What are socks anyway? Are they anything less than the life efforts of the plants and people who made them? A cotton plant's life is the source of these socks. Farmers, factory workers, delivery people, and others gave moments of their lives to make these socks. These socks are full of life! If I subtract all the life from the making of these socks, there would be nothing left. It is true that they do not have a heartbeat. But they serve me just the same. Acting most unselfishly, they go wherever I take them, shielding my feet and softening my steps upon the earth. I have several pairs of thick cotton socks that provide a cozy blanket against our bare wood floors during the frigid Vermont winters. When I am mindful of the service socks offer me and the efforts that went into making them, I am thankful. Yet there is still this sticky problem of whether to say thanks to a pair of socks.
The best reason I can offer for saying thank you to socks is that they deserve it. Doesn't anything that serves, supports, and cares for us deserve a word of thanks? But here's another reason. Saying thank you to people and things will change your experience of life. Each moment we say thanks is a shift in our attention. A shift from our problems and difficulties toward the support we are receiving from the world. Our attention is our life. Shifting our attention opens us to reality and reveals what has been there all along: socks.
— Gregg Krech, Naikan