December 7, 2025
On December 7, we do not get to pretend the world was always peaceful or predictable. Days like this remind us how much has been carried on the backs of people who never asked for applause. Today’s Thought of the Day and Question of the Day invite us to slow down, look back, and be honest about what we owe to the people who came before us. This post explores both reflections and connects them to the way we show up for our own kids, our own choices, and our own lives. As always, this Thought of the Day and Question of the Day push me to sit with the uncomfortable truth that gratitude is not a feeling. It is a responsibility.
Thought of the Day: Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them. Franklin D. Roosevelt
When FDR said these words, he did not bury the message in soft language. He called out the human habit of drifting away from memory. We get comfortable. We get distracted. We get caught up in potato chips, bedtime battles, folding laundry, and the tiny storms that feel massive in the moment. Meanwhile, there are people who never got the chance to complain about any of it because they died protecting the world we now get to raise our kids in.
I think about that every December 7. I think about teenagers who never came home, husbands and wives who stood at kitchen tables waiting for news, and families whose whole lives turned because of a date on the calendar. I also think about how easy it is for me to forget all of that when my own day gets loud. Most of the privileges I enjoy are so normal and so constant that I rarely notice them until something shakes me awake.
Earlier this year I wrote about how there is never any such thing as bad news, only how you receive it. That post reminded me that perspective is everything, yet perspective is also slippery. I forget how lucky I am until I trip over it. I forget the cost of safety until my kids run down the hall laughing and I realize how unthinkable that simple moment would be in another time and another place.
And on a day like this, I think about how many people walked into danger on purpose so that my family can walk through the front door of our home without fear. I think about how many people understood sacrifice not as a concept but as a breathing, bleeding reality.
That is the heart of today’s Thought. Gratitude is not a quiet thing. It is not a whisper. It asks something of you. It asks you to live like you know the price someone else paid.
Question of the Day: What do you want your children to understand about sacrifice?
When I ask myself this Question of the Day, I do not want to give a lecture. I want to give a truthful answer. I want my kids to understand that sacrifice is not about being a martyr. It is about being responsible for more than just yourself. It is about seeing the long game. It is about loving something enough to give up something smaller in service of something bigger.
I want them to understand that sacrifice is not always dramatic. Sometimes it is turning off a show so you can get on the mat and do yoga. Sometimes it is staying patient at bedtime when all you want is two minutes of silence. Sometimes it is showing up, even when you are tired or annoyed or folding laundry you swear you just washed yesterday.
But I also want them to know that the world they live in exists because generations before them knew sacrifice in ways we can barely imagine. I want them to know that freedom was not handed down like a coupon. It was fought for. Voted for. Bled for. Defended again and again by people who believed in something larger than themselves.
I want them to understand that a good life is not built on convenience. A good life is built on choices you make with intention. And while most of us will never be asked to give what the people at Pearl Harbor gave, we are all responsible for doing something with the safety they left behind. We are responsible for building a life that honors the fact that we were given one.
When I wrote about being kind to others through your actions and kind to yourself through your thoughts, I realized kindness and sacrifice are cousins. One asks you to give. The other asks you to soften. Both require you to get outside yourself for a minute and do the harder thing.
If my kids learn that, they will be fine. Better than fine. They will be capable of gratitude, responsibility, and the kind of quiet strength this world needs more of.
Call to Action
How does December 7 land for you? What does sacrifice look like in your world? Leave a comment or share your answer. And if you want to think about life a little differently every day, join the free daily email.
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