When your all doesn’t feel like enough. I think this is a statement that most of us in our twenties can resonate with. Honestly, I think that’s a statement that most of us in general no matter the age can resonate with. The hustle—despite all consequences has become especially apart of the American culture. We are told that we must sacrifice our happiness, our rest and our impractical aspirations to strive to be something amazing. To strive to be something aspirational, to be someone that others get jealous of.

Some people get tired of that rat race, but most of get stuck in the endless cycle of wishing we were someone that we weren’t. Aspiring to have things that are unattainable to us. I believe this is an especially important conversation to have the week of Thanksgiving. As we are supposed to be focusing on giving thanks, most of us are stressing over our outfits and the aesthetics of our family pictures. We follow up our excessive feast with excessive purchases. Fantasizing over sales that are otherwise fictitious. Stores mark up their prices, only to discount them to make us feel like we are stealing a bargain. We spend the day forgetting to be thankful and the fill in the void with materialism.

Outside of Thanksgiving, this keeping up with the Jones’s is nothing new. It’s a sad phenomenon that most of us fall into. Comparing ourselves to the family next door while simultaneously forgetting that there is a family beside us comparing themselves to us. We forget that as we progress through life there are always those who we pass on the race. There are always those that get a flat tire and never recover.

When giving your all doesn’t feel like enough, the answer is not to give more. Despite what society tells you, the answer is not to do more or to be more. To have more passion, more drive, more effort, more ambition. The answer is to be still. To sit in the moment to allow ourselves to encapsulate all that we have built. To realize that there are countless others looking towards us for direction, and who are envious of what we have. The correct move when our all does not feel like enough, is to be truly grateful.

So why the random rant about giving thanks? Because I find that this trap of a lack of gratitude and thankfulness is one that I fall into often. I find that when I climb the ladder, I forget the steps that were behind me. And I know that I’m not alone in this reflection. I want this Thanksgiving to not be about gratitude for materials, but instead gratitude for personal growth. Gratitude for mindset, and for the ability to sit in the stillness.

Gratitude for our current, despite our drive for more.