Thank goodness it’s not Thanks-getting

Imagine instead of Thanks-giving the US had a Thanks-getting holiday. A day dedicated to getting as many thanks from people as you can. Maybe from your kids? From your spouse? From your boss or your staff?

After all there is something enticing about getting thanked for efforts we make that go unnoticed. But the kind of day in which you go around getting things from people would likely be upsetting and unsatisfying. You’d be like a debt collector, and who wants to spend time with a debt collector?! You would make your happiness dependent on getting something from people in your life as if they owe it to you.

That is an upsetting way to live, yet we often treat our lives like it’s Thanks-getting every day. What we want to get is usually some kind of love that we think we never got as kids—in the form of attention, or affection, or respect, or gratitude (add to this list as you see fit). There’s no getting these back, because the past is gone and we’ve not invented a time machine yet. But you really don’t need to go back. You can instead invert your thinking and get what your psyche wants in life by giving away what you wish you had got.

So, if you’ve wanted people to be interested in you, be interested in them instead. If you’ve wanted to be liked by people, like them instead. If you’ve wanted people to respect you, respect them instead. You’ll come to see that all you ever wanted is already there, and you get to experience it when you share it with others.

You can experiment and see the results for yourself. As a starting point, the next time you go to a party (or a Thanksgiving meal), experiment with being the most interested person in the room instead of the most interesting.

Here’s to a happy, wholehearted Thanksgiving.

Tom