Ecocentricity Blog: Feeling Gratitudinal

Ahhhhhhh, it’s that time of year again. With a chill in the air and the year beginning to wind down, Americans gather together with their families to celebrate a time-honored tradition: giving thanks.

And stuffing our faces while binging on NFL games for an entire day, all while we yell at our “loved” ones because of their differing political views before we wake up at ridiculous hours the next morning so we can throw our money at whatever stores have the stuff we want.

Honestly, Thanksgiving-themed blog posts are hard to write. You can either write the nice, thoughtful post (paragraph 1) or the edgy, biting post that serves as a social commentary (paragraph 2). All of it has been over-played, and much like a wedding toast, it’s nearly impossible to be original.

So forget originality and brace yourself for some warm-and-fuzzies, because I’m about to get all gratitudinal on you! And no, gratitudinal is not a word, though whether or not it should be is an open question.

I’m a lucky one in that I enjoy family gatherings. Whether with my side of the family or my wife’s, coming together is always a good time, especially because it means there are extra people to watch our young children so that we don’t have to ALL THE TIME. Side note, I’m gratitudinal for my kids too, I promise.

Anywho, I’m particularly fortunate that I get to work with my family. The four Trustees of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation are my mother, father, aunt and uncle. I’ve loved them all as long as I can remember, but working with them the past five years has allowed us to grow even closer together. To Mary Anne, Jaime, Harriet and Phil, thank you for allowing me to be a part of advancing Ray’s legacy!

I also have the luxury of working with my wife, siblings, and cousins on our Foundation’s NextGen Committee. This year in particular has been a fun one. We decided to focus on climate change, soliciting proposals from nonprofits with efforts that can measurably reduce the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Honestly, it was a lot of fun reviewing the proposals and then discussing them with my family. We are proud of the grant that we made to Second Nature, which you can read about here. I’m particularly gratitudinal for my wife, who chaired our committee this year.

I hope that you are able to gather with your family this week and find peace and joy in the time spent together. It really is a special time of year. I imagine that we all have a lot to feel gratitudinal for.

Yep, it should definitely be a word.

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