It’s not “Thanksgetting”

Imagine Thanksgiving is now Thanksgetting. You have a whole day in which you dedicate time to getting as many thanks from people as you can. Are there some people you’ve been hoping to get approval from? Hey, now’s the day to get it! Don’t forget who owes you some gratitude. Maybe your kids? Your spouse? Your boss? Now you can collect that debt.

How would that experience be for you? If you slow down to think about it, Thanksgetting would be an alluring but ultimately unappetizing and depleting experience, like trying to satisfy your hunger by eating candy all day. 

Yet this is how so many of us are going about our lives. We go around looking to get attention, affection, approval… 

The inner (but unacknowledged) narrative sounds like:

“I’m worried I’m not likable, so I will do my best to get liked by everyone.” 

“I’m not getting the respect I deserve, so I need to get more respect from everyone.”

“I never got enough attention, so I will do things to impress people.”

Does this sound familiar? All this “getting” is trying to satiate a hunger that comes from thinking we don’t have enough, and never did. It’s like we have things that are missing—holes in us—so whatever we seek to get out of life will just keep draining out of those holes.

Here’s another way to see things: that we already have in us the qualities that we’re trying to get from others. There are no holes. Rather, we cannot experience our own love and what we care about because we’re too busy withholding it in order to get it from others. What we give—affection, attention, gratitude, kindness, to name a few—are qualities that we can now experience because we’re no longer withholding them. If you give your gratitude to someone, you experience the gratitude in you. If you give your attention to someone, you experience the curiosity in you. 

It’s not always easy to see this, because it is not a conventional way of approaching our lives. Next time you find yourself thinking you’re not getting what you want, consider asking yourself instead “what can I give, that I want?” or “what can I provide that I long for?”.

Here’s to a happy, wholehearted Thanksgiving. 

With love, 

Tom and team