I only have one rule for this blog - reference one finding from
psychology and one work of science fiction in every post.
When I sat down to write a Thanksgiving article, it was easy to
quote research on gratitude. Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky calls gratitude a
"metastrategy for achieving happiness". Experimental research has revealed
that participants who were asked to count their blessing once a week for ten
weeks felt more optimistic, more satisfied with their lives, had
better health, exercised more, and reported fewer headaches, acne, coughing,
and nausea than control groups.
Collectively, research indicates that gratitude helps you:
- appreciate life's joys
- increase self-esteem
- cope under extreme stress
- nurture resilience in the face of loss and trauma
- foster altruism
- build social relationships
- undo negative emotions
- combat hedonic adaptation
It doesn't take much either - practicing gratitude just once a
week leads to improved physical and mental health. You can write in a journal, share
your thoughts with a loved one, write letters (even if they aren't sent), make
gratitude calls, or a bunch of other things.
Giving thanks is really, really, really good for you!
So that's the psychology part of the post - easy as pie.
It was
a lot harder to write about Thanksgiving in science fiction. I couldn't think of
any science fiction story that directly relates to gratitude (Back to the
Future was a contender), turkeys, Native Americans (I considered Chakotay
episodes from Star Trek: Voyager), or pilgrims (Scott Pilgrim unfortunately
doesn't count).
A Google search for "science fiction Thanksgiving" led
me to a fun scifi Thanksgiving grace by John Scalzi. Here's a sample:
We also thank you for once again not allowing our technology to
gain sentience, to launch our own missiles at us, to send a robot back in time
to kill the mother of the human resistance, to enslave us all, and finally to use
our bodies as batteries. That doesn't even make sense from an energy-management
point of view, Lord, and you'd think the robots would know that. But in your
wisdom, you haven't made it an issue yet, so thank you.
I loved the humor, but it didn’t help me crack this story.
Then I thought about the Buzz Lightyear balloon in the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade…that did nothing but kill time.