Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.
Folks in US celebrate the arrival of Pilgrims in Plymouth Rock and the feast that was held with the help of Indians.
It sounds so nice when you hear the Pilgrims (who eventually became the conquerors) were taught what to plant in this new found and navigate around in this part of the world were finally put in reservations and became casino owners. These Indians were eventually treated better than the Indians who are not given all these perks by the Mexicans.
Why are they folks called Native Indians? Because Columbus was adamant that he found India and continued to call these folks Indians while like Russell Peters says Indians in India are saying "Columbus, where are you? When are you coming?
Back to Thanksgiving . The story of Pilgrims and the thanksgiving feast is now a retailers biggest sales days in US .
While folks are getting ready to shop for black friday and cyber monday for big ticket items to aaa batteries here are 2 questions to ponder in the order listed below
1. What did you do this year that some one else is thankful for?
2. What are you thankful for?
Did you donate money to charity?
Did you help by donating time?
Did you stuff to good will?
Did you teach a kid that is not yours? - mentor middle school or high school at risk kids
Did you think about helping people? - just the thought.
If no one is thankful for you except your company,your friends and family and retailers whom you supported then you should consider being in the list of some one who thanks you for your help.
Making this a thanksgiving tradition to ask this question to yourself ,your friends and family? If you are not in US and you have nothing to do with thanksgiving then make this the New year's Eve question for yourself and your friends and family.
This question and the fact that this is important has bee recently published in a study by Psychology today and it has a lot of practical uses to help you be more happy by feeling more useful (not feeling used)
Now to the second question
What are you thankful for?
This question has a lot of importance too
1. If you make it a practise for the next 20 days to daily document 3 things that you are thankful about it trains a new habit in finding thankful things
In the book
QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life Hardcover
the author John Miller asks us to add the following 2 things and the word I whenever you find yourself complaining
Example - If your complaint is The traffic is bad. He asks us to ask these questions
What can I do to make traffic better?
How can I make this situation better for me?
Adding the concept of personal accountability is critical to feel more powerful than the situation.
Let says your complaint is
The Government is corrupt.
Add
What can I do to make the government better?
How can I make this government better?
This means you can act on this and you are making yourself part of solution. If you don't want to be a politician then stop complaining but atleast vote for right candidates, submit petitions, create blog and post useful stuff(or useless stuff like me) to let everyone know how they can help along with you.
I think you get the point
2. Look for positive side of any thing that troubles you and starting finding thankful stuff
My Kids are annoying me and not letting me work -
Change it to thank god and I have kids and also I have a job.
The weather is very bad .It is raining.
Change it to - I am happy to atleast be in a place where I can sleep and work which is not affected by this rain. The grass will grow green and there will be less drought.
My job is not exciting
Change it to - I am thankful I have a Job and adding the QMB principle what can I do to make this work more exciting ?
There is a concept of Learned Helplessness and Learned Optimism popularized by Martin Seligman
I will talk about those books in the future posts and for now eat your turkey (if you are a vegetarian eat whatever you eat) .shop your retailers and ponder over these questions
1, What am I thankful for?
2. How can I take personal accountability ?
3. What did I do that some one else is thankful for?
Happy Thanksgiving
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran
Folks in US celebrate the arrival of Pilgrims in Plymouth Rock and the feast that was held with the help of Indians.
It sounds so nice when you hear the Pilgrims (who eventually became the conquerors) were taught what to plant in this new found and navigate around in this part of the world were finally put in reservations and became casino owners. These Indians were eventually treated better than the Indians who are not given all these perks by the Mexicans.
Why are they folks called Native Indians? Because Columbus was adamant that he found India and continued to call these folks Indians while like Russell Peters says Indians in India are saying "Columbus, where are you? When are you coming?
Back to Thanksgiving . The story of Pilgrims and the thanksgiving feast is now a retailers biggest sales days in US .
While folks are getting ready to shop for black friday and cyber monday for big ticket items to aaa batteries here are 2 questions to ponder in the order listed below
1. What did you do this year that some one else is thankful for?
2. What are you thankful for?
Did you donate money to charity?
Did you help by donating time?
Did you stuff to good will?
Did you teach a kid that is not yours? - mentor middle school or high school at risk kids
Did you think about helping people? - just the thought.
If no one is thankful for you except your company,your friends and family and retailers whom you supported then you should consider being in the list of some one who thanks you for your help.
Making this a thanksgiving tradition to ask this question to yourself ,your friends and family? If you are not in US and you have nothing to do with thanksgiving then make this the New year's Eve question for yourself and your friends and family.
This question and the fact that this is important has bee recently published in a study by Psychology today and it has a lot of practical uses to help you be more happy by feeling more useful (not feeling used)
Now to the second question
What are you thankful for?
This question has a lot of importance too
1. If you make it a practise for the next 20 days to daily document 3 things that you are thankful about it trains a new habit in finding thankful things
In the book
QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life Hardcover
the author John Miller asks us to add the following 2 things and the word I whenever you find yourself complaining
Example - If your complaint is The traffic is bad. He asks us to ask these questions
What can I do to make traffic better?
How can I make this situation better for me?
Adding the concept of personal accountability is critical to feel more powerful than the situation.
Let says your complaint is
The Government is corrupt.
Add
What can I do to make the government better?
How can I make this government better?
This means you can act on this and you are making yourself part of solution. If you don't want to be a politician then stop complaining but atleast vote for right candidates, submit petitions, create blog and post useful stuff(or useless stuff like me) to let everyone know how they can help along with you.
I think you get the point
2. Look for positive side of any thing that troubles you and starting finding thankful stuff
My Kids are annoying me and not letting me work -
Change it to thank god and I have kids and also I have a job.
The weather is very bad .It is raining.
Change it to - I am happy to atleast be in a place where I can sleep and work which is not affected by this rain. The grass will grow green and there will be less drought.
My job is not exciting
Change it to - I am thankful I have a Job and adding the QMB principle what can I do to make this work more exciting ?
There is a concept of Learned Helplessness and Learned Optimism popularized by Martin Seligman
I will talk about those books in the future posts and for now eat your turkey (if you are a vegetarian eat whatever you eat) .shop your retailers and ponder over these questions
1, What am I thankful for?
2. How can I take personal accountability ?
3. What did I do that some one else is thankful for?
Happy Thanksgiving
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran
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