by Ashley Peeler

I don't want to go the route of clichés and "tis the season" for this and that, but I did recently learn a valuable lesson over the Thanksgiving holiday that can be applied to all of us just about any time outside of the designated time of year we are supposed to count our blessings and remember what matters most.

my wonderful parents

To start, my family has always been very supportive and close, with three children, parents who have been married to each other for my 33 years, and holiday and family traditions occurring in the same house they purchased when I was one year old (I know, an anomaly in this day and age). For what it's worth, we have always been thankful and (I believe) grateful for what my family has provided us, a loving home, caring and attentive parents, good relationships with my siblings, and support when we needed it throughout our education and now adult lives. What I tend sometimes to take for granted is the hard work my parents put into afford us this environment, home, vacations, holidays and general discipline that formed me to the adult I am.

I have recently been under the stress of finishing my MBA, staring a new job, juggling personal commitments and dealing with some marital strife. However, through all of that my parents, brother and sister have been a wonderful support team. This all came to a head on a particularly stressful day where my sister, who values my opinion so highly, texted me that they bought a brand new car. A car, a simple item that they needed and, to their credit, have the ability to afford. That’s it, a car, something to get you from point A to B, and for whatever reason it started a three-day war between my sister and me resulting in nearly the worst Thanksgiving ever. On top of a prior argument over who got to bring their dogs home (pugs vs. great danes and the little ones won), I was so beside myself I burst into tears when I walked through the door Wednesday evening of my parents and didn’t speak to my sister or her husband for going on three days.

Without belaboring the details of her husband ignoring me and my father basically telling us to take it outside and figure it out or there would be consequences (yes, for 30-somethings he still wields that power), I was forced to consider the fact that the rest of my life and all of my stress had spilled over and on to the group of people who matter most. If you have a family like mine and you know that the biggest argument used to be over who got the middle seat to themselves on a family trip, then a ruined holiday is by far a crushing feeling, much less dividing the family over trivial matters like a purchase that has nothing to do with me personally. (Don’t get me started on what happens to the person who has the first grandchild.)

my family

So what is the point I am trying to make? No matter who it is in your life – family, spouse, colleagues, friends – these people are your support system, whether acknowledged or not. And each and every one of them has a life outside of yours, believe it or not, and has their own list of things they are dealing with. It’s how you chose to handle yours that can make or break it. I am extremely thankful for my family, I am grateful for the things we do for one another, and I am now humbled by the fact that nothing should ever be so overwhelming as to make me take my frustration out on them to the point of running a relationship. I stubbornly refused to even look at the car over Thanksgiving, but I should have been so humble to swallow my jealously to be happy for them. This was a moment for them, not me, and at the end of the day it had no bearing on my life, work, decisions, finances, etc. Do not get so swallowed up in yourself that you think the world must revolve around you. Enjoy the moments you have with the people that matter most. Jealousy is energy wasted that could be used for helping those less fortunate than you, which there are many. Be thankful for what you have, not what someone else has. If you work hard you will be rewarded. In the spirit of giving, forgo a few lattes these next two weeks and donate to an angel tree. or if you have had a longstanding argument with someone, be the bigger person and call them up and talk it out. Harboring the frustration will only wear you down and cause you to lose sight of the things that matter most.

So I ask you to enjoy the season, whatever you may be celebrating and once New Year’s rolls around, continue to be thankful, grateful, and most of all humble.