54 Types of People I’m Grateful For This Thanksgiving

Image source: Gemma Chua-Tran on Unsplash

A few days ago, on a particularly rough night, I decided to make a gratitude list. These lists are usually easy for me to make as I’m someone built to keep my sense of awe and wonder close. But this time, after penning a half dozen glaringly obvious points, I ran out of things to write.

It’s been a hard year, to say the least. But most years are hard in their own way. What has made 2020 this specific type of difficult — a type that you cannot gargle out like an infection, untangle with sufficient focus and persistence, or push through with sheer grit — is its unique texture of loneliness.

This isn’t a loneliness brought about by being alone. It’s an acute knowledge of the fresh negative space left behind, the aftermath of multiple tough decisions we’ve each had to make in the wake of the global havoc the year has wrecked (or perhaps, the collective awakening it has called for).

I knew that if I stopped writing the list where I was at, I’d leave the exercise sadder than I began — Was there this little in my life to be grateful for? Or was I so obtuse than I couldn’t see more of the fortunes and privileges I had?

To avoid that spiral, I quit trying to think of things actively populating my life. Instead, I began thinking of the types of incredible people who exist in this world. I figured that if I didn’t have the ingredients to create a concoction that would rid me of this loneliness, I could at least remind myself that I’ve witnessed its existence. And that if I stick around through the process, someday soon, I’ll get to fill myself up on the world these people are creating.

I’m sharing my list here, for anyone searching for gratitude right now. If we cannot find abundant thankfulness, may we at least keep hope close. And don’t forget, regardless of where you are at and how you feel right now, you may be what keeps someone else going, simply because you exist.

1. Folks who are innately wired to be a little kinder than necessary. Your being is proof of a goodness that is not earned, that cannot be taken away from humanity.
2. The ones who are not afraid of people’s darkness, who allow those around them every negative emotion without trying to change it. Your radical permission is the wait room we seek solace in before we can emerge wiser and stronger from our pain.
3. The ones who fight back against systems that have beaten them up far too many times. You are what keeps this world on its heels, always trying to do better.
4. The ones who are perpetually angry about injustice, who cannot be okay even if those around them forget. Your fire keeps our fights warm.
5. The ones who vociferously stand up for others though it costs them to lose something, who do it as though it were the only choice they had. Your allyship shifts the voice of the downtrodden from a warcry to a song of hope.
6. Everyone trying to unlearn, relearn, and change, even though it’s uncomfortable, even though it’s icky, even though it’s two steps forward and one step back. You still carry this world forward.
7. Everyone who works behind the scenes to keep this world together, to keep it going. You position yourself, often cloak yourself, to miss the spotlight. But let’s not kid around, you are the spotlight.
8. Idealists. Every honest and pure thing that happened in this world was because someone like you believed it could.
9. People who try. You are the extensive, intricate roadmap for everyone who wonders what if.
10. Those who work tirelessly to bridge the gap between two different ways of thought, who do not condemn easily, who believe in engaging and redirecting best they can. You are the sutures along the historically wounded trails of human separation.
11. Those who choose to dedicate their lives to learning about, helping, loving, and saving our planet. You do it for beings that do not applaud, for a future you may not be a part of. If we survive another 100 years, it will only be because you planted.
12. On that note, vegans. We can’t all be you just yet, but man, I’m grateful for you.
13. The ones who look at facts, who are deeply committed to science, and constantly dispel misinformation. Your intellectual energy is the wheels we ride progress on.
14. The ones who are guided by feelings, who pay attention to the hearts and truths of everyone they meet. Your clairvoyance is what we will return to through every intellectual fog.
15. Empaths, who feel more than many of us can fathom, who viscerally know the entire human condition of everyone they cross paths with. Your love is an inclusive feast, a spread where there’s something for everyone.
16. People who follow the good rules, even when it’s mundane and repetitive. Most of this life is easy to navigate because of the daily tenacity with which you lay down safe paths around us.
17. People who break the rules. Your brave aberrations are what changes this world, what makes it better.
18. Those who leap and then think. Your wild, reckless heartbeat pumps life into this world, it gets the rest of us moving.
19. Those who contemplate long and hard, and then make purposeful strides. You shift the axis we spin on.
20. People with a ton of unpopular opinions. You risk not belonging every day. You cannot be tempted easily, cannot be bought out. When we think of showing up as ourselves, we think of you.
21. People who are agnostic by nature, whose minds birth possibility at the end of every sentence. Your gracious imagination means that there will always be a chance, even for the most forlorn.
22. People comfortable saying ‘I don’t know’. You ground us, constantly reminding us about the magnitude of human ignorance, and the scope of individual betterment if we can humble ourselves to choose it.
23. Everyone checking their ego, working to move past immediate responses, trying to accommodate the realities of those around them. You are the mark of the evolution of mankind.
24. Those who dare to have hard conversations at dinner and tea, who risk letting pizza and chai taste of disappointment, hurt, and anger. That change of taste you endure is proof of a tonic that is healing communities from the inside out.
25. The parents who accept and the children who meet their folks halfway. You are moulding the super-lever that will help let go of generational trauma. You are why those after us will know suffering at least a little less.
26. Adults who still keep their child-like sense of wonder close. You give kids something to look forward to, you make growing up seem worth the effort.
27. Everyone who has contemplated ending it all and chosen to stay alive instead. Thank you. We need you. I promise.
28. Those who see beauty wherever they look. Your magic is the sparkle that surrounds every story of a second chance, of a rebirth, of a redemption from a life that someone would not have survived much longer.
29. Those who continue doing the little things because they have faith that it matters. Yours is the ink we will write in when we run out of large, visible changes we can make to improve, heal, and grow.
30. Those who fight for their relations, especially when it’s so much easier to give up. Your battle dances mark humanity with the belief that people are worth trying for.
31. Those who wait on people they love to change, to evolve, to come around. The world is your prodigal son, eternally grateful to you.
32. People who cry fearlessly, often. You embody the liberty to feel and release the heaviness of life. You remind us to lean into the inevitable process of being human.
33. People who laugh loudly, often. Your unbounded joy ricochets through this universe, often finding people who need precisely that sound to unlock their own mirth.
34. Those who do not judge, who keep secrets, and honour promises. You are the land where the broken rediscover acceptance and the scarred heal through vulnerability. You are where the scorned and scorched learn to trust again.
35. Those who take the time to think of what people aren’t saying, and ask about it. Your ability to read between the lines completes the pictures that most of us struggle to draw with blunt words that merely generate rough sketches of a truth.
36. Listeners. The ones who know how to ask the right questions and to endlessly open up space for others to speak, sort through, and find ourselves. We wouldn’t know who we were or understand our stories if it weren’t for you.
37. Those who open up first in a conversation. You dare to show your vulnerable without knowing how it’ll be perceived. If you weren’t opening these gates constantly, inviting people in, trusting them with your softness, no one would ever really know anyone else.
38. Those who say ‘I love you’ an uncomfortable lot. You may not realize it, but too often, you are one only ones who say that to many of us. Your words are a salient link to our worthiness.
39. Those who tell people they miss them when they do. You constantly remind us how easy it is to reach out, how much of a difference the simplest words can make.
40. The ones who never forget, good memories, old friends, birthdays, important dates. Your memory is the mirror we look into when we need to remember where we come from.
41. The ones who forgive easily, who believe in second, third, and fiftieth chances. You don’t offer leniency with a boundary, you offer a blank slate every day. It is your nook that we run to when we need to fail and pivot over and over and over again, until we get it right.
42. Those skilled in thinking of the bigger picture, predicting it, understanding it, and helping us get there safely. Your intuitive vision is the north star we turn to in the darkest of hours, we trust you to shepherd us through.
43. Those who find or create adventure in everyday life. You enchant the quotidian now, turning it into the party to be at. You show us how to occupy the meat of our narratives by making the in-betweens extraordinary celebrations of living.
44. People who are strikingly odd, and never try to change that. Your rugged edges puncture everything that’s flattened itself into external perfection, anything that isn’t authentic and rugged just like you.
45. The cheerleaders of life. The ones who cheer for us when we win with the same gusto as they cheer us up when we lose. A chameleon to the spirits of your people, the bigness of who you are is transparent.
46. People who do not waste any talent. You call us out to honour our gifts by paying homage to each of yours.
47. People who do not capitalize on every talent. We admire how you’ve eliminated the outer watchful eye. We study how you create with silly, giddy, gleeful abandon, and with morose, forbearing, piercing pain. You are the original creator, the truest of artists.
48. People for whom age and weight aren’t scary numbers but opportunities to celebrate how fully they’ve lived. Your life is the wisdom we seek when we look for meaning and purpose.
49. People who’ve seen senseless cruelty but did not let it harden them. You had every right to shut down, to give up. We know it was a deliberate choice to pick everything else you did instead. When we are at a crossroads trying to decide what to believe in, we ask ourselves what you’d do.
50. People who’ve tasted success but did not let it consume them. You are the reliable narrator we listen to to know what’s worth the trouble and what will never be.
51. Those who build larger tables, not higher walls. You remind us that we do not run out of glory if we share its fruits. You are the cornerstone of community, the beginning of endless tales of belonging.
52. Those who give generously, their time, their resources, their knowledge. It is upon your initial steps that we build every staircase worth climbing.
53. People who believe that love is a verb, and that most often it translates into simply showing up. None of us may know how to accurately describe love, but when we are with you, we are immersed in it, we become it.
54. Those who give infinitely more than they receive, who always find a way to pay the resplendent parts of life forward. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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