It’s nearly Thanksgiving, and for most Americans, the occasion marks a pause from riding out the day’s events of a normal Thursday, and instead, diving headlong into a celebratory feast complete with all the culinary delights of the season.
Thanksgiving is also an occasion where many of us rightly express gratitude for all the bounty we enjoy. We are thankful for family, friends and the freedom to enjoy that abundance. And indeed, we should be grateful and thankful for these things.
Yet, all too often, there is one group of individuals that doesn’t get enough gratitude and thanks for all they do to make that feast possible. And in an interesting twist here, you are most likely one of those individuals.
Here, I am talking about being thankful for the producers.
By producers, I am referring to anyone who works hard to create wealth. Anyone who has made the noblest of choices, the choice to cast their mind, body and spirit into the world in pursuit of productive achievement of the sort that creates the goods and services we need to survive and thrive in a hostile environment.
Make no mistake about it, the world is a hostile environment. Before there were any dinner tables, grocery stores, electrified homes, televisions, internet, etc., there was the cold, harsh and unforgiving state of nature. Yet in the face of this adversity, a producer chose to forage ahead and mold reality into all the comforts we enjoy today, and that we all-too-often take for granted.
Now, you might argue that Americans have been blessed with incredible natural resources, and that we should thank the heavens for this blessing. But I see it differently.
In my view, natural resources are neither natural nor resources. It takes man’s mind to create resources from nature.
Think about it. Nearly every value you hold as a human — safety, security, shelter, clean water, ample food supply, the ability to traverse the globe — indeed, modern civilization itself, is made possible by a thinking human’s efforts to produce such things.
It’s man’s mind; his reason, ingenuity, science, hard work and capital, put in the service of his attempt to achieve values, that is responsible for your Thanksgiving bounty. And this bounty is the virtuous result of man’s ability to shape nature into the byproducts of his will.
As the great novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand puts it, “The power to rearrange the combinations of natural elements is the only creative power man possesses. It is an enormous and glorious power — and it is the only meaning of the concept ‘creative’.”
So, tomorrow, as you sit down to celebrate the day of thanks, thank a producer.
Even better, if you also are a producer (and if you are reading this, I am nearly 100% certain that you are), then take a moment to thank yourself.
You’ve earned it.
Be the Skylark
“You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?”
— Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”
The celebrated poet offers us a beautiful insight into the nature of freedom, and the unquenchable thirst all creatures have to survive and to thrive as themselves. This Thanksgiving, also be grateful for your nature as “the rational animal,” by allowing yourself to be a human skylark that sings your thoughts out to the world. And most importantly, do not allow anyone to muffle your drum.
Wisdom about money, investing and life can be found anywhere. If you have a good quote that you’d like me to share with your fellow readers, send it to me, along with any comments, questions and suggestions you have about my newsletters, seminars or anything else. Click here to ask Jim.
In the name of the best within us,
Jim Woods
