Have you ever thought of Thanksgiving as a holiday for the wise?  Or of gratitude as something that requires wisdom?

Sure, we all think that being thankful requires a humble heart and warm feelings of appreciation for what we’ve been given.  But have you ever considered that gratitude is a matter of knowledge and understanding as much as it is an emotion or a sentiment.

Think about it.  It is harder to be grateful for the freedom and security that America provides, if you’ve never learned what it might be like in North Korea or the Soviet Union or even Egypt in the time of the pharaohs; it is harder to be grateful for your classes and your teachers and for school if you don’t know the stories of slaves who left their families and risked their lives to learn to read and write; it is harder to be grateful for good health and nutritious food if you’ve never heard of the bubonic plague or the Spanish flu or the Great Chinese famine; it is harder to be grateful for great music and art—not just to enjoy them, but to be truly grateful—unless you know something about Michaelangelo’s self-denying demand for perfection, or Beethoven’s drive to compose great works even as he lost his own ability to hear them.

So, during this week, in anticipation of the Thanksgiving holiday, let me encourage you not only to have a thankful heart, but a grateful mind.  Consider your blessings in light of, not merely what you feel, but of what you know.  As Epictetus said many years ago, “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

Have a wonderful day.