Being Thankful, or lack thereof

[seireikhaan]

Okay, this is just something that I really need to vent on. This is something that's been bugging me for the last couple weeks, ever since our U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. During the few days before, of, and after Thanksgiving, I was always being bombarded with the idea of being thankful. That I should be thankful to live in a home. Be thankful that I have the opportunity to go to a University. Listening to others talk about all of the things they were thankful for. And so on. Yet, whenever I reflected on all of it, I realized something. I wasn't thankful. I knew that I should be. Yet, deep down, I just didn't feel thankful for anything. And its bothering me. I feel like there's something just not quite right with me, because I know that I should be thankful for being given what I'm given, and yet, I do not feel thankful. And really, I don't have an excuse. I've worked in soup kitchens, I've helped feed homeless people, and contributed time and money to helping those less fortunate than myself. And yet, I never got any sense of satisfaction from helping people, it just felt like something I was supposed to do. Even after my experiences in seeing those who are born with less, or fall on very difficult times, I still do not feel thankful for anything. I dunno, its just this has been something that's been bothering me, the fact that I honestly cannot remember the last time I've ever felt actually thankful for anything or anyone. Relief, sure. But honest to goodness thankfulness? Nope.

[Beirut]

Maybe you're just not doing anything you really enjoy.

Beight right or righteous isn't enough, sometimes you need to be "Right on!"

[Fragony]

Don't be so hard on yourselve, it's easy to take things for granted. And you help because you feel you should instead of buying morality credits.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

We aren't made to feel much sympathy for people we don't know. Knowing that an acquaintance is starving to death would be much more tragic to us than knowing about all the people starving to death in africa. Maybe if you can see some pictures, see a movie about it, read a story, you will feel sympathy. You don't really know the homeless people.

As for giving thanks, I think human beings are pretty calculating about such things. The pilgrims were thankful because actually having a lot of food was unusual to them. No one is going to be thankful for something unless they might have had it taken away.

[Ice]

Okay, this is just something that I really need to vent on. This is something that's been bugging me for the last couple weeks, ever since our U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. During the few days before, of, and after Thanksgiving, I was always being bombarded with the idea of being thankful. That I should be thankful to live in a home. Be thankful that I have the opportunity to go to a University. Listening to others talk about all of the things they were thankful for. And so on. Yet, whenever I reflected on all of it, I realized something. I wasn't thankful. I knew that I should be. Yet, deep down, I just didn't feel thankful for anything. And its bothering me. I feel like there's something just not quite right with me, because I know that I should be thankful for being given what I'm given, and yet, I do not feel thankful. And really, I don't have an excuse. I've worked in soup kitchens, I've helped feed homeless people, and contributed time and money to helping those less fortunate than myself. And yet, I never got any sense of satisfaction from helping people, it just felt like something I was supposed to do. Even after my experiences in seeing those who are born with less, or fall on very difficult times, I still do not feel thankful for anything. I dunno, its just this has been something that's been bothering me, the fact that I honestly cannot remember the last time I've ever felt actually thankful for anything or anyone. Relief, sure. But honest to goodness thankfulness? Nope.

Join the Peace Corps. Go to one of the dirt poor countries in Africa (DRC, Zimbabwe, etc)

Trust me, you will feel thankful.

[Myrddraal]

And yet, I never got any sense of satisfaction from helping people

It seems if may have been a little bit of an impersonal experience for you. Did you get to know any of the people you were helping, or did you just stand behind a vat of soup and pour it into bowls that belonged to personality-less people in line?

I reckon you get much more satisfaction from helping someone, if you know them, and know just how needy they are emotionally as well as materially. If you know what it means to someone to be helped, you feel you've made a difference for them, it feels a lot better.

Maybe I'm wrong about your experiences, but that's the impression I get.

[Sigurd]

[...] I realized something. I wasn't thankful. I knew that I should be. Yet, deep down, I just didn't feel thankful for anything. And its bothering me. I feel like there's something just not quite right with me, because I know that I should be thankful for being given what I'm given, and yet, I do not feel thankful [...]

I feel I need to respond here. I learned something important a while back which also would concern your worry about something not functioning in you.
I found it in religious philosophy. It concerns good vs. evil.

The philosophy takes it further and explains that there need to be opposition in all things. If there is no evil there can be no good. If there is no sorrow there can be no joy etc.
It also explains that people need to experience sorrow in order to appreciate joy. They need to experience pain to know bliss.
I would say you can’t be thankful for having something until you have experienced loosing it. It is in the nature of this principle that unless you have experienced one side of the opposition you will not understand the other.
You can’t be thankful for living in a home because you haven’t experienced not living in a home. You aren’t thankful for going to a university because you haven’t experienced what it would be like to be uneducated. Besides, men always have problems with empathy; we are not constructed that way.

I say you are perfectly normal and I suspect you are young of age. These experiences will come through time and when you are about to be put in the grave, you’ll have lots to be thankful for.