This week, all around America, people will be celebrating Thanksgiving.
This is a time where we strive to take a moment, a day, and some take a week to live in gratitude and thankfulness, but at times, the rush and hustle of this season, we become pressured to focus on comparison and competition.
Instead of being fully immersed in the precious moments with our friends and family, we are somewhere else; we are in the competition of ensuring we are winning in the rat race towards the perfect Thanksgiving that is branded in the American Dream, a race that becomes so exhausting and unfulfilling.
This past Sunday, I am realizing more and more the importance of storing treasures that mold and dust can’t get to, and guess what, my newest rose gold MacBook Air that I am currently typing on will soon become obsolete along with my Apple Watch, the massive TV in our den, my 2017 Hyundai Sonata, my Master’s degree, my 4-bedroom home, my high school awards.
All of these accolades we have acquired and plan to acquire will one day be a vapor, here for a moment and then gone.
Please don’t hear what I am not saying, please continue to strive and move forward towards growth and transformation, but let’s keep the main thing, the main thing in our lives.
Stuff can’t sustain; only love sustains.
Someone once told me that when we are on our death beds are we really going to ask for our money, our stuff to surround us before our last breath. No, we are going to ask to be surrounded by our loved ones because those memories are eternal, live on and sustain us more than stuff.
This Thanksgiving week, I encourage you to choose community over competition.
I am hosting Thanksgiving in our home this coming Thursday, and I am so excited, yet my mind loves to ping pong back and forth with surrendering to the pressure to make sure everything is perfect rather than surrendering to embracing the moments that are more permanent.
Small details like making sure my flooring is shiny and spotless, my white cabinets in my kitchen are free from scuffs, to spending more time with my turkey than my own husband because there is this pressure to ensure my turkey is perfect or else Thanksgiving could possibly be ruined, but then there is something in my soul that beckons me to slow down, to truly be present, to not rush human connection, to choose to find time in nature, allowing the warmth of the sun to kiss my skin, to take a deep breath, engage and live in the spirit of gratitude, who is God, the great Divine, the Love that sustains all life.
Strive to truly be present and commune with your loved ones this Thanksgiving; surrender the hustle and rush.
We don’t have to participate in the rat race of perfection.
I would rather miss out on perfection than miss out on permanence, the memories that live on forever in our hearts and minds when we truly show up and be all there with those around us.
I pray that you live in the spirit of gratitude by choosing community over competition.
Let’s choose permanent over perfect this season.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
“19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”