Thursday, October 17, 2013

Thankful without a "to"

I've blogged before about my non-thankfulness policy.  But it occurs to me that the things I'm thankful for are those for which there is no one to be thankful to.

For example, I'm thankful that I don't feel the need to seek out adventure and am perfectly content at home with books and TV and internet and gaming.

I'm thankful that I'm introverted enough that I don't get lonely, functionally speaking (i.e. the frequency with which people pay attention to me in the natural course of life is sufficient to keep me from getting lonely).

I'm thankful that, through a series of flukes, I found my optimal career path and my optimal neighbourhood.

All of these are things for which I'm truly thankful, but there's no one to be thankful to.  They're just how things turned out.

I want to make it clear: this isn't any sort of deliberate exercise in gratitude.  This isn't the result of a philosophy or a self-help system.  The purely internal things for which I'm thankful aren't the result of any attempt to master my emotions or become zen or otherwise self-improve. This is just how my naturally-occurring emotions landed: thankful without a "to".

1 comment:

laura k said...

My abundant thankfulness also comes without a "to". As an atheist, I have no one or no thing to thank for my incredible good fortune, relative to so many women in the world.

Also, it's nice that you're grateful to be an introvert. I have another friend who is trying to come to terms with her basic introverted self, as opposed to seeing it as a failing.