Gratitude in a Time of Change
By Aaron Fairchild
On November 11th of this year, the Presidential election results were still murky and the COVID virus on a rampage. At Green Canopy we celebrate Veteran’s Day. Instead of working, I was doing yardwork in a fog thinking about America’s stark divisions. Truth be told, I was futzing around the yard occupying myself while being concerned, angry and confused about how Americans can hold such opposing views. The common question of the moment comes to mind, “Why can’t we all just get along?!”
Later in the day I received a text from a team member at Green Canopy. He was responding to my earlier Veteran’s Day text thanking him for his service to America in the Marine Corps.
His response,
“Thanks for thinking of me Aaron. When I reflect back on that time, I think of all of the other men I served alongside. We all had different values, political beliefs, and backgrounds and we put all that aside to work together to achieve a common goal. I found magic in that process because it allowed me to look past all those differences to see the person inside. I think that was the first time I realized that most of the time, we have more in common than different.”
And then it occurred to me,
Without the differences that separate us, the sincere gratitude for times when we do come together would be diminished. The fundamental differences between us offer us a gift, if we can receive it, to look beneath those distracting differences and into our shared humanity; the footing of our common bond.
During this Holiday Season I would like to share gratitude for the differences between us and the opportunity they offer us to create safe spaces for each other to come together. Without our differences, life would be less interesting and less colorful, and perhaps if we all shared similar views and experiences, we would not feel the need to go beneath our similarity to more deeply explore ourselves and our shared humanity. Perhaps our differences are the forcing function that offer us the opportunity to live into the better, more substantive version of ourselves.