There is the untiring shopping spree. There are dinners with savory meat dishes and novel turkey recipes. The Macy’s Parade. The football. Rounds of coffee and drinks with friends. All these make the holiday a time of celebration and relaxation.
But what is the one thing that makes it so joyful for all of us?
It is simply the families coming together.
The latest Pew Research report says 70% of Americans derive happiness from being with their families.
As a doctor, I have known it for long. Oxytocin, the hormone we all need, comes into play when we are together with our loved ones. The hormone brings joy and a sense of fulfilment.
Photo: NCI/Wikimedia Commons
But shopping and too much attention to material things are getting hold of us.
We, the nation of “stuffologist,” try to make every occasion into stuffing ourselves whether it is turkey stuffing, food stuffing, or toy stuffing.
No matter how much we have to fight on Black Friday, we buy things as if the world is coming to an end and then we pay the credit card bills for the rest of the year.
Macy’s Parade 1979, Jon Harder / Wikimedia Commons
Our generation gets more and more materialistic year after year and nothing is enough.
So, being thankful on thanksgiving is just an illusionary statement of few words we state on that evening if we ever do, but looking around at the fire of California eating away the most luxurious part of our world teaching us humility.
Watching young entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley on PBS changing poor parts of world still gives me hope that our future is not going to be engulfed by months of commercial U.S. when we will be joining our family for that Thanksgiving Dinner and really will be thankful for our lives.
We will be thankful for our health, happiness, family friends and the freedom we have, and remembering the ones who have lost their homes and families this year in tragedies including our friend Doctor Woods, who came to teach a group of doctors and was amazing.
