What am I thankful for?

The Thanksgiving holiday season always fills me with warmth and excitement. Growing up, Thanksgiving was an excuse for our extended family to get together. We’d make pies with our grandmother, throw the football at the park with our cousins, and enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving meal. Now, to be completely honest with you, I think the traditional Thanksgiving food is pretty average. Well, everything except corn-pudding. My cousins used to drive 5 hours with corn-pudding^* from their town. That was dedication and I appreciated it. 

Living across the country from most of our family for the last 6 years, Thanksgiving isn’t the family reunion that it used to be. This distance from family is one of the drivers to eventually leave California. You can read a bit more about my thoughts on moving here. 

Now, I think of Thanksgiving in a completely different way. Apart from being the start of the holiday season, it’s a perfect time for me to reflect on what I’m thankful for. Sure, we used to discuss this growing up, but I lacked any perspective to properly absorb the discussion. I thought it’d be fitting to reflect on this and share with you the five things that I’m thankful for. 

I use this blog to memorialize my thinking so it can act as a second brain for me and my future family. I hope to reread this frequently to remember how fortunate I am. 

Health

This is always number one. Sure, I have the occasional aches and pains, but I’m healthy. 

Without my health, I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the rest of my life. My dad passed away while I was in high school and that was an incredible lesson on the shortness of life and how to appreciate when you’re healthy. 

One thing I’ve focused on over the last four months is improving my baseline health through better fitness regimes and diet adjustments. I’ll give myself a C+ on these efforts. I’m getting closer to where I need to be, but I haven’t built the habits yet. As I continue to age, my health will decline and I want to maintain a high baseline for as long as I possibly can. 

Country and Family of Birth

It’s easy to lose the perspective of how lucky I was to be born in the United States. Well, anyone lucky enough to be born in a developed country should realize just how much of their life and success is due to the fact they were born into a country with a (relatively) stable government, financial markets, education, etc. 

This perspective is hard to grasp unless you’ve left the country and seen the challenges that people face in the developing world. I’ve been lucky enough to travel and everytime I come home, I feel a renewed sense of how lucky I am. If you’re going through a rough patch, spend two weeks volunteering in another country. You’ll come back with a completely different perspective. 

On top of being born in The United States, I was born into an incredible family. Loving, supportive, motivated, and stable. This base set me up with about the best start to life anyone could have. I’m forever thankful for that. 

Opportunity to Pursue my Dreams Every Day

Any knowledge based worker is remarkably lucky. We don’t have to risk our bodies on a daily basis to scrape by for a living. I feel even luckier that I get to pursue my dreams on a daily basis and am not stuck in a job I hate for the rest of my life. I’m thankful that I was able to save enough in my initial jobs to allow me to take the risk to start WeHero. I’m lucky that I met my business partner who has all the skills and perspective that I lack.

I often succumb to the pressure of needing all of my business ventures to continue working out. This makes me feel like sh*t and I’m trying to do my best to remember to just appreciate that for the time being, I wake up everyday and get to build businesses. My job is fun. 

If I ever have to go back to working for someone, it will be okay. I’m thankful for today. 

Partner

The most important decision that you make in your life is the person you spend your life with. I’m thankful that I have a partner I’m excited to go through life with. We think differently, but have similar life goals and beliefs on what we want from life. We bring out different sides of each other and hopefully make eachother better on a daily basis. As we grow our family, I know there'll be more challenges, but that’s an adventure that will undoubtedly bring us closer.  

The Simple Things

I’m a natural planner and I get overly focused on the future. I work too hard and sacrifice the present to have a more comfortable future. I’m convinced this reduces my short term happiness in a meaningful way. 

However, when I occasionally get myself out of this way of thinking, I’m able to appreciate the small and simple things. I’m embarrassed to say that a weed gummy greatly helps this, but there are so many simple things that I’m immensely thankful for. The beautiful area I live in, casual bike rides around town, a chocolate brownie, the sun on a warm day, slippers my sister gave me when our heat doesn’t work, warm showers, and California burritos^**.The list goes on and on. I’m just thankful that I can be thankful for the small things, even if it only happens occasionally. 

What are you grateful for? I encourage you to spend thirty minutes reflecting on your life and thinking about the things you appreciate. 

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* A good corn pudding has a soft, tender texture, like a cross between cornbread and a soufflé. It can lean sweet or savory, depending on how you like it. Made with eggs, heavy cream, a touch of sugar, onion, and plenty of corn.

**This irresistible, jam-packed creation is called the California burrito because it originated in San Diego, California. To be known as a California burritos, it includes a protein, guacamole, pico de gallo, cheese, sour cream, french fries, and flour tortilla