I was asked a couple of days ago about what I would be blogging about this week. I said today’s post would be about the U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday. I was then asked why not just post that on Thursday, which is of course actually Thanksgiving day in the U.S.

That very question speaks to the premise of this post.

That question might seem to indicate that we are thankful one day a year, or at the very least it indicates that we only stop to “thankfully reflect” one day a year. That really doesn’t make sense when you think about it.

Now I love all the traditions around Thanksgiving, I even love fighting the hordes for bargains on Black Friday. I over eat along with the majority of Americans, watch some football, and have too much whipped cream on my Pumpkin Pie. Somewhere along the line of course we, at least some, stop eating long enough to be thankful. For a day.

Then it’s back to taking way way too much stuff for granted. Now, I’m not just throwing rocks at other people, I’m throwing them at myself too. I’m just as guilty as anyone else.

If you live in the United States you have so much to be grateful for. You truly live in the land of opportunity, virtually nothing is out of reach. (Actually, if makes no difference where you live, if you look hard enough you can find at least a ray of hope)

Okay, okay, it’s about here that some, perhaps many, of you are already thinking “what a crock,” doesn’t this idiot know how tough things are… Yes I know. I also know that on our worst day life is still pretty darn good, especially when compared to the struggles of much of the world.

When we focus on what’s wrong it causes us to miss most of what’s right. On any given day we have much more to be thankful for than we have to complain about but we choose to focus on the negative. One day a year we choose to look past the bad and be thankful for the good.

I wonder why we focus so little of our time on finding things and people to be thankful for. Is it because we measure our lives in years and there’s always next year? What if we measured our lives in days?

I have worked at the same company for over 18 years. Does that seem like a lot? How about this, I’ve really worked there for 6762 days. 9,737,280 minutes, 584,236,800 seconds. Now I’m sure not all of the seconds and minutes were good but I can pretty much guarantee that something good happened on each one of those 6762 days.

I can also pretty much guarantee that I have failed to be grateful for each one of my 6762 days of employment. I’m also sure that I’ve had something to be thankful for each of the 21,756 days of my life but I’ve only “officially” stopped for 59 of those days to give thanks.

That’s just not right. So join me in the coming seconds, minutes, days and years to stop everyday, every single day, to be grateful, to focus on the good things and good people that surround you.

I’ll bet that when we put in the effort to find the good we’ll discover that it doesn’t take much effort at all, it just takes a choice!