Thankful For Spinach
There was a low level rumbling in my consciousness over the Thanksgiving holiday each time someone spoke about being thankful because he or she had it better than someone else. I traced the rumbling to an old mental recording that played on the edge of awareness, like a song on a neighbor’s radio faintly heard on a still night.
The recording begins with an adult telling a child (me) to eat spinach because the “poor starving children in China” have nothing to eat. If you are under a certain age or not American, you might never have heard that old admonition, but most American people of my age heard it more than once, usually about a vegetable.
My self-centered, lacking in thankfulness, childhood reaction was, “Fine. Send this spinach to China, and could I maybe have a hot dog or something with peanut butter?” I knew better than to say it out loud.
Today, comparison is not my preferred route to thankfulness, except to compare how I once was with how I am today, to appreciate what is in my life that once was not, or to celebrate what I quit that needed quitting. I am occasionaly struck by a there but for the grace of God go I impulse. I suppose I am hard wired to do so because of spinach and Chinese children, but I would rather not have my own thankfulness depend on the misery of others.
Tags: comparison, thankfulness
