11.25.09
So much to be thankful for
In the season of Thanksgiving, I recently learned I was a little less grateful than I thought I was. And for those of us wrestling with uncertainty, fearing the loss of a job or coping with one it is easy to forget there is still much for which to be thankful.
I recently read a blog by Boyce Watkins, a business professor at Syracuse University, who said, basically, there is no such thing as unemployment. We all work, even if our job at the moment is finding a job. We all expend energy trying to earn a living, grow professionally and realize our goals and dreams.
If we focus on what we do, rather than what we don’t, we may well just work ourselves into the place we want to be. If, instead, we focus on what makes us unhappy, what we don’t have, where we’re not going – or spend all our time going and doing and not paying attention to the sights along the way – we end up sad, empty handed and directionless.
The first step is to think about for whom and what we are thankful and look for ways to embrace them more fully.
I went to a cousin’s funeral last week and learned that my self-absorption had cost me a lot of valuable time getting to know my extended family.
My cousin Kevin suffered a near fatal beating several years ago, while doing some community work. He was never quite the same after that. He seemed to move and talk like someone who had suffered a serious stroke. What I didn’t know until the day of his funeral was he also had Lou Gehrig’s disease. I don’t know whether the diagnosis was before or after the beating. In fact, there was a lot I didn’t know about my cousin.
My cousin, whom I remembered as someone who always had a big smile and a kind word for everybody, was also a Hindi and a spiritual mentor. He wrote incredible essays that explained the purpose of human life and the soul and how we lead one affects the other.
As the testimonials came forward, I discovered one of his nephews, affectionately known as “Baby Kevin,” although he is now near 40, had a wonderful voice as he got up and sang “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Who knew? Other cousins came forward with music, poetry and heartfelt memories, sharing talents that I assumed had been hidden from view, but I soon realized I had simply not spent enough time around them to know what they could do.
I also learned that despite his suffering, Kevin never complained. I mean NEVER. Every person who spoke about him, every person who was there in his final days, from his immediate family, to the cousin who went to his home daily to check on him, prepare meals, make sure he ate and took his medication, said he never cursed his condition, never despaired, never wondered why he was chosen to suffer, never thought he had been treated unfairly.
I looked around at my talented family whom I seemed barely to know and vowed that I would work at getting closer to them and that I was done complaining.
I am thankful for awareness and the ability to reconnect. I am healthy; I am working; I am alive and thinking and feeling and able to interact with people. That is an opportunity to be embraced.
‘Tis the season to be jolly – and happy, and loving, and dedicated to being better not just personally, but professionally. I am certain that the spirit you share with loved ones can spill over and serve you just as well in the workplace.
I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving – and a joyous professional future.
