Thanksgiving Needs More Than a Day

Thanksgiving season's just passed and now its time for jolly ole Saint Nick, and trees lined with presents, but I think we move passed the feasting and time for reflection too quickly. Thanksgiving the time for hours of cooking and copios amounts of food. The turkey, the potatoes, the stuffing and for me the delicious banana bread. What's better than sitting down with your loved ones and eating tons of delicious food?

 The commercial holiday that is Christmas, takes up everyone's minds. A lot of people love stuff. I love christmas as much as the next guy, but there's something about the closeness of Thanksgiving that people lose sight of. A time away from work, school, and the troubles of life where you spend time with your family, cook together, eat together, and reflect on what you're grateful for, that's just fantastic. A time to say hold on, I'm stressed and troubled and I keep struggling but I have all these people and all these things and opportunities, how can you not be happy when you think about the good things in your life rather than the bad.

Maybe this year instead of the black friday rush, and the desire for all the new things we can't wait to get for Christmas, why not appreciate the things we already have, and enjoy this time of some peace in our lives rather than add more stress to it. So many things wanted by so many people, what about the things and the people you've had your entire life that have made you happy every day before these new toys rolled around.

Thanksgiving and Christmas, there is no contest, both seasons of joy and breaks from the norm but  why can't we hold on to the great parts of Thanksgiving instead of jumping through the doors of every store on Black Friday as we await our gifts on Christmas day.

Whats wrong?

The two hardest things that I've ever had to go through are probably the death of my grandfather and the death of my basketball coach. These are serious things that will have changed me for my entire life, two of the few times I have and will ever have cried. Serious stuff. Don't think anyone will ask why it upset me, that it wasn't really a big deal, of course its a big deal. Two pieces of my life disappeared, never to be heard or visited again.

Death is real loss. It is real pain. It is something that rightfully has the power to consume and tear someone down.

Now a days, my big problems are school. Why is school my entire life and all of my worries? Does it make sense that a learning establishment deserves my attention 24/7 and gets to make me unhappy? I guess I'm the only one to blame though. Trying to do well to have a good future, requires a lot of work. How I feel is up to me. I'm not saying school has put me into a wreck, not at all. I just feel that sometimes school does get the better of me and it can be its own kind of pain.

I'm obviously happy any of you that know me. I have a lot of things in life going for me. My families great, my grades are good, I play basketball and have a lot of fun in band however school and homework fills up most of my life. Should school be the largest aspect of our lives because once it is, you realize that school is life. They say that we need to run and play and get our sleep but we stay up attempting to do as well as we can while trying to avoid the point of unhappiness in schools efforts.

I don't know if anyone feels the same I do and it doesn't really matter, I just was stressing about school all day and procrastinating but i couldn't enjoy the day because it was there, sitting on my lap. None of this is schools fault in a whole, I obviously could be doing more, why not just get it done, get rid of the distractions, then do things. It's because i don't think i can, I feel like I'll go crazy. School and work is constant, never ending, and when you have to face something everyday that has no enjoyment, exhausts you and you see no point to it can drive you crazy.

School is needed and it is a great thing. Everyone who has the ability to go to schools is incredibly lucky. Knowledge is power, and school sets you up to go on to great jobs, to make new discoveries and to help the world.

My big point to all this is that why is not that school is bad, it is that I lost two of the most important people in my life and it caused immense pain yet but I feel the same things pain and stress from school. My focus and my struggles are from the place that is supposed to prepare me for life and take on the world. Life should be what makes us happy and that's what we should fill it with. Knowledge gives us the ability to find happiness and hold on to it yet school seems more like a testing ground than a place of learning, and seeing a constant stress because of papers, scores, and grades that I can see as a big issue in my life when some of the biggest are the losses of my dearest loved ones is scary. I guess I can't control school so I'll keep living remembering this, that i need to remember the real fears in life not the mere distractions I have to face.

This stress and the fact that stresses of school compare to my deepest pain is what was wrong.