Perhaps this explains why so many of us find it a challenge to be thankful. That which was a pleasant and gracious act last year quickly becomes an expected entitlement. That for which I was thankful in the past, I now assume to be my right.

Are we really that fickle? I am. I have been blessed with incredible health, yet I have never appreciated it. I have only taken it for granted. Only when I am ill do I recognize the incredible gift I have been given.

Going back to weather, perhaps this explains the benefit of living through the four seasons. Maeve Binchy wrote in her short story, “Holiday Weather,” describing a rare beautiful day in her Irish countryside, “Thank God we don’t get weather like this all the time. It would not be a green island, and we’d be so used to it we wouldn’t be calling out our thanksgiving to the very heavens as we are today.”

On a similar theme, in her novel “Whitethorn Woods” she writes, “If sunsets were universally scarlet and gold, then we wouldn’t value them at all.”

I live in a weather system dominated by clouds and precipitation. It is no accident that many of the experts on seasonal affective disorder live in and around the Mid-Atlantic region. Seattle might have more rainy days, but they also have more sunny hours. As someone once told me, “When you live in the Mid-Atlantic, you will have to teach your children sunshine as an abstract concept.”

It seems that I need the four seasons and the long and cloudy low-pressure systems to help me appreciate the sunshine in my life. If I lived in a sunny climate, I would just complain about the lack of shade. In fact, I live in a highly developed society, and I take those benefits for granted. I work in a pleasant office, and I complain when the air conditioning goes down for an hour.

I paraphrase Maeve Binchy’s words to say: “Thank God we don’t have perfect lives every day. It would not feel special; we would feel personal entitlement. We wouldn’t be calling out our thanksgiving to the very heavens as we are today.”

Today, I will be thankful for my early morning cup of coffee, though I drink it every day. I will be thankful for my wife, though I express it far too seldom. I will be thankful that my car starts, though I don’t understand the mechanics. I will be thankful that the traffic was light and that my drive to work included no stop lights. I will be thankful for a choice among prime parking spaces. I will be thankful that I have an umbrella. I will be thankful for work responsibilities that are predictable and manageable, though sometimes they become routine. I will be thankful that I feel better than I did last summer. I will be especially thankful if I don’t need the umbrella. And if it is rainy, I will start complaining all over again.

I admit it. I am one unthankful brute. Where’s the food?