Thanksgiving: Meditations on Turkey and Tolerance
Next week is Thanksgiving, a day, for many of us, when people of different ages, political views, religious ideologies, and world experiences will sit down for dinner together and pretend to like turkey (I’m sorry, but there’s a reason most of us only eat it once a year). In the days leading up to this holiday, we’ll all hear jokes about the various social minefields that the season brings. This is especially true this year, considering that many will swap stories and share a meal with their extended family after two years apart. There will be that one cousin who shows up in a death metal band shirt, that one great niece who announces she just became vegan and can’t eat anything that’s being served for dinner, the one aunt who goes off about how kids today can’t have a real conversation without looking at their phones, and that one brother-in-law who announces he will be cultivating marijuana full-time. Jokes about Thanksgiving are funny because they’re true, but these kinds of conversations and, sometimes, the disagreements that follow can be difficult to navigate.
Statistically, we don’t agree with at least half the country about a variety of hot-button issues. Most of us have also probably spent the past two years in a relatively insular environment. Likely, many of the people we hang out with every day tend to agree with us on most issues. It is tempting, therefore, to feel like you need to bring your opinions to the table, set them down next to the chorizo stuffing, and convince everyone else of the error in their ways. However, as your friends, (and to fulfill no other agenda than wanting you to have an enjoyable holiday) may we suggest that you leave your boxing gloves at home?*
After spending an unusually extended time away from family and friends, there are bound to be some hiccups when we all get together again. To help prepare for any potential awkwardness, consider the following:
We all think we’re right about everything we think we’re right about. This is the big one. As sure as you are about what you think—that’s how sure the other person feels about what they think. If you have 101 data-driven reasons to back up your opinion, the other person has a list of reasons too. In the middle of trying to survive in an isolating global crisis, we sometimes forget to practice listening, tolerance, and empathy.
We all want to be heard and have life experiences to share. Most of us don’t just blindly reach into a hat, pull out an opinion, and decide to commit the rest of our lives to that particular belief. We each have unique experiences, histories, traumas, triumphs, educations, relationships, and physical and psychological makeups that form our ideas. We are all more than our opinions. We are complex, nuanced beings trying to make sense of a world that has dramatically shifted in the past few years. Everyone’s experience has been different; everyone has strengths to bring to the table.
We have all been through some sh*t. Covid-19 has altered life for almost everyone (except maybe the hermits of the world. Cheers to you, hermits!). Maybe that one family member that makes you crazy has been largely alone with his own thoughts for the past 18 months. Maybe your aunt and uncle have been awake for five straight weeks trying to figure out how to keep their small business afloat without firing people ahead of the holidays. Maybe your cousin has been working double shifts at the hospital for the past 18 months and doesn’t want to discuss the pandemic on her one night off. Everyone’s lives have gotten harder; we could all use a little more patience.
In the (hopefully) unlikely event of an invasion of malevolent extra-terrestrials, remember, we are all human. At the end of the day, we are sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers trying our best to survive a life cycle on Earth. We want the people we care about to be happy and healthy (even if our ideas about how to achieve those goals differ). If aliens bent on destruction landed tomorrow, the things we have in common would far outweigh the things we disagree on. Sometimes we just need to zoom out and get a bigger perspective.
We all secretly don’t like turkey. Seriously. It’s just not good.
No amount of brining, rubbing, injecting, spatchcocking, smoking, or deep frying will make it better than an average piece of chicken or a bad piece of pizza.
In the end, we should spend this Thanksgiving focusing on the many things we have to be grateful for—especially the many people who care about us (even if they drive us nuts every now and again). We all deserve to feel loved. We all deserve to eat pie in peace.
*Disclaimer: this post is not encouraging you to accept abusive treatment or to let someone’s opinions negatively impact your mental health. If someone is determined to impose their ideologies on you, insult you, or make you feel unsafe in any way (which is the antithesis of this post’s intent), get the heck out of there.
