Being thankful

November 22, 2012 • Victoria Guzman, Viewpoint Editor  
Filed under Viewpoints

Thanksgiving Day is just around the corner, leaving students of San Dimas High School eagerly awaiting the week-long vacation that accompanies this beloved holiday. However, Thanksgiving ought not to be viewed as merely a valid reason to miss school for a few days, but rather should be praised for the straightforward message it serves to exemplify: the idea of being thankful.

As a teenager, it becomes increasingly easy to live life day to day with a glass-half-empty perspective; we are constantly focusing on what material items or abstract ideas we may possibly be lacking at the given time. But what about the things in which we are fortunate to have, such as the at times dreadful yet potentially beneficial opportunity to attend high school free of charge?

“I think that being able to have the freedom that we have today is taken for granted. And also we are lucky to be as healthy as we are because there are others who are less fortunate,” Sophomore Sylvia Lee replied when asked if she felt that there was anything we as teenagers should be more grateful for.

Just because we do not always give the proper recognition and gratitude to the people and things for which we are most thankful for, does not mean that we lack a sense of appreciation for these things altogether; but rather, we are lacking the understanding of what life would be like without the things that are so commonplace in our society. It seems nearly impossible to imagine ourselves stripped of our favorite clothing, prohibited from the use of electronic devices, or deprived of our friendship privileges.

While discussing the thought of being without his car, Senior Philip Lopez stated, “I don’t know what I would do with myself. I would probably fall into a deep depression.”

Material possessions have the ability to flood our minds with desire to the point where we begin to obsess over them. Being that it is easiest for us to become infatuated with these items, it is equally as easy for us to lose interest and appreciation for whatever they may be. However, relationships that we have with people are a different story altogether.

Why is it that we constantly overlook the things that matter most in our lives: our friends and our families? Why is it that we can treat a cellphone as if it were a deity sent from the heavens, yet we cannot find it within ourselves to offer some form of gratitude to those whom we care most for?

When asked why she feels teenagers find it easier to underappreciate their friends and family, Senior Veronica Kubanik replied, “Because you see the bad parts in them so then you feel that it is okay not to appreciate them as much.”

When all is said and done, only our loved ones have the ability to fill the gaping hole that lies within each one of our spiritual beings. No electronic device, despite how technologically advanced it may be, can or ever will have the power to have as great of an impact on us as the people who care about us do.

The season of Thanksgiving serves us as a reminder to never lose sight of what we are thankful for. This upcoming week of vacation, and on a going forward basis in general, we ought to allot ourselves some time for introspection in order to identify the things and people that make our lives bearable day in and day out. Once we are able to determine who or what these include, we can truly begin to explore the idea of what it means to be thankful by giving them the proper recognition and gratitude they deserve.

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