Thanksgiving 2011

At Golden Harbor. 

Thanksgiving at the Apartment.

...with Mark too.

And can't forget about the family.

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Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks. I don't know how often we think of that nowadays. Sometimes it seems like some take it just as an opportunity to pig out and eat food. Do we give thanks to the people who prepared it, planned the events or the people who you shared it with? Outside of Thanksgiving, do we think about what we're thankful for in life?

As everyone else always says, I'm really thankful for my friends and family. However, how often do we tell our friends and family? Better yet, how often do we mean it? How do you know that I'm not just saying I'm thankful just to be a nice guy? Did I think about what it means to be thankful...or why do I feel thankful towards those friends and family? And another question -- how often do we show it?

I've had a really rough semester since school started and my year before that wasn't so awesome either. I've had a lot of ups and downs...struggles to be happy. Without going into details about all that, it's made me really think about what I have to be thankful for. Whether you believe me or not, I really am thankful for a lot of my friends and my family.

When you're in a really deep hole, you first need something to grab onto, then you use your own strength to pull yourself out. In this case, I grabbed onto a lot of things. Friends, new and old, held out their hands for me. Family held out their hands for me. And the thought of friends and family, who I knew truly cared about me, gave me the strength to pull myself out.

I'm thankful for all of these people.

Please, truly think about who you're thankful for. Tell them, show them. Don't take the important people in your life for granted.