuinely grateful for the basics of life: food, shelter, survival.
That’s not our reality today. We’re not fighting for survival. We’re fighting over which smartphone to buy, which streaming service to subscribe to, which restaurant to order delivery from while sitting in our climate-controlled homes with instant access to more information and entertainment than entire civilizations had access to just decades ago.
Yet somehow, we’re less grateful than people who genuinely struggled to survive.
This Thanksgiving, I propose we try something different:
Be thankful for the opportunities you have, not resentful about the ones you don’t. You live in America. You can start a business. You can change careers. You can own property. You can speak freely. These aren’t guarantees of success. They’re opportunities to try. Be thankful for them.
Be thankful for your responsibilities, not resentful about having them. You’re responsible for your health, your prosperity, your relationships, and your community. This isn’t a burden, this is freedom. The alternative is having someone else control those aspects of your life.
Be thankful for what you’ve built, not just what you’ve been given. Your career, your home, your family, your health, these are at least partly the result of your own efforts. Yes, you had help. Yes, you had opportunities. But you also made choices and took actions. Be thankful for your own agency and what you’ve accomplished with it.
My unCommon Sense
We need to stop acting like victims and start acting like beneficiaries.
We are not victims of American society. We are beneficiaries of the most prosperous, free, and opportunity-rich country in human history. Yes, it’s imperfect. Yes, there are problems. Yes, some people have it easier than others. But compared to almost any other place, at any other time, we have it extraordinarily good.
The gratitude we should feel isn’t just about saying “thank you” before the turkey. It’s about recognizing our good fortune, accepting our responsibility to maintain and build on it, and acting accordingly.
Stop expecting government to solve your problems. Government didn’t create American prosperity. Individuals and communities created American prosperity. Be thankful for the opportunity to solve your own problems.
Stop comparing yourself to the wealthiest Americans. You don’t live in poverty because Jeff Bezos is rich. His wealth didn’t come from stealing your opportunity. Be thankful for what you have rather than resentful about what others have achieved.
Stop taking your opportunities for granted. Educational options. Career mobility. Property ownership. Free speech. Religious liberty. These aren’t givens. They’re the products of specific principles embedded in American founding documents and defended over centuries. Be thankful for them and protect them.
Start building instead of complaining. If something in your life needs to change, change it. If something in your family needs attention, attend to it. You have agency. Use it. Be thankful that you have the freedom to build rather than just complain.
This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for:
Almost 38 years of managing my diabetic health through personal responsibility and discipline
A husband who partners with me in building our family and life together
Two boys who we adopted through a system that, despite its flaws, allowed us to become parents
The responsibility to manage all of this myself, rather than depending on others to do it for me
I’m not thankful to the government for most of these things. I’m thankful for the opportunities and the responsibility to use them well.
This Thanksgiving, before you dig into the turkey and stuffing, ask yourself: Am I actually grateful for what I have? Or am I just going through the motions while focusing on what I lack?
America isn’t perfect. Your life probably isn’t perfect either.
But by any historical standard, by any global comparison, you have it incredibly good.
Be thankful for that. And then get back to work building on it.
That’s what the colonists would have done. That’s what created the prosperity we now enjoy. That’s what will maintain it for future generations, if we stop taking it for granted and start acting like we appreciate what we have.
Happy Thanksgiving.
If you want to have a constructive conversation about this or anything else, message me at dan@thrailkill.us, and let’s grab coffee or a beer.
Have a good one,
Dan