Thanksgiving should be the best of all holidays. As long as you don’t read 1491, then it’s an opportunity to remember how lucky you are to be alive. Add to that the two main tasks: Feasting and Football. What’s not to like?

I spend a lot of Thanksgiving feeling guilty that I don’t feel thankful. It’s because of two lies:

Erroneous Entitlement

Every day, I wrestle with a sense that I’m getting gypped. There’s something awesome out there that I should receive, and I am not getting it. I deserve flatter abs, a better car and a lot more attention.

There is no rational basis for this feeling. Blame advertising, FOO or original sin. It doesn’t matter. When I should be counting my blessings, I’m stewing over my disappointments.

Imaginary Apocalypse

Most of the time when people say “you should be thankful” I want to retort with “yeah, but what if…” The “what if” is usually something disastrous. What if I fail? What if I get cancer? What if I loose everything and end up on the streets?

It’s hard to be thankful when you are busy focusing on fear.

I don’t have a tidy self-help solution, but I know that the first step to overcoming a problem is to name it. What is it that keeps you from being thankful?