Thanksgiving Expectations

November 23, 2020

Sometimes we need a holiday to remind us that it’s OK to be contented. And sometimes it takes a book to help us remember that we don’t always need to improve ourselves.

Like many people in the Western world, I have my share of self improvement projects. One of those endeavors recently has been to read or re-read the great classics of Western literature. God forbid that I should read fine books just for the fun of it. Luckily, I’ve got more time on my hands right now because of a job furlough resulting from the coronavirus. So the other day I started reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

That novel is about a dirt-poor orphaned English boy named Pip who is determined to rise out of poverty and make a better life for himself. He describes himself as “restlessly aspiring, discontented me.” His wish to better his circumstances comes true when he comes into an unexpected small fortune, enabling him to become a young gentleman. But with money comes arrogance and the abandoning of his friends, causing him to eventually learn that higher social status is not the same thing as happiness.

The irony is not lost on me that in my own “restlessly aspiring” quest to accumulate knowledge and bag another literary trophy, my great intellectual expectations (pretensions?) may simply be another way of filling a “discontented” void. That is, since I ain’t rich, maybe I’ll feel better about myself if I can rattle off a bunch of highbrow books I’ve read. And hey – it does feel virtuous to finally read a great classic that I’ve heard about all my life. So even if my motive for pursuing Dickens, Tolstoy, and Emerson is just bragging rights, what’s the harm in that? Desires can lead to enlightenment, if for no other reason than we may discover, as Pip did, that achieving our desires leads to temporary fulfillment but not long lasting satisfaction.

So, like Pip, I’ve decided this Thanksgiving week to appreciate what I already have. And since our country and our democracy are in grave danger from political extremism and fanaticism, not to mention Covid 19, economic disruption, and climate change, I intend to appreciate American institutions and legacies while we still have them.

For that reason, I give thanks to the flawed geniuses who created this imperfect and wonderful country. I especially honor General Washington, whose perseverance against overwhelming odds, especially through the terrible winter at Valley Forge, allowed us to establish a government of, by, and for the people. And I greatly respect President Washington for declining the opportunity to be president for life, unlike our would-be dictator currently occupying the White House, who is desperately clinging to and refusing to relinquish power.

I give thanks to President Abraham Lincoln, who successfully guided us through a bloody civil war, and who established our Thanksgiving tradition in 1863 in gratitude for the victory of the Union Army at the battle of Gettysburg. And I appreciate Lincoln for establishing Yosemite as the first national park on Planet Earth (Yellowstone officially has that distinction because it was called a national park, but Lincoln set aside Yosemite as a park years before Yellowstone was designated as such). We have the first, and still the best, national park system in the world, thanks to people like Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Muir.

I give thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt for Social Security and unemployment insurance, and for leading us through the Great Depression and World War II. I give thanks to President John F. Kennedy for keeping us safe during the Cuban missile crisis. And I give thanks to President Lyndon Johnson for Medicare and for civil rights legislation.

I give thanks for the health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. I appreciate the police, who help us maintain a veneer of civilization in these crazy times. And I’m grateful to the firefighters and other first responders here in California for protecting us from the awful wildfires that are being made so much worse by global warming.

I give thanks for journalists who tell the truth, and for our legal system that has resisted efforts at a political coup, and for those profiles in courage, Democrats and Republicans alike, who have defended our constitution and stood up for free and fair elections.

I also give thanks to my parents, who taught me lessons in tolerance, generosity, and unconditional love.

When I was a boy and a young man like Pip, I too had wishful fantasies about how my hopes and dreams would play out. Truth be told, I still harbor some possibly unrealistic preferred outcomes, and in spite of many disappointments I’m reluctant to let them go. But I’m learning to accept the things that I can’t change. At this stage of my life my expectations may not be as great as they once were, but my appreciation has increased significantly. And like Pip at the end of the novel, my ambition is to be filled with affection and an inner moral conscience, no matter what is happening in the external world.

So, dear readers, on this upcoming day of Thanksgiving, may we all be contented with our lives and enjoy and appreciate our families, friends, and country.