Let Thanksgiving Open the Door to Lasting Peace

It’s Thanksgiving week, which we all naturally associate with the big meal, family time, and perhaps travel. But how much airtime do we give to the act of giving thanks on Thanksgiving? The answer, for many of us, is not much. Gratitude, especially if adopted as a daily practice beyond the fourth Thursday in November, can completely change our lives and perspective, a fact I too often missed in my life.

The Opposite of Gratitude

Perhaps the opposite of gratitude is the common narrative by which so many of us unconsciously live. It goes something like: “I’ll be happy when…” or “I’ll be enough when…”
 
I say “unconsciously” because we don’t always say this out loud or even in our minds—we just behave as though it’s true. “My ‘real’ life will start when… I get into this college, I get this job, I start a company, I buy a house, I lose 20 pounds, I get married, I have kids, I have a certain amount of money…”
 
On the surface, this narrative may seem logical and reasonably harmless. Deeply wanting something motivates you to move toward your goals, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with motivation or goals. But take a moment and consider any goal you have accomplished in life—being admitted into a certain college, buying a particular car, getting a job or promotion. How did you feel after achieving that goal? You likely had a period of pride, relief, or maybe even joy. And then after some time, your level of “happiness” leveled out, placing you right back where you were before hitting that goal.
 
This dynamic is called hedonic adaptation, a well-researched psychological pattern in which positive or negative life events have only a short-term effect on our baseline level of happiness.

For most of my life, I believed that my happiness was on the other side of achievement, wealth, or some external milestone. And, of course, hedonic adaptation was a reliable phenomenon for me: the things I thought would satiate me once and for all never did. As Jim Carrey said, “I wish everybody could get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that’s not the answer.”
 
So, if long-term happiness doesn’t come from hitting goals, attaining wealth, or some other external achievement, where do we find it?

“Positive or negative life events have only a short-term effect on our baseline level of happiness.”

Recalibrating Our Objective Function

I have come to the unsettling realization that chasing happiness itself is part of the problem—we’re likely optimizing for the wrong thing. As Naval Ravikant said, “Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get something.” If you approach life as I did—just moving from one goal (or desire) to the next—you might live your entire life with a dull sense of lack or dissatisfaction. You will be waiting for your “real” life to start forever.

“I have come to the unsettling realization that chasing happiness itself is part of the problem—we’re likely optimizing for the wrong thing.”

Moving toward goals that are important to you is great, so long as you understand that achieving them will not be the fix you think it will. When we realize the optimal objective function isn’t happiness, and more of everything isn’t the way to obtain it, we can replace it with something much sturdier: peace.

If peace sounds boring, that’s probably because we’ve been sold the lie that it is akin to giving up. We’ve been taught that we need to be constantly moving toward something, achieving something, or getting something to be enough. For years, I thought peace was for monks or people who had “settled” in life. I didn’t realize it was what I’d been chasing all along.

“When we realize the optimal objective function isn’t happiness, and more of everything isn’t the way to obtain it, we can replace it with something much sturdier: peace.”

In reality, peace is the state of inner and outer harmony—the quiet that arises when we can accept reality as it is and still feel whole. That is quite a different message from the onslaught of advertisements and social media posts that say the exact opposite: “You can finally rest when you have this watch, car, house, job, salary, vacation, partner, golf swing, outfit, etc.”
 
But peace is not something we need to work for to attain. True peace is always in the same place: it is here now. It is never “out there” somewhere. It is never dependent on an external event. By definition, peace is the mindset that nothing (external or internal) needs to be different than it is now.
 
I once asked my meditation teacher what the path to enlightenment was, and how long it would take me to get there. He said, “As long as you think you need to do something to reach it, you will never reach it. You will reach enlightenment when you realize it is here now.” The same is true for peace.

“True peace is always in the same place: it is here now.”

Gratitude + Presence = Peace

The foundations of peace are gratitude and presence—gratitude for who you are, where you are, and what you have, and presence to be where you are and not wish you were somewhere else. Gratitude is deeper than thanking God (or the universe or your soul) for what you have while asking for just a little bit more in the next breath. Gratitude is recognizing that you already have—you already are—everything you need. And not needing something is the same as having it.

“Gratitude is recognizing that you already have—you already are—everything you need.”

Inner acceptance doesn’t keep you from working on yourself, exercising, reading, learning, or growing. It doesn’t mean you can’t buy anything on Black Friday or set goals in the new year. It simply helps you realize you don’t need these things to be enough. You have always been enough.
 
So this Thanksgiving, take a moment to give thanks for what’s already within you. Gratitude isn’t a moment in November; it’s a rebellion against the lie that you need something more to be whole.
 
Peace doesn’t arrive when everything is perfect. It arrives the moment you stop demanding that it be.