This Thanksgiving season, we are all reminded of what we are thankful for and to show gratitude for the great things in life we often overlook. That’s exactly why I’m thankful for all-you-can-eat buffets. 

The concept of the all-you-can-eat buffet signifies a free, equal, and fair market made without corruption, an ideal society. From the very beginning, it exemplifies a just system, in which the participants are fairly divided at the register. This is where the price of entrance is set so that those with a lower likelihood of success may eat at a cheaper cost. Meanwhile those who are mentally and physically fit for the challenge enter more expensively. 

Yet this separation is broken the moment every soul steps foot into the all-you-can-eat buffet. In that instant, the buffet becomes the host of organized chaos. As each person rushes to fill their plates, they are granted the resources to do so without fail, and when you decide to stop, it is only because they could go no longer. Your only adversary in the buffet is yourself, however far they are willing to go is the same as how much they’ll succeed in fulfilling their appetite. Truly, the all-you-can-eat buffet is a test of will and drive. Everyone is granted equal opportunity and is free to strategically indulge in all of the culinary cuisines available within the buffet itself. The only question remaining in this seemingly incorruptible structure, is what they’ll achieve. Such perfection is worthy of a million exclamations of gratitude.  

Finally, once you have set out on your voyage and returned to the real, imperfect world only then will you have realized the magnificence of the all-you-can-eat buffet. As you return home, stuffed like a turkey on Thanksgiving, you may rest in full satisfaction knowing that you have gotten your money’s worth. Having lived in a temporal paradise that one day you may return to, but for now, you can rest with fond memories. 

But if you arrive home and your stomach calls for it to be fed, you have no one to blame but yourself as in your foolishness you did not fully comprehend the opportunity that was bestowed upon you when you were at the buffet. Nevertheless, the all-you-can-eat buffet has not left you empty-handed; it has granted you with a reward far greater than a full stomach. The all-you-can-eat buffet has given you wisdom, a lesson to always take advantage of great opportunities, so that when you have grown and are dealt with a good hand you may not overlook it as you overlooked the buffet, but that you may deal with it and make the most of it.  

Thank God for the all-you-can-eat buffet, for it is a gift. How else may you describe something that gives you so much at such a low price? I pray that the world may become more and more like an all-you-can-eat buffet, so that it may be a better place for us all.