(With apologies to Jimmy Buffett for the title of this post.)
So the great American tradition of Thanksgiving is upon us. And while I will accept your greetings on this day, my dear American friends, please do not ask me what I'll be doing for Thanksgiving. It is a North American holiday. And restricted this Thursday to the United States. No one else gets the day (or week) off.
That's not to say that taking some time off from my busy schedule (ha-ha, I wish, but that's another matter) and expressing thanks for what I have is a bad idea. A spirit of gratitude and thanksgiving should permeate all our lives all the time. Preferably with moderate doses of pie.
This year, I'm extremely grateful for having read the following passage in "Night Watch", part of the sublimely lunatic Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.
Background: Samuel Vimes has been transported back in time and met his 20 year old self. The temptation to improve his past is great, until he has an epiphany:
"That was always the dream, wasn't it? 'I wish I'd known then what I know now'? But when you got older you found out that you now wasn't you then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp."
In short, I'm thankful for having been a twerp in the past...and for continuing to be a twerp today in some aspects of life. It will lead to a better me in the future.
So the great American tradition of Thanksgiving is upon us. And while I will accept your greetings on this day, my dear American friends, please do not ask me what I'll be doing for Thanksgiving. It is a North American holiday. And restricted this Thursday to the United States. No one else gets the day (or week) off.
That's not to say that taking some time off from my busy schedule (ha-ha, I wish, but that's another matter) and expressing thanks for what I have is a bad idea. A spirit of gratitude and thanksgiving should permeate all our lives all the time. Preferably with moderate doses of pie.
This year, I'm extremely grateful for having read the following passage in "Night Watch", part of the sublimely lunatic Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.
Background: Samuel Vimes has been transported back in time and met his 20 year old self. The temptation to improve his past is great, until he has an epiphany:
"That was always the dream, wasn't it? 'I wish I'd known then what I know now'? But when you got older you found out that you now wasn't you then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp."
In short, I'm thankful for having been a twerp in the past...and for continuing to be a twerp today in some aspects of life. It will lead to a better me in the future.
4 Comments:
Okay twerp. I am grateful for the post. :-)
There's a definite shift in mood in the playlist. Was it Mamma Mia that did it?
Even if you did know then what you do now, there would be something else you didn't know you didn't know. :o) How's that for a confusing comment...
Thanks for your help Shankar! I followed your instructions and it seemed to work.
p.s. - I'm grateful you are a twerp too.:)
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