For the long Thanksgiving weekend, I went a day and a half without working on any client matters. I haven’t done that in a while. I rarely picked up my phone. And I spent a lot of time with my family in my two favorite places – on the beach and deep in a swamp. I am thankful for my Thanksgiving.
Sometimes it’s hard to be thankful. Especially a few days after we are supposed to be thankful all day. We don’t have to be thankful for another year. The culture we live in encourages us to find something wrong and blame someone for it. The news is mostly tragedy and outrage. It’s easy to see how we could focus our attention on the things we wish were different.
Dozens of published studies have shown that being thankful has all kinds of positive effects. Gratitude can be good for your sleep patterns, your heart, your relationships, your self-esteem, and your overall well-being. It makes sense to me that appreciating and savoring the positive experiences of life will help you squeeze the most enjoyment possible from your circumstances.
Some people wake up every day being thankful. That has nothing to do with their specific circumstances. But for some of us it’s harder. I think about what could go wrong for a living. So, I fully understand that I should appreciate almost everything about my life. I also objectively understand and believe that I should give thanks in all circumstances and consider my problems pure joy. But I don’t always act like it. The pace of life may contribute to that problem. I know that I sometimes have trouble enjoying the experience of now because I have already moved along to the next thing in my mind.
If you want to be more grateful, it appears that if you have enough discipline you can fake it until you make it. When you regularly act like you are grateful, you will likely end up being grateful. Of course, there are lots of nuances to this research. But in general, the studies show that a practice of gratitude, like saying thank you, writing thank you letters, or keeping a gratitude journal, will make you more grateful.
There is no real tie-in with estate planning or taxes today, except to say that the right to leave your property to whom you wish is something for which you should be thankful. Countless volumes are filled with philosophical arguments for and against “freedom of testation” or “dead hand control.” The U.S. Constitution does not forbid states from putting conditions on testamentary disposition or even abolishing the power.[1] The right to make a will is not a natural, inalienable, fundamental, or inherent right, but is created by statute.[2] You live in a country and a state that, by and large, allows you to leave your estate, large or small, to whomever you wish, however you wish, with certain protections for surviving spouses and minor children. That is something to be thankful for.
[1] Irving Trust v. Day, 314 U.S. 556 (1942).
[2] Fullam v. Brock, 155 S.E.2d 737, 271 N.C. 145 (1967).