In the news business, we often focus on complaints. Calling out injustice, reporting on tragedy, criticizing mismanagement. It comes with the territory. But it can get you down. Which is why, on Thanksgiving weekend, I like to mark the occasion by reflecting on what I have to be thankful for. And to be clear, it’s a lot: a large, loving family; an amazing wife; kids who delight and amaze me; a roof over my head; a job I love. I get to spend my days in conversation with all of you.
But beyond those immediately personal blessings, I sometimes step back and realize that I live in a time and place that makes me among the luckiest people in history.
In Toronto, we live in a society that is among the safest and most prosperous in the world, with clean drinking water (piped into our homes) and abundant food (from every culinary tradition), with access to medical care that allows unprecedented numbers of us to live long and comfortable lives, with a typical standard of living that would be the envy of the aristocracies of earlier generations.
We carry quick access to each other, and to the vast bulk of collected human knowledge, in our pockets. Despite how I might shout into my steering wheel on any given day, it is such a privilege to consider a 30-minute traffic jam some kind of problem in my life.
I don’t point this out with the idea that it should make us less attuned to the work that needs to be done. There is real suffering in our world, and real frustrations and conflicts that need to be resolved. Rather than leading to complacency, an acknowledgement of the ways in which we have it good — and how far we have come together over the course of generations — might strengthen our resolve to do more. It reminds us that change for the better is possible. It shows us the resources we have available to fix problems.
Maybe that’s all getting a little too big picture. So how about a few more specific blessings, large and small: I am grateful to live a short walk from High Park, and a manageable trip to the Scarborough Bluffs and the Toronto Islands.
I am grateful for slices from Badiali and beef patties from Bathurst subway station.
I am grateful for the best public library system in the world and a transit system that, despite its faults, can get me to work most days in a reasonable amount of time.
I am grateful to be able to watch the Leafs and the Sceptres and Blue Jays and Raptors. I am grateful to be able to spend my hours coaching kids’ hockey in the winter and baseball in the summer.
What about you? What aspects of Toronto life are you thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend? Let us know in the comments section below.
