A list of 10

By Dian Vujovich

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year. Standing as a reminder to take some time to stop and think about all that one has been given—no matter what our circumstances– is something that’s so easy to overlook in the this hectic, fast-paced, often critical and way too small world in which we all reside.

I have a friend who lives in Key West and begins her day by listing 10 things that she’s thankful for each morning after rising. As you might imagine, she has a joyful spirit. Giving thanks on an on-going and continual basis has a way of doing that.

How about we all tear a page from her playbook and try the same. Sure, it might take more time than saying a quick prayer and require some in-the-now remembering, but the bounties each of us have been given tally many hundreds of 10’s. Times 10. Times 10. Times 10.

In Robert A. Emmons book The Psychology of Gratitude, the author uses some of Adam Smith’s writings in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments tome to point out that “gratitude plays a vital role in making the world we live in a better place”.
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To that end, I’m beginning my list of 10 today.
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On another note, if you’ve ever wondered how Thanksgiving came to be celebrated at the end of each November, here are the scoops as presented in today’s PlanSponsor’s NewsDash (www.plansponsor.com):
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“On June 20, 1676, the council of Charlestown, Massachusetts, proclaimed June 29 the day for thanksgiving. George Washington proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, but President Lincoln made it official in 1861 by proclaiming the last Thursday in November as a national day of “Thanksgiving.” However, President Franklin Roosevelt probably deserves the “credit” for the practice of starting Christmas shopping around Thanksgiving. He moved it to the next-to-last Thursday in order to extend the Christmas shopping season, hoping to lift a struggling U.S. economy out of the doldrums in 1939. Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, FDR’s move set off a frenzy of criticism (opponents called the shifted holiday “Franksgiving”) leading to President Roosevelt’s subsequent action (in May 1941) to move the holiday “back” – establishing the fourth Thursday of November as the national Thanksgiving holiday.”