Make every day a day to give thanks

Since this blog will launch on Thanksgiving Day, I thought it would be a good time to focus on the value of giving thanks as an important part of daily life. Although I do see the importance of having specific days to honor the things that hold value to the most people, such as Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Birthdays, Anniversaries, etc. I think what you do the other 350 days of the 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 great from the good is all the effort they put in when no one is looking. Similarly, it’s easy to present yourself with a nice shiny 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 gift for his birthday 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 looking 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 remains that it’s not easy being a great athlete, parent, or spouse. That requires a lot more than just buying shiny stuff.

I’ve been lucky enough to be exposed to both ends of the spectrum and I no longer envy those with shiny things or the 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 the ones who have the most, but the ones who need the least’. I also often tell my clients that many of the ways the brain works best are counterintuitive and perhaps that’s why I’ve learned that the deepest form of happiness I’ve found comes from struggles.

Do you know who I admire? The single mother who is raising an autistic young man and another son and will do everything 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 behind the scenes 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, serendipity, and 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 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