Like everyone else, the list of things I’m thankful for starts with the amazing people around me. The support and motivation I’ve received this year, and every year prior, has been a godsend and I would be a huddled mass in a ditch somewhere without it. I’m also thankful for my job. Not because it’s particularly enjoyable but because it pays the rent and mass of parking tickets I've accrued since moving to the city. It allows me to afford to drive 3 hours to spend the holidays with my family. Not everybody is so fortunate. I am thankful for my broken health care system and my expensive and currently useless medical insurance. There are people that don’t have access to the level of care that I have access to. I’m thankful that I don’t loose loved ones daily to ethnic or ideological battles that take place in this country, or in other countries. I'm thankful that despite the ignorance, misguidance, and utter hostility, people are becoming active in government affairs again. I’m thankful I’m allowed to say these things without much reprimand. I’m thankful foreign troops don’t walk my streets under the guise of protecting me. I’m thankful that I live in a future empire instead of one of the countries it will destroy on it’s path to world domination. Kind of.

I’m thankful that when I someday meet a wonderful man and fall in love, that I can get married and not have my happiness be looked down upon or discriminated against. I’m thankful that my parents, both of whom spent the past year unemployed through no fault of their own, have been able to receive unemployment benefits that make them financially able to stay above the poverty line while they look for work. I’m thankful that when they had full time jobs, it was enough for them to survive on. I’m thankful that even though I no longer live in a democracy, I am still able to enjoy the protection of some of the freedoms and rights bestowed upon me by our forefathers. My protests have not yet been violently repressed. I can still ask questions without persecution.

In fact, upon reflection I’ve discovered that almost every complaint I have about this country is something that I have been blessed with. This is one of the driving forces behind my involvement in politics. There are people in this country, in this world, who, through no fault of their own, don’t have these things to be thankful for. Why? On Thanksgiving I saw a tweet posted by Al Jazeera (English). It said, “Bomb blasts in Iraq claim lives: Dozens wounded in addition to fatalities in attacks outside Baghdad.” Included was a link to this article. I can’t rightfully use this post to go on about how not-thankful I am about our foreign policy, but it’s hard to be thankful that I don’t live where things like this take place because to me it feels like I’m also saying “Better them than me.” I don't believe that.

I’m involved in politics because I am thankful. I’m involved because I appreciate the life I, out of pure luck, have been blessed with. And I stand up, and I speak up, and I fight for those blessings, because there are people out there who are not so fortunate despite the fact that they are no less deserving of them than I am. Lost cause or not, I’m in this battle because to let a single freedom, a single one of my god-given rights fade away without a fight does the people who live everyday without them no justice and makes a mockery of their struggle.

So yes. I’m thankful for so much more than just my family and my friends. I’m thankful that I was lucky enough to be born into a situation that has allowed me to find a path in this world where I can give thanks by giving back. And it's nice to know that tomorrow, when I wake up, I'll still have all of this to be thankful for.