Insight

I AM LUCKY. I never realized that before. I thought that my life has been hard because I have not had the benefit of the ‘happy path’ of my peers. Divorced parents before it was a thing. Raised by a single mother without means who worked seven days a week to provide for my brother and I. Worked since I was 11 to provide for myself when she couldn’t. Wore winter coats inside because we could not pay all of our bills and our pipes froze. When I left for college, I was 105 lbs. I had left home mid-way through high school senior year – graduated early to work full time – when things went sideways even though I was an A+ student (my parents were flawed human beings. But who isn’t – I only woke to this recently, and too late to be forgiving).  I paid my own way through college over six years and then grad school. I was emotionally immature for a long time. I am still working on it.

But my wife is right. She has worked on me seeing it this way for almost twenty years now. I am indeed lucky. Why?

I am working from my wooded backyard in a house I own (my third) in a lovely town called Denville, New Jersey, that she introduced me to and that I absolutely love. FBI shows its in the top 30 safest towns out of 80,000 in the United States. The schools are amazing and everyone here seems like they would take care of my children as if they were their own.

My kids are amazing. I cannot be more proud of their academic accomplishments, their social skills, their healthy perspectives on the world and themselves. I am thrilled for their futures. I do not know how any of this happened given my own preoccupations with feeling negative.

My wife is amazing. Our marriage is not perfect. We work on it. We are both all in. Cannot imagine any alternative reality in which I would be happy without her and the family we are growing together.

How else am I lucky?

I have had the privilege of working for some of the most amazing people I have met. In consulting, we meet a lot of people all over the world. I am lucky because I have NEVER been the smartest person in the room in that time. And though I remain somewhat arrogant, I have realized that this is a coping mechanism for feeling inadequate and have learned to let it wash over me and go. Once its passed, only I remain and what I have learned from it – its an opportunity to become a better version of me. I learned to surround myself by those I wish to learn from and to create teams in which others I am responsible for can learn and grow the same way.

How else am I lucky?

I have allergies and chronic pain from old injuries (I was a poor athlete) and other ailments that afflict me. Yet despite a strangely inefficient healthcare system, I can get medicines that keep me being functional.

I learned about White Privilege. I never knew it was a thing. Though my life was harder than those of my peers in many ways, none of that was because of my skin color.

I learned about Misogyny. Though my life was hard, it was not because of my gender.

I learned about homophobia. Though my life was hard, it was not because of my sexual orientation or identity.

I discovered Emotional Intelligence. Though my life was hard, much of it was because of how I viewed myself and my world and that paradigm that I created through my own inner narrative. Emotional Intelligence can be developed and matured and after 10 years I am still learning and maturing. Life is looking better most days. I am lucky.

There are many more reasons, but I think the point here is that I have not shown enough gratitude for my life and the opportunities it has afforded me. Nor have I shown it to those I have benefited from spending time with. And these opportunities are for the most part a function of Chance. I had no role in who I was born to, where, when or in what form. I am lucky.

It may be hubris – please forgive me and by all means tell me so – to think that if I am just becoming aware of how much my good fortune (riches or exceptional good looks – America’s criteria for success – are not among them, btw), maybe others are too. Maybe other people need to.

Its time that we all take stock of what we have that is good in life and build on it. Let the rest go. Deal with it or let it go. But don’t wallow in misfortune and woe-is-me-ism. I am speaking from experience and therefore have a right to say so.

There are people who contend with worse and suffer. There are those who survive and those who thrive. I have no right to be unhappy. I am lucky.

In this time of Corona, there are 8.4 million people sick and 500k and counting who have died who had it better or who did not have it better and got sick anyway. Social distancing is easy for my family as we live in the woods. I am lucky.

I can commit to trying to be more self-aware. Its a work in progress. I do commit to it.

I have no ask of others except for this: There are so many reasons to be negative. Don’t do it. Let it go.

We all – no matter how hard things are for us and those hardships are real – can find something to be happy about. We can all find some positive in our lives that can give us strength. This is a time for Positives. Its time to look forward to possible futures and start with one small step: building on those strengths. Its this denial of the negative potentials of risk taking that is behind all of our triumphs – in every culture and through all history. Its the secret of our success thus far as a species on this planet.

Let’s not let the bad in this world, an outcome of the past, dictate our own actions that will determine the future that we leave to our children. Have intention and take action. You control the future.

Try something different: take a risk and find the positive in yourself and in others. And then Get to work.