Since this blog is launching on Thanksgiving Day, I thought it would be a good time to focus on the value of giving thanks as an important part of everyday life. Although I see the importance of having specific days to honor the things that are of value to most people, such as Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Birthdays, Anniversaries, etc. I think what you do the other 350 days a year is much more meaningful.
Just like game days in sports, it’s easy to push yourself and do your best on these days. But as any great athlete will tell you (if you ask), what separates the greats from the good is all the effort they’re putting in when no one is looking. Likewise, it’s easy to present yourself with a nice sparkly gift on your child’s birthday, and that will get a big reaction, but does that make you a good mom or dad? If you buy your spouse an expensive birthday present while you’re in the middle of an affair, does that mean you’re a good match or that the affair never happened? Of course not, both examples are simply efforts to mask the guilt you feel for not doing what’s best for others the rest of the year.
We humans like to take the easiest route we can find. If working hard while no one is watching and with no guarantee of future success/stardom was easy, we’d all be LeBron James or Russell Wilson. The fact is, it’s not easy being a great athlete, a great parent, or a great spouse. Our society extols shiny things, and many of us admire and envy people who have them, but the fact is, it’s not easy being a great athlete, parent, or spouse. That requires a lot more than just buying shiny things.
I’ve been lucky enough to be exposed to both ends of the spectrum and I no longer envy those with shiny things or shiny things themselves. I used to think that those things were the way to happiness, but now I know that I was instinctively looking for the easy way to find happiness.
As any of my clients will tell you, I often say ‘the happiest people I know are not those who have the most, but those who need the least’. I also often tell my clients that many of the ways the brain works best are counterintuitive and perhaps that is why I have learned that the deepest form of happiness I have found comes from struggle.
Do you know who I admire? The single mother who is raising a young autistic man and another son will do whatever she can to help them become valued members of society, regardless of what she has to sacrifice to get them there. I admire the man who has endured much in silence and works in the shadows developing young basketball players as people through his care and at great cost to himself.
I’ve received some brilliant gifts over the years, but at the risk of sounding ungrateful, none of them make the list of what I’m grateful for today. That list is mostly made up of my family, friends, clients, chance, and the hardships I’ve been through.
Take time to say thank you today, but also remember that it’s not what you do on game day or the holidays that makes you who you are, it’s what you do today and every day after today. Make it a great Thanksgiving!
You can follow Sam on Twitter @SuperTaoInc
