Emm Pensa 
We live in a fallen world and with that comes hardship. Whether it’s a personal health crisis, or a community-felt crisis like this pandemic and social injustices, suffering will happen. In our social media saturated world, it can be easy to give in to fear and anxiety as our feeds are flooded with information and opinions. When these hardships come, how do you react?
Saying “thank you” is ingrained within us since early childhood. We are taught to express thanks frequently after any act of kindness. In fact, it likely becomes routine for many of us and we don’t honestly give it much thought. I’m not saying that this gratefulness is disingenuous but there is so much more to thankfulness than a simple “thank you”.
In these times of uncertainty and being bombarded from every direction with constantly changing information, it can be easy to get sucked in to the drama and justify being glued to news channels as “staying in the loop.” We experience a deep need to know everything we can to be prepared for this new future.