My Thanksgiving Wish for You
A little something to think about as you sit down with your family today.
There’s no holiday quite like Thanksgiving. It’s the day we all eat too much, fall asleep in front of the TV, enjoy our families, and begin plotting our Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday strategies.
But as we officially start the mad dash toward year-end, do yourself a favor. Take a minute to remember what today is about.
A couple of months ago at the first annual Blogger’s Conference, I stopped a couple of popular bloggers and asked them for their favorite frugal tips. One in particular I remember well. It was from Bob Lotich of Christian Personal Finance. What I expected was a tip like, “buy used” or “use coupons.” But what he said was infinitely better…
“We live in a society where there’s so much. There’s so many things we have that people didn’t have 100 years ago. We have heat inside of our houses, we don’t have to go out to an outhouse. Things are pretty good now, yet everyone wants to complain about how bad it is. I would just say appreciate what you have and enjoy it and that takes care of a lot of things.”
Isn’t that a great tip? And a great thing to keep in mind the next time you feel rained on because you don’t have enough stuff. Material possessions, when it’s all said and done, are vastly overrated. In fact, in the big picture, they’re nearly irrelevant.
Six years ago today, I was sitting at my parents’ dining room table, stuffing my face and cracking jokes with mom, dad, my sister, and whoever else happened to show up that year. Now that dining room table, along with both of my parents, is only a memory. But what a great memory it is.
My Thanksgiving wish for you is to make as many memories as you can today and every day. Shop till you drop, but remember that when you’re on your deathbed, you won’t be remembering the things you had, you’ll be remembering the times you had. So as often as you possibly can, surround yourself with the people you love and savor those moments.
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