1.Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated in much of North America, generally observed as an expression of gratitude, usually to God. The most common view of its origin is that it was to give thanks to God for the bounty of the autumn harvest. In the United States, the holiday is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. In Canada, where the harvest generally ends earlier in the year, the holiday is celebrated on the second Monday in October, which is observed as Columbus Day or protested as Indigenous Peoples Day in the United States.
Thanksgiving is traditionally celebrated with a feast shared among friends and family. In the United States, it is an important family holiday, and people often travel across the country to be with family members for the holiday. The Thanksgiving holiday is generally a "four-day" weekend in the United States, in which Americans are given the relevant Thursday and Friday off. Thanksgiving is almost entirely celebrated at home, unlike the Fourth of July or Christmas, which are associated with a variety of shared public experiences (fireworks, caroling, etc.)
感恩节的由来要一直追溯到美国历史的发端。1620年，著名的“五月花”号船满载不堪忍受英国国内宗教迫害的清教徒102人到达美洲。1620年和1621年之交的冬天，他们遇到了难以想象的困难，处在饥寒交迫之中，冬天过去时，活下来的移民只有50来人。这时，心地善良的印第安人给移民送来了生活必需品，还特地派人教他们怎样狩猎、捕鱼和种植玉米、南瓜。在印第安人的帮助下，移民们终于获得了丰收，在欢庆丰收的日子，按照宗教传统习俗，移民规定了感谢上帝的日子，并决定为感谢印第安人的真诚帮助，邀请他们一同庆祝节日。
在第一个感恩节的这一天，印第安人和移民欢聚一堂，他们在黎明时鸣放礼炮，列队走进一间用作教堂的屋子，虔诚地向上帝表达谢意，然后点起篝火举行盛大宴会。第二天和第三天又举行了摔交、赛跑、唱歌、跳舞等活动。第一个感恩节非常成功。其中许多庆祝方式流传了300多年，一直保留到今天。
初时感恩节没有固定日期，由各州临时决定，直到美国独立后，感恩节才成为全国性的节日。 1863年，美国总统林肯正式宣布感恩节为国定假日。届时，家家团聚，举国同庆，其盛大、热烈的情形，不亚于中国人过春节。
2.你说的是感恩，最好用 gratitude这个词
Gratitude is an Open Door: Three Stories About Wealth and Poverty
By Kate Judd
Let me tell you a story. I had two good friends who had never met each other. They were close in age. They were each divorced; they came from the same ethnic background. One had one teenager, the other had three. They shared many interests. I thought they would love each other.
At a party at my home, I introduced my friends to each other. “Annette, this is Barbara; Barbara, Annette. You have so much in common.”
Annette was a talkative type. Right away, she began to tell Barbara about her life. “It’s so tough being divorced, isn’t it?” Annette said. “I mean, money is so tight. My new house cost two hundred and seventy thousand dollars. I had to get financial help from my father. It’s not that Daddy doesn’t have it— he just endowed a chair at a major university. But I hate to ask. Of course, I do have the alimony from Bill, my ex; but I don’t feel that I should rely on that. I’m putting it away for my retirement—that’s what my accountant says I should do. And the house that Bill and I built just won’t sell. I don’t know why. We spent nine hundred thousand dollars on that house, it’s absolutely perfect.
“It doesn’t matter so much to Bill if the house doesn’t sell. He’s the vice president of a big bank in the city. But I’m really struggling. I mean, I don’t make much. I’m just a music teacher. So, anyway, what I’ve decided to do is build an addition onto my new house: a little apartment. I don’t know where I’m gong to come up with the money. It’s going to cost sixty thousand. But, you know, it’s a tremendous investment in the long run. It adds to the value of the house. And I’m going to rent it out, so then I’ll have the rent every month to add to my income. It’s worth it to scrape a little while I’m having it built.”
My friend Barbara sat silent. She had a smile fixed firmly on her face. I had never heard Barbara say anything unkind about anyone—ever. She never said a word against Annette, either; but after the party, she told me she would prefer not to see Annette again.
You see, I had forgotten one thing: while Annette, who was worth several hundred thousand dollars, worried about whether she had enough to survive, Barbara was supporting herself and her teenage child on ten thousand dollars a year, which she earned by mopping floors and scrubbing toilets. And she never complained.
Before this, what had I thought about wealth? About poverty? I had grown up in comfort, never lacking for any material thing—indeed, indulged in anything money could buy. I had known that there was a difference between me and most of the other children at the tiny rural school where I had gone as a child. But I had not realized that the difference had to do with money. Like many a young member of the upper classes, I did not know what I was.
Sitting with Annette and Barbara, I knew. I thought, “Let me never take what I have for granted. Let me never complain about being poor, when I am really rich.”
If you had asked Barbara if she was poor, she would probably have denied it. She would have said, “I have a child who loves me. We have a house to live in. I have my health, so that I can work for my living. Sure, we have to get food from the Community Pantry sometimes, but we always have enough to eat. I’m even able to scrape together enough to go to school, so that some day I’ll be qualified for a better job which still allows me to take care of my emotionally troubled child. I have a family who cares about me. I’m thankful to have so much.”
Maybe I should take Barbara for an example? Maybe I should be grateful for what I have—however much or little it is.
Let me tell you another story: I have a middle aged relative who lives alone in a large house. Mentally somewhat disabled, she does not work, but is supported by a large trust fund set up by her late parents. Though her life style is not opulent by North American standards, she is always beautifully dressed, well fed, and can afford to hire people to do any job she cannot, or does not wish to do herself.
One day my relative went to the supermarket (how much we take for granted)! Another friend of mine once hosted a professor from Russia. The professor was overwhelmed and enchanted by the small local supermarket. She exclaimed, “In America, your markets are like museums!” My relative, her eyes glazed and her feet sore after a long trip through the abundantly stocked aisles, decided to go to the flower case and pick out a refreshing bouquet for herself. In front of the buckets overflowing with big, richly colored roses stood an old Asian woman, who was silent as my relative selected her flowers. “So cheap” my relative thought. “Only a dollar a stem!” She chose a large bunch.
The other woman still stood there. “It’s hard to pick, isn’t it?” my relative said. “Oh, I cannot buy any,” said the old woman. “Too expensive. I only like to come and look. They are so beautiful.”
So this woman was grateful for the free beauty of flowers in a supermarket/museum. Was that all? Did she feel her poverty, in not being able to afford a one dollar rose? There are those who would argue that this woman was wealthier than my friend Annette, who has a great deal of money but feels always impoverished. In this case, my relative should not have felt any guilt or worry, but should have taken her flowers home and enjoyed them, secure in the notion that we must each simply be thankful for what we have, no matter how we came to have it. Or should my relative have offered to buy some flowers for the old woman? That is another popular solution: those who have more should make private donations to those who have less. Perhaps my relative should have put her own flowers back in the case, and donated her money to some worthy organization—one which fights poverty?
What am I to learn from all this? Surely it is good to be grateful for what we have. Like my friend Barbara, I am grateful in this minute for so much: the beautiful Vermont landscape outside my window, the fruits of my abundant garden, the house in which I live, my beloved husband, my job, my health, my friends. And yet — it seems to me that as long as others do not have what I have, my gratitude is not enough. If others lack for beauty to see, good and wholesome food to eat, a home (or even a roof over their heads), love and friendship, work that rewards them, health and the care to maintain it, then my gratitude is just a beginning. A door to the next step. I can open that door of gratitude, and walk forward, doing what I can to help others achieve what I have. Or I can close the door. Then gratitude becomes complacency, and I am trapped.
Let me stop philosophizing for a moment, and tell you one more story: Once, I saved up my money all year long so that I could go to a workshop. The workshop took place at an institution that specialized in “self actualization,” “spiritual exploration,” “natural healing” and so forth. At this institution there were perhaps a few hundred people who had come to take workshops in pursuit of these vague but laudable goals. Among them I saw perhaps ten who were not white. Although it was more difficult to tell, I would guess that there were equally few who were not economically quite well-off. Although I come from “the whitest state in the union” I felt uncomfortable with this lack of ethnic and class diversity. Still, I quite enjoyed the workshop I was attending.
One night I was standing in the dinner line next to the person who was presenting the workshop, a woman of extraordinary power and charisma. She stretched her arms akimbo and proclaimed in a loud voice, “Ah! It’s good to be alive!”
Something must have registered on my face. Perhaps I drew slightly away from her. I know that for the rest of the workshop, she looked faintly displeased with me. But you see, I was thinking, For you it is good to be alive. For me it is good to be alive. But what about the homeless person who is sleeping tonight in a public park? What about the person who has just discovered they have cancer, and have no health insurance to cover treatment? What about the residents of other, less wealthy countries—the man who lives in a tin shed in Mexico, the woman who begs in the streets of Bombay? What about the children who are starving, and the mothers who cannot feed them? Just what do you mean, “it’s good to be alive?!”
I do not intend to be sanctimonious. I am a privileged, middle class person, who has had a very fortunate life. What I wish for is that everyone could have what I do. This is naive, I suppose. Idealistic, certainly. And what, after all, do I propose to do about it? Where is my plan, my solution to the poverty and hunger that plague the majority of the world’s population?
I am not arrogant enough to propose a solution. Others smarter, wiser, more politically shrewd, more religiously dogmatic, have proposed solutions since the beginning of time, it seems. I only know I cannot wish idly for others to have a better life. I must try to work for it in whatever ways I can. Otherwise, my gratitude becomes meaningless. I will have closed the door, and left the better part of humanity beyond it, sitting alone, gloating over my wealth like a miser, cut off from the love, learning and pain that are as essential to living as the material comforts I rejoice in, trapped in complacency. Then, I am very poor indeed.
Motivational Story
Motivational Story #9
LIVE WITH AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE by Glen Hopkins
Imagine for a moment one of those nights when you just can't fall asleep and you have to get up early the next morning for a very important meeting of which you are the keynote speaker. Your alarm clock goes off early in the morning waking you from what little sleep you had. You stumble out of bed, have a quick shower, grab a coffee and some toast, and off you go to fight the traffic on the way to work.
Does that sound like the start of a terrible day? Most would answer 'yes'. Few people however, would answer, 'no'. These are the people, who are in my opinion blessed with a gift. A gift that determines how they view their life. These people live with 'an attitude of gratitude'. For them, the situation described could be worse. Much worse. For example, think of the man who doesn't have a bed, let alone a roof to over his head. When he is awoken from what little sleep he is able to get, it is by the rain falling on his cold body. He too stumbles to his feet and begins his journey to work in his bare feet. His work is in the field of survival. He searches though garbage cans for scraps of half-rotten food to eat and odd bits of clothes to keep him warm.
The purpose of this example is to illustrate that we all have so much to be grateful for. Even in times when it seems that nothing could be worse, there is always a reason to be grateful. And when you feel a sense of gratitude, you feel a sense of happiness and content. My challenge to you today is to learn to look for the good in every situation and live with 'an attitude of gratitude'.
I assure you, if you were the fellow searching for food in garbage cans you too could find things to be grateful for. You just have to look hard enough and 'open your eyes' to what is around you. You have to focus on what's good in your life, not what's bad.
"I once was distraught because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet." - Unknown
Life works in mysterious ways. Time and time again there have been stories of people who are in a dire strait yet they are found helping others who are experiencing greater turmoil. This is because once you have helped someone in greater need than yourself, you always feel better. You feel better because you have helped another human being, and this forces you to change your mindset from focusing on your problems to focusing on their solutions.
Always focus on the solution, not the problem and live with an attitude of gratitude! Mother Teresa was a primary example of this phenomenon. Her entire life revolved around helping others in need. As a result she experienced a great deal of love and self-satisfaction in her life.
I challenge you now to take a moment to think of five things in your life that you are grateful for today. For example, your friends, your family, your job, your sense of smell, touch, sight, and sound. The list can go on and on. Imagine what your life would be like without these things. Write them down on a piece of paper and really think about the things you are grateful for. You will be amazed at how great you will feel!
你说的是感恩，最好用 gratitude这个词
Gratitude is an Open Door: Three Stories About Wealth and Poverty
By Kate Judd
Let me tell you a story. I had two good friends who had never met each other. They were close in age. They were each divorced; they came from the same ethnic background. One had one teenager, the other had three. They shared many interests. I thought they would love each other.
At a party at my home, I introduced my friends to each other. “Annette, this is Barbara; Barbara, Annette. You have so much in common.”
Annette was a talkative type. Right away, she began to tell Barbara about her life. “It’s so tough being divorced, isn’t it?” Annette said. “I mean, money is so tight. My new house cost two hundred and seventy thousand dollars. I had to get financial help from my father. It’s not that Daddy doesn’t have it— he just endowed a chair at a major university. But I hate to ask. Of course, I do have the alimony from Bill, my ex; but I don’t feel that I should rely on that. I’m putting it away for my retirement—that’s what my accountant says I should do. And the house that Bill and I built just won’t sell. I don’t know why. We spent nine hundred thousand dollars on that house, it’s absolutely perfect.
“It doesn’t matter so much to Bill if the house doesn’t sell. He’s the vice president of a big bank in the city. But I’m really struggling. I mean, I don’t make much. I’m just a music teacher. So, anyway, what I’ve decided to do is build an addition onto my new house: a little apartment. I don’t know where I’m gong to come up with the money. It’s going to cost sixty thousand. But, you know, it’s a tremendous investment in the long run. It adds to the value of the house. And I’m going to rent it out, so then I’ll have the rent every month to add to my income. It’s worth it to scrape a little while I’m having it built.”
My friend Barbara sat silent. She had a smile fixed firmly on her face. I had never heard Barbara say anything unkind about anyone—ever. She never said a word against Annette, either; but after the party, she told me she would prefer not to see Annette again.
You see, I had forgotten one thing: while Annette, who was worth several hundred thousand dollars, worried about whether she had enough to survive, Barbara was supporting herself and her teenage child on ten thousand dollars a year, which she earned by mopping floors and scrubbing toilets. And she never complained.
Before this, what had I thought about wealth? About poverty? I had grown up in comfort, never lacking for any material thing—indeed, indulged in anything money could buy. I had known that there was a difference between me and most of the other children at the tiny rural school where I had gone as a child. But I had not realized that the difference had to do with money. Like many a young member of the upper classes, I did not know what I was.
Sitting with Annette and Barbara, I knew. I thought, “Let me never take what I have for granted. Let me never complain about being poor, when I am really rich.”
If you had asked Barbara if she was poor, she would probably have denied it. She would have said, “I have a child who loves me. We have a house to live in. I have my health, so that I can work for my living. Sure, we have to get food from the Community Pantry sometimes, but we always have enough to eat. I’m even able to scrape together enough to go to school, so that some day I’ll be qualified for a better job which still allows me to take care of my emotionally troubled child. I have a family who cares about me. I’m thankful to have so much.”
Maybe I should take Barbara for an example? Maybe I should be grateful for what I have—however much or little it is.
Let me tell you another story: I have a middle aged relative who lives alone in a large house. Mentally somewhat disabled, she does not work, but is supported by a large trust fund set up by her late parents. Though her life style is not opulent by North American standards, she is always beautifully dressed, well fed, and can afford to hire people to do any job she cannot, or does not wish to do herself.
One day my relative went to the supermarket (how much we take for granted)! Another friend of mine once hosted a professor from Russia. The professor was overwhelmed and enchanted by the small local supermarket. She exclaimed, “In America, your markets are like museums!” My relative, her eyes glazed and her feet sore after a long trip through the abundantly stocked aisles, decided to go to the flower case and pick out a refreshing bouquet for herself. In front of the buckets overflowing with big, richly colored roses stood an old Asian woman, who was silent as my relative selected her flowers. “So cheap” my relative thought. “Only a dollar a stem!” She chose a large bunch.
The other woman still stood there. “It’s hard to pick, isn’t it?” my relative said. “Oh, I cannot buy any,” said the old woman. “Too expensive. I only like to come and look. They are so beautiful.”
So this woman was grateful for the free beauty of flowers in a supermarket/museum. Was that all? Did she feel her poverty, in not being able to afford a one dollar rose? There are those who would argue that this woman was wealthier than my friend Annette, who has a great deal of money but feels always impoverished. In this case, my relative should not have felt any guilt or worry, but should have taken her flowers home and enjoyed them, secure in the notion that we must each simply be thankful for what we have, no matter how we came to have it. Or should my relative have offered to buy some flowers for the old woman? That is another popular solution: those who have more should make private donations to those who have less. Perhaps my relative should have put her own flowers back in the case, and donated her money to some worthy organization—one which fights poverty?
What am I to learn from all this? Surely it is good to be grateful for what we have. Like my friend Barbara, I am grateful in this minute for so much: the beautiful Vermont landscape outside my window, the fruits of my abundant garden, the house in which I live, my beloved husband, my job, my health, my friends. And yet — it seems to me that as long as others do not have what I have, my gratitude is not enough. If others lack for beauty to see, good and wholesome food to eat, a home (or even a roof over their heads), love and friendship, work that rewards them, health and the care to maintain it, then my gratitude is just a beginning. A door to the next step. I can open that door of gratitude, and walk forward, doing what I can to help others achieve what I have. Or I can close the door. Then gratitude becomes complacency, and I am trapped.
Let me stop philosophizing for a moment, and tell you one more story: Once, I saved up my money all year long so that I could go to a workshop. The workshop took place at an institution that specialized in “self actualization,” “spiritual exploration,” “natural healing” and so forth. At this institution there were perhaps a few hundred people who had come to take workshops in pursuit of these vague but laudable goals. Among them I saw perhaps ten who were not white. Although it was more difficult to tell, I would guess that there were equally few who were not economically quite well-off. Although I come from “the whitest state in the union” I felt uncomfortable with this lack of ethnic and class diversity. Still, I quite enjoyed the workshop I was attending.
One night I was standing in the dinner line next to the person who was presenting the workshop, a woman of extraordinary power and charisma. She stretched her arms akimbo and proclaimed in a loud voice, “Ah! It’s good to be alive!”
Something must have registered on my face. Perhaps I drew slightly away from her. I know that for the rest of the workshop, she looked faintly displeased with me. But you see, I was thinking, For you it is good to be alive. For me it is good to be alive. But what about the homeless person who is sleeping tonight in a public park? What about the person who has just discovered they have cancer, and have no health insurance to cover treatment? What about the residents of other, less wealthy countries—the man who lives in a tin shed in Mexico, the woman who begs in the streets of Bombay? What about the children who are starving, and the mothers who cannot feed them? Just what do you mean, “it’s good to be alive?!”
I do not intend to be sanctimonious. I am a privileged, middle class person, who has had a very fortunate life. What I wish for is that everyone could have what I do. This is naive, I suppose. Idealistic, certainly. And what, after all, do I propose to do about it? Where is my plan, my solution to the poverty and hunger that plague the majority of the world’s population?
I am not arrogant enough to propose a solution. Others smarter, wiser, more politically shrewd, more religiously dogmatic, have proposed solutions since the beginning of time, it seems. I only know I cannot wish idly for others to have a better life. I must try to work for it in whatever ways I can. Otherwise, my gratitude becomes meaningless. I will have closed the door, and left the better part of humanity beyond it, sitting alone, gloating over my wealth like a miser, cut off from the love, learning and pain that are as essential to living as the material comforts I rejoice in, trapped in complacency. Then, I am very poor indeed.
Motivational Story
Motivational Story #9
LIVE WITH AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE by Glen Hopkins
Imagine for a moment one of those nights when you just can't fall asleep and you have to get up early the next morning for a very important meeting of which you are the keynote speaker. Your alarm clock goes off early in the morning waking you from what little sleep you had. You stumble out of bed, have a quick shower, grab a coffee and some toast, and off you go to fight the traffic on the way to work.
Does that sound like the start of a terrible day? Most would answer 'yes'. Few people however, would answer, 'no'. These are the people, who are in my opinion blessed with a gift. A gift that determines how they view their life. These people live with 'an attitude of gratitude'. For them, the situation described could be worse. Much worse. For example, think of the man who doesn't have a bed, let alone a roof to over his head. When he is awoken from what little sleep he is able to get, it is by the rain falling on his cold body. He too stumbles to his feet and begins his journey to work in his bare feet. His work is in the field of survival. He searches though garbage cans for scraps of half-rotten food to eat and odd bits of clothes to keep him warm.
The purpose of this example is to illustrate that we all have so much to be grateful for. Even in times when it seems that nothing could be worse, there is always a reason to be grateful. And when you feel a sense of gratitude, you feel a sense of happiness and content. My challenge to you today is to learn to look for the good in every situation and live with 'an attitude of gratitude'.
I assure you, if you were the fellow searching for food in garbage cans you too could find things to be grateful for. You just have to look hard enough and 'open your eyes' to what is around you. You have to focus on what's good in your life, not what's bad.
"I once was distraught because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet." - Unknown
Life works in mysterious ways. Time and time again there have been stories of people who are in a dire strait yet they are found helping others who are experiencing greater turmoil. This is because once you have helped someone in greater need than yourself, you always feel better. You feel better because you have helped another human being, and this forces you to change your mindset from focusing on your problems to focusing on their solutions.
Always focus on the solution, not the problem and live with an attitude of gratitude! Mother Teresa was a primary example of this phenomenon. Her entire life revolved around helping others in need. As a result she experienced a great deal of love and self-satisfaction in her life.
I challenge you now to take a moment to think of five things in your life that you are grateful for today. For example, your friends, your family, your job, your sense of smell, touch, sight, and sound. The list can go on and on. Imagine what your life would be like without these things. Write them down on a piece of paper and really think about the things you are grateful for. You will be amazed at how great you will feel!
谁是你的守护天使 的翻译！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！你知道吗？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？
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