Giving thanks where thanks are due

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and thus some thanks are in order. We should be thinking of things to be thankful for all year round, and Thanksgiving is a special reminder of that, especially for those of us who don?t do it as often as we should.

One thing I am thankful for, and which we should all be thankful for, is being alive in the year 2011. The other day I was chatting with a friend about the Occupy Wall Street movement and its slogan along the lines of ?We are the 99 percent.? I remarked that, from a historical perspective, everyone in the First World is in the top 1 percent.

For thousands of years humans lived in what we would consider today abject poverty. Economist Angus Madison estimated that the average annual income in western Europe in the year 1 A.D. was $600. It took more than 1,800 years for that number to double to $1,200. After that, incomes soared. They tripled by 1913, tripled again by 1973 and nearly doubled by 2003 to $21,000. In short, if you are reading this newspaper you are probably among the richest people to have ever lived, and that?s something to be thankful for.

On a more personal level, I am thankful for the health I have enjoyed over 25 years on this planet. I have never suffered a broken bone nor spent a night in a hospital. I try to remind myself of this whenever I?m down in the dumps because of a cough or sinus infection. It?s easy to make a mountain out of a molehill when you live moment to moment and never reflect on the big picture. And in my case, the big picture looks pretty good.

It did not always seem that way. My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was 10 years old. The cancer was removed. Two yeas later, the cancer returned and this time it required chemotherapy to treat. I am happy to report that, 15 years after her first battle with cancer, my mother is alive and well and will be visiting me this weekend.

My two sisters will also be visiting me this weekend. We all live several hours away from each other now so we can?t get together as often as we used to. When we were kids, I will admit that I was not the nicest of brothers. Now that we?re grown and live in different cities, we appreciate each other?s company much more, and I?m thankful for that.