Live Big Digest® – Thanksgiving edition
On the eve of another Thanksgiving Day, we thought we’d check in with another Live Big Digest, knowing that “Eat Big . . . Digest” is what will really be on your mind in the coming days.
Of course, the real purpose of our Thanksgiving Day observation is to give ourselves the opportunity to reflect upon and be thankful for all the good things in our lives. And in contemplating this most important aspect of Thanksgiving, amidst a world of economic uncertainty, we find ourselves thinking about the Live Big List. The Live Big List came into existence on March 25, 2009, shortly after the financial markets and our collective spirits had hit their ultimate low point. The List was an attempt to refocus on the things that mattered most in a world of financial turmoil. As we put it then, “if we can find the place of gratitude for what we have, we can find joy in the most mundane of places, and, hopefully at least get our minds off of how scary the world can feel at times.” Here are a dozen entries from the 88 items now on the list.
– Walk the dog (borrow one if you don’t have one of your own)
– Hug someone (be careful, in general it should be someone who you know)
– Teach a teenager to balance a checkbook
– Read all those books you’ve been accumulating, meanwhile drinking all that tea that has accumulated in your cupboard
– Watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Love Actually” or some other feel good movie
– Write an old fashioned letter to someone
– Give a stranger a compliment
– Throw a Board Game Night at your house for friends, family, neighbors
– Put a puzzle together
– Take a leisurely walk around a new neighborhood in your city – be a “tourist”
– Call a friend and tell them you value their friendship
– Make a charitable contribution
You can read all 88 entries on the Live Big List (and add your own) here: What it means to Live Big in these trying times.
We find it interesting to note that, even though the general level of economic anxiety sometimes seems little changed since then, by many measures we’ve made considerable progress. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, along with the average Yeske Buie portfolio, is up more than 50% since the original appearance of the Live Big List, a nearly 19% average annual rate of return. We decided to chart the course of the US market over that intervening time and an unexpected pattern emerged, which we’ve reproduced below.
Wishing you a peaceful and joy filled Thanksgiving Day celebration!
The Yeske Buie Team
