The Positive Power of Thanksgiving

By: Leslie G. Sarasin, President and CEO, FMI

When confronted with life's challenges, we have multiple emotional paths we can go down — anger, frustration, anxiety, resentment, and sadness, to name a few. Each of these has its place and time, but these paths, if followed for very long, often result in a heavier, more burdened heart. One of the great truths I have learned is that when working my way through a challenging time, there is one path that always offers more promise. It's sometimes more difficult to find, but the path of gratitude always leads to a lighter heart.

In any situation, if I can find the aspects for which I am grateful and concentrate my energy on those, I find my perspective shifts, new avenues open-up to me and possibilities feel amplified.

This is one of the many reasons I love the Thanksgiving holiday. It's a day set aside for us to remember, rediscover, and recover the positive power of gratitude. Usually in the favorable company of family, friends, and great food, we are asked to focus on those things in our lives for which we give thanks.

Our immigrant ancestors, the pilgrim settlers, worked hard to tame an unknown land, converting a wilderness into a cultivated land capable of producing the food necessary to sustain them. Even with the help of friendly indigenous folks, they toiled under difficult conditions. They were surrounded by hardships and challenges, and they knew the winter months that lay ahead would bring new ones. Still, within this context of challenges past and challenges future, our ancestors chose the path of gratitude. They opted to pause and lighten their hearts by offering thanks. In so doing, it changed the tenor of their challenges.

They knew — and we can learn — that gratitude doesn't ignore or sugarcoat our hardships but it does change the way we feel, making all of us more approachable.

Please know that at the Sarasin Thanksgiving table, I will be offering my thanks for work I find fulfilling because it enables me to labor beside some of the most gifted, kind, and caring human beings I've had the pleasure to encounter. I am grateful for you and the work you do on behalf of our nation.

If, after having a day of counting your blessings, you are moved to pay it forward, the upcoming Giving Tuesday on December 3 provides you with the opportunity. I would invite you to consider the FMI Foundation among the charitable organizations you support on this day of giving inspired by your thanksgiving. Your contributions help fund the FMI Foundation's food safety scholarships, support the National Family Meals Movement, and enable us to provide grants to groups that support food safety, health & well-being, and social responsibility. Please contact my colleagues David Fikes or Haley Pierce to pledge your support.