Give Thanks (Hashtag)

I direct this week's spiritual thoughts to all my non-Mormon friends. Well, the message is for everyone, but I thought I'd take this time to explain what all this #givethanks hashtag is all about. I suppose it speaks for itself, but here it goes anyway.

It is a challenge presented by the current prophet and leader of our church, President Russell M. Nelson. In the attached video, he expresses concerns that our world is currently going through turbulent times. It's not just the pandemic, but also political strife, and all around anger and despair everywhere threatening to tear everything apart.

And he posits that the best cure for what ails us is a healthy dose of gratitude ... just in time for Thanksgiving. So, he challenges everyone -- not just us Mormons, but everyone who hears the challenge -- to flood social media with sentiments of thanksgiving. He provides the hashtag #givethanks as a way to mark this effort. The idea is that if we can see all the good in our lives, even during turbulent times, then perhaps we may be able to start working together instead of against each other.

It makes a lot of sense. Thank back a year at all the posts you've seen on social media. How would you describe these posts? How would you characterize them? My own observation is that a good 90% of them have one thing in common: anger -- lots of anger. 

For the past few weeks I've bemoaned the "Anti-Hype" effort that is helping the spread of the virus exponentially. This is a series of posts, articles, news conferences, etc., that propagate the ideas that the virus is nothing, or that it's not dangerous, or masks are ineffective, or anything else that promotes actions that actually work to spread the virus. And all of these posts on social media have that one thing in common: anger, whether it be in the form of conspiracy theories, overblown ideas of freedoms being infringed, or other ideas scientifically engineered to get a contentious response. The idea being: get the people mad so that they will want to stand up and fight.

And the same is also true of political posts on both sides of the aisle. Practically every post contains some kind of warning: "You don't want this to happen" -- again, scientifically engineered to get a contentious response. And sure enough, we, being human, eat these posts for breakfast. We get angry. We feel like we need to do something about it, and we propagate the contentious ideas.

But reality, or "truth," is never found through contention. And often the threats and warnings are unfounded or exaggerated.

This whole #givethanks effort is the exact opposite of what we're used to on social media. If we can see our blessings, then all of a sudden, our fears and wants don't seem quite so bad. And then perhaps we may be able to listen to each other -- realize that we're not enemies, and start working together.

That would be a dream come true for me!

As Pres. Nelson says in the video: "Counting our blessings is far better than recounting our problems."

So, give it a try. Watch the video, and decide for yourself. Flood social media with a week of thanks, and read everyone else's proclamations of thanks, and realize what good people we all are. Perhaps some good will come out of this, and perhaps we'll start working together and enjoy the synergy from combining ideas together. It's happened before, and it can happen again.