What makes you most grateful about being human?

For Thanksgiving Week, I gathered a feast of heartfelt responses from Substack writers, my daughters and friends to ask them: What is it about being human that you are most grateful for?

There is a tradition to the Thanksgiving dinners we hosted when my daughters were growing up that we cherish to this day. Before enjoying our communal feast, we each went around the table sharing what we were most grateful for. We shared appreciation for good health, for the love of family and friends, for our jobs and homes, and for our safety and security, when so many in the world lacked these basic necessities for survival. My daughters listened to all of this from a young age, they shared, too, and in so doing, they learned the gift and power of gratitude.

Today I am turning this space into a virtual Thanksgiving table. I have gathered some of my writer friends on Substack: Allison Deraney of DARE TO BE, Nan Tepper of The Next Write Thing, Aimee Liu of Aimee Liu's MFA Lore , Victoria of Carer Mentor: Empathy & Inspiration, Louisa Wah of Lily Pond, Jocelyn Lovelle of Hello Beautifuls, Jennifer Bridgman of The Mess + The Magic , Deb Blum of Sacred Second Half, Rosemary Writes & Recovers, Nicole Terrell of Fully Expressed and my eldest daughter Marielle Velander who writes The Adventure Agenda.

Filling out this table of 15 extraordinary women is my younger daughter Sara, who took time from juggling her environmental policy research work and PhD preparation, my friend Kristin Pedemonti, narrative therapy practitioner, facilitator, storyteller and speaker who joined us last year for conversation on Living in 3D, and April Streeter, a long-time friend, writer and my yoga guru.

Inspired by the poet Mark Nepo in The Book of Awakening and two questions he posed in one of his November meditations, I asked everyone the following:

What is it about being human that you are most grateful for?

What is it about being human that continues to surprise you?

Photo by Gilley Aguilar on Unsplash

The responses had all the shimmer and nuance of the kaleidoscope of human experience. Yet our combined voices also carry a common thread of gratitude for love, compassion, empathy, resilience, resonance, openness, acceptance, curiosity and our human capacity to heal. Today I share our collective responses to the first question. On Thursday, I will publish our answers to the second question in a separate article; there is simply too much wisdom to wrap into one single essay.

So, please, pull up a chair and join us for this roundup of thoughtful voices on human nature, gratitude and surprise. In the comments, I’d love to hear your answer to these questions. And don’t miss the bonus “Being Human” playlist Marielle and I created for you.

On our human capacity for gratitude

To the question, What is it about being human that you are most grateful for?, I closed my eyes Sunday morning, my pen hovering over my journal and this word arrived: Love. What else is there, really? Everything emanates from love. It is a herculean task “on this fresh morning in this broken world” as poet Mary Oliver writes, to be love. I am grateful for all the ways I have learned to accept and give love and to share it generously as if it were the most abundant substance on earth. Which of course, for so many of us, it is not. We feel scarcity around love, not abundance. We crave love. We long for love. We possess it and then we lose it. We’re greedy for love and despondent when love deserts us.

But here’s what I’ve learned about love. When love originates within ourselves and our beautiful, flawed humanity, it is bottomless. When we shine that big beam of lovelight inwards, there is no need for external love. We will find our way out of the darkness eventually. That has been my experience. I am grateful for this understanding, which has arrived late in life, in my sixth decade. Of course, we can and will desire love from outside of us; that is human nature and if we’re lucky in this life, we will be loved by others. But when love sits firmly and fiercely within me, when I turn toward—never away, especially when I most want to look away—that is when I feel the most gratitude for being human. Unlike so much else in this world, this capacity to love myself is completely in my control. I’ve learned this is not selfish; it is survival.

It is a practice, however. It does not come easy to us as a human species given to self-flagellation. We have no problem finding fault with ourselves. Loving ourselves is the challenge. Gratitude and self-love merge in my daily practice of writing a letter from my unconditional voice of love. I was taught this practice by Letters From Love with Elizabeth Gilbert here on Substack. There is now a global community of Lovelets, hundreds of thousands of humans trying to access their own voice of love. It’s a beautiful space in which to wander and feel kinship with humanity. This Thanksgiving week, give it a try. You can ask love the question at the heart of the practice: Dear Love, what would you have me know today? Or ask it: Dear Love what would you have me know about gratitude?

And so we begin our sharing of gratitude about what it means to be human.

Kristin: “The ability to hold compassion and be kind is what I continue to be most grateful for.”

Nan: “I didn’t know what it meant to be fully present until I started to do the work of healing my childhood trauma, so that I might gain understanding and compassion for myself and others in my life. I’m grateful that I’m learning to feel more deeply and learn that feelings aren’t facts. I don’t have this mastered by any means—not yet. But I have faith in something greater than myself, whether it’s a higher power or the community of beautiful creators I surround myself with every day. I’m grateful that I have the ability and willingness to keep getting up when life knocks me down and to do new things even when they scare me. Maybe that’s faith? The thing I’m most grateful this year is that I gave myself permission to take a chance being a writer. I was so afraid of failing for so long that I never even tried. It’s been quite a year!”

Deb: “I am most grateful for my self-awareness, ability, and courage to do inner healing work, to heal myself over and over again; my commitment to do this work, knowing how to get back on track when I fall, and experience new levels of healing and growth. I am also grateful for my humility. I used to be someone who wanted to be seen as the one who ‘knows.’ I recognize now that if I want to peel back more layers and go deeper, I need to find teachers and guides to show me what I can’t see. To repeatedly have a beginner’s mind and be open to learn different facets of myself and of the work I do, pushing my own edges.”

Victoria: “I’m most grateful for our human ability to have personal empowerment, agency, and the ability to control our attitude. One of the most important parts of my caregiver journey was discovering mindfulness. I realized that if I could create space I could reframe things, to choose my response and better navigate through a situation or challenge. Caregiving has made me have a greater appreciation of our humanity.” (In iCARE Stack, Victoria offers a way for authors of caregiving articles to share, be seen and access caregiving resources).

April: “Paradoxically, the quality about being human that I am most grateful for is the one that I might earlier have identified as a curse. We humans are the only animals that can obsess over events far removed from our immediate survival. That was me! For most of my decades on the planet disaster scenarios (especially after I became a mother) were a specialty. In addition, excessive daily worry about every little thing. Through personal work and a brain-training process called neurofeedback I was able to disrupt those worry patterns. What gratitude! And yet I also realize that if I hadn't been such a classic worrywort, I might not have pursued that path of self development that I walk now.”

Allison: “I spent years thinking I needed to balance everything—the demands of my life along with the feelings of the world. The older I get the more I understand that balance isn’t required. It’s overwhelming and overrated. For me, being a human means being a fully feeling being who sees the fragility and humility in others (and myself) and doesn’t look away. And doesn’t try to fix it. The part of being a human I am most grateful for is the nuance. The duality of life. The dancing in the mud and the divine tango in the neat bright light.”

Rosemary: “I am most grateful for the ability to feel and experience it all: the beauty and the pain; the joy and the sorrow; the love and yes, even the loss. I am grateful to be a human and thus have the full breadth of experience a life on this mortal journey offers.” 

Jennifer: “What I am most grateful for lately is the pain of being human. 2024 has taught me to cry like never before—an ocean of necessary tears as I’ve learned to navigate my way through whitecaps of grief, overwhelm and confusion. While suffering is nothing new to me, allowing myself to experience my pain is. I spent decades of my life running from emotional pain at all costs—deflecting, detaching, denying, blaming, numbing and running. Avoiding pain isn't just expensive, it's unwinnable. Four years ago, I didn’t just quit drinking—I quit running from my own humanity. Sobriety has turned out to be a trust fall with myself. Will I be able to catch myself in this life, no matter what? Pain has shown me the answer is yes. And for that I am grateful.” 

Sara: “I am most grateful for the connection of our physical bodies and the mind, allowing us to reach great lengths while also being mindful that it is not where our bodies take us but that it is those interactions we have that enriches our minds. I am grateful that as a human, we are social beings, meaning we thrive on relationships, and building a community is what ultimately defines ’success’ or, rather, ‘satisfaction’ in life. I am also grateful for mortality, as while I am still fearful of what death brings, I know it is what also brings meaning to life, and carries us through different stages, with all the highs and lows of exciting new emotions.” 

Marielle: “I’m grateful for openness. Those doors opening up to connection with others, especially for someone born at a crossroads of cultures. The openings people create for me, in their hearts and minds, inspires me to be the truest human I can be. I’m also grateful for the openness inside me, showing me that I can overcome any fear, any adversity, because wherever I go, there will be someone with a good heart and a world of opportunity, and in the rare case there is neither, I can find that strength and heart and opportunity inside myself.”

Nicole: “I think about this as I watch my son interact with various friends, some that I can already tell will be there for many years to come, and some that are friends for the moment in time, and I realize how each person leaves their mark in some way on our lives. Whether large or small, we make an impact on the people we come into contact with, and they on us, and I think that is so beautiful and complex beyond measure.”

Louisa: “I'm most grateful for the gift of waking up in the mornings. I'm not a super early morning person, but I marvel at the arrival of each new day and the unflinching loyalty of the rising sun. Mornings are a symbol of renewal, and each one gives us a chance to start again and again, to choose how we want to fill the next 24 hours using our free will. Mornings are the equivalence to hope, a seemingly unique human quality that can be summoned in our consciousness and that keeps us going in the darkest of times. To be able to tap into hope is what I'm eternally grateful for.” (For inspiration from two favorite poets, listen to Mary Oliver read “Why I Wake Early,” and David Whyte recite “What to Remember Upon Waking.”)

Jocelyn: “Beauty. And grief. The ability to be moved by beauty, to want to stand still and cry in awe at sweeping vistas or a single tree, a single flower. I stood on a hilltop this morning and watched the sunrise. All I could see, for as far as I could see, were mountains, covered in Redwoods and firs and pines, cypress and bay, chestnut and buckeye; mounded yellow gold hills bleached by summer, bare at the top, with live oaks skirting their rounded bellies; the Pacific to the southwest framed by the coastal ranges. I was moved to tears by the beauty, the space, the silence. Every breath was a prayer, ‘Thank you for this. Thank you for allowing me to see this.’ Would beauty be as poignant without grief? I don't know. I think it would be different. What I do know is that the ability to grieve is a gift."

Aimee: “If I think deeply about this question, I realize that my answer is Resonance, by which I mean the power to connect with others through beauty, awe, passion, and love. The first time I became fully aware of this power I was standing at the back of my high school auditorium during a concert that sent tremors of emotion through me. I not only was moved to tears by the music but I felt connected to everyone in the room in a way that stunned me. This shared vibration felt like a gift of magic, more than music. I sensed I was being touched by an invisible wave of shared humanity. I’d always been a loner, and this was the first time I can recall being awakened to the wonder of human unity. That’s what I mean by resonance.”

Now it’s your turn! Share in the comments your answers to these questions. Let’s continue the conversation. This playlist might help inspire your answer.

Thank you, dear readers, for joining my Thanksgiving table. A heartfelt thanks to all the contributors to today’s essay. My world is richer because of what you have shared. Part 2 on What Surprises Us About Being Human will drop on Thursday.

If you like what you read, please leave a heart ❤️, a comment or restack for others to find their way here. Recommendations from other Substack writers are so appreciated!