The Meaning of a Grumpus Thanksgiving

I am sitting at home on Thanksgiving 2017 with a turkey breast on the smoker and some time on my hands to reflect. I find the Grumpus Minimi (pronounced min-EE-my) thankfully entranced with Charlie Brown specials, and Mrs. Grumpus busy making the pumpkin pie. Yes, for this five minutes my life feels like a Norman Rockwell painting (ignoring the Hawaii climate). I have much to be thankful for with respect to my life, this year more than any other. I hope as you’re reading this you feel the same way. If so then I believe our thoughts are aligned with the original intent of this holiday.

We’ve moved on to Paw Patrol apparently.

I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. A day set aside by one of the richest nations to ever exist in human history in order for its citizens to reflect with friends and family on the bounty that life found fit to bestow upon them, always appealed to me. Declared a national holiday in 1863 at the height of the U.S. Civil War, I would also suggest that part of the original intent included a belief by then President Lincoln that we should be thankful despite the hardships life has set in our path. As any student of U.S. history can tell you, my nation has thankfully never again seen such hardship as the Civil War.

In the spirit of thankfulness and gratitude towards life’s bounty despite its hardships, I would like to share with you a common theme that many bloggers, podcasters, and writers within the Financial Independence (FI) community point out. In fact, it is a theme I heard again just yesterday listening to Radical Personal Finance, and it is a sentiment I heartily agree with for reasons I’ll explain below. The theme goes something like this:

My friends, we are lucky to be alive during the greatest period in human history.

The Luckiest Humans in History

Now there are many reasons why someone might believe this sentiment, but in the realm of personal finance and Financial Independence, it specifically refers to the tools of prosperity that modern financial life has lain at our feet. All we need do is pick up these tools, learn to wield them effectively, apply that knowledge, and enjoy the bounty that the FI lifestyle can provide. A life I might add that our forebearers and ancestors never dared to imagine. The tools to which I refer include the ability to earn, save, and invest over a relatively short span of our lives. This in turn provides a lifetime of wealth and prosperity which can be spent exploring our world; enjoying our families and friends; and learning about all that life has to offer.

That isn’t to say achieving a state of near financial Nirvana doesn’t come without hard work or sacrifice. Delaying gratitude, instilling discipline, spending below our means, avoiding debt, ignoring societal pressures, investing patiently, and hard graft are but a few of the demands that must be mastered. Failure and setbacks are sure to abound at every turn. The perseverance, adaptability, and the willingness to learn that’s required to overcome these setbacks don’t come easily, but they can come. And so too can the happiness the other side of that journey brings.

Beyond Thankfulness and Bounty

I don’t wish to convey a blindness to the fact that access to these financial tools, the knowledge use them, and ability to wield them are not universal. Through the lottery of birth and geography many millions, possibly billions of people, lack the opportunities I describe. Even in the parts of the world with access to these tools, much of modern Life is geared towards disincentivizing at the very least, if not outright inhibiting, people from using them. So I am both aware and incredibly grateful for the fact that my life does not match those I just described. I suspect any reader of this blog will probably feel the same. If not, might I suggest you should?

However, the challenge is not just in reaching Financial Independence, and being thankful for the bounty that the opportunity provides. I believe we must push ourselves to move beyond the simple feeling of thankfulness, and towards the goal of activism. Whether this is through the donation of your time to educating the less advantaged, or attempting to right the ills that prevent access to financial opportunities at a societal level; there is more we all can do. So on this day, I am issuing a personal call to action to inspire myself to do more. More than the blog, more than educating my co-workers, and more than preaching to the converted. I challenge you to do the same.

With all that said, let me take the opportunity to express my thanks and gratitude to all the Grumpus Maximus readers out there both now and in the future. While I started this blog as a mix of self-therapy and assistance for a friend; it has grown into something more. Not quite a movement, but more than the blathering of the village idiot. The words of encouragement and gratitude I continue to receive inspire me to be a better writer, researcher, and conveyor of information. Not only that, but your stories inspire me to be a better person. So I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the opportunity to reflect on life’s bounty, and take advantage of the opportunity to make the world a better place. Be safe, be kind, don’t act too grumpy, and go well.

I’m also thankful for my smoker and …

… the smokey and tasty bounty it produces!