It's safe to say that almost everyone can claim one problem to their name these days. We've all suffered from some kind of traumatic experience, and written our own tragedy down. Everyone had wished for more, wether it was a solution to their problems, or something to bring happiness after a long drought. Maybe we should have listen to our mother when they told us, "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."

But what have we got? Every year people spend time thinking about what they want, as they hustle and bustle through their lives. Even as fast paced as our lives are now, we can't help but want during the holidays. Who's to say we can't have what we want? We've spent the year working, and doing what we're supposed to do. At the end of the year, our patience has been stretched so far, we skip over the one holiday that says just that.

Thanksgiving is the one holiday that is most important. Secretly, it holds us hostage every year. Guilty thoughts seep into our heads as we remember what we should be grateful for. Like a child who wants another cookie, one that's bigger and better, we beg and plead that the holidays will bring us gifts to make our want go away. But what about Thanksgiving. Who's to say this holiday doesn't need some tender, love, and care, as we do with all the other festivities throughout the year?

The secret weapon that Thanksgiving has, the no other holiday had got, is that wether or not you want to, everyone starts thinking. Questions start to bubble up and create trouble in our heads. Perhaps you don't think about what you're grateful for, and perhaps you're smiling as you read this thinking you've gotten off easy. But wether you're aware or not, it affects everyone.

When I was a younger child than i am now, my mother gave me a diary. She told me to write Ten things I was grateful for in it every night. Originally, my first reaction was absolute confusion. Why should I write ten things i'm grateful for. What am i Grateful for? My entire life i've had to deal with problems, and now you want me to say i'm grateful after all i've been for. "Ten things!" I cried. "I can't even write ten things tonight, let alone any other night."

I wrote thought, and at first, the words did not come easy. Irritated, every night I squirmed and struggled beneath the covers with a flashlight in my hand, searching for atleast ten things that I was grateful for. I'd like to say that with time, this got easier, but it didn't. Still, I kept on it, determined as much as I was annoyed, to find out why my mother had put this torture on me.

Years pass, and I think about that diary every so often. Somewhere tucked away is all the things a child couldn't think of that they were grateful for. What I didn't write down, was that no matter how many things you write, it's only how important that one thing on the list that means everything to you. Being grateful is easy, if you stop asking for a bigger cookie. Easier said than done right?

Settle for the cookie that just tastes right, rather than the one that is bigger, can be just the solution to the aching want every year. Enjoying what you have, is important. You might not get it, or even want to be grateful, but I have no doubt in my mind that everyone had a cookie. A bigger, better, cookie that is!