Thanks is played out. What does it even mean?
By giving thanks, we show our gratitude. Gratitude?
Showing gratitude is centered around our appreciation.
“Appreciate” originally defines an act of assigning value. You would appreciate diamonds at a certain price because of what you know about them that is different from other gems. The definition of “appreciate” has grown over time to largely refer to an understanding of value.
What it means when you appreciate a thing is that you understand the value of its existence.
For this and future Thanksgivings, we can forget the story about Native-Pilgrim dinners and forget about holiday sales. We can take a note from Kodak Black and make an effort to fully understand the value of our circumstances.
Kodak is far from a model citizen, but he’s just as close to perfect as any one of us. What Yak tells us here is that he’s gone through plenty of frustrations and lost everything, but that never caused him to lose faith in his journey. He acknowledges an understanding of the value of his struggles in his bigger picture.
Being thankful isn’t about praising the people we love for the good things they do. Being thankful is appreciating and understanding the value of the people and events in our lives.
Over the past year or two (or five or ten), we have all experienced some pain. We’ve lost others for many reasons. Others have lost us for just as many reasons. The growing pains as we change and as others change. All this pain is there to be appreciated.
To fully appreciate life, that is, to understand the value it holds, we have to weigh life in its totality. The joy you experience is the sweet part of life. Many of us have a deep appreciation for the joyous parts of life. But that doesn’t translate to an appreciation of life.
To understand the true value of your life, you must equally appreciate the joy with the pain. This doesn’t mean we don’t scream and cry when life hurts. But understand that experiencing pain in life is part of what makes life valuable.