Around Thanksgiving time, everyone has probably been asked: What are you grateful for? Many of us, myself included, will often respond in a few seconds with an answer like “family,” “friends,” or “a roof over my head.” While there isn’t anything wrong with these answers, the frequent quick responses raise the question: Is this an answer that we think about, or is it a response that, from countless hearings of the question, has been hardwired into our thinking? Is “What are you grateful for,” even a beneficial question? It seems clear that the little consideration put towards answering the question of gratitude has made the question lack beneficiality.

This question hit me while walking through the admissions hallway, where students answered the question of gratitude and had been posted on leaves in the form of a “Gratitude Grove.” Looking at this, I realized that it was not only me who had often given a fairly simple response but over half the school. With the majority of the answers being “family,” “friends,” and “water,” it seemed evident that this issue with gratitude seemed to affect all ages. To preface this I would like to remind you that there is nothing inherently wrong with these answers, rather that their frequency seems to suggest one of two things. Either everyone has pretty much identical lives with the same general people, events, and ideas, or they have been conditioned as a community to give these safe, socially acceptable answers, and so have been ingrained into their minds. While the first is possible, I think it’s fair to say that from all the different people I’ve met, it is pretty clear that everyone has vastly different lives. Because of this, I concluded that it was the latter of the two.

I decided to test this theory on a friend. When asked the question, Oscar Alcazar-Aguilu ‘28 answered with one of these similar answers responding with: “Parents.” However, when given a minute to reflect, he later concluded that at this moment, he was most grateful for Justin Jefferson. “I really like what he’s done with the Vikings, I think he’s an amazing wide receiver,” he said. While perhaps not essential to survival, this answer was an accurate representation of one of the smaller pieces of life that he found important. As put best by author David Ahearn, “At the end of the day, it’s the small things that can make the biggest impact.” It is crucial that, even though there are so many large-scale things to be grateful for, you take a moment once a week, maybe even once a day, to focus on the little things.