I’m Really grateful LinkedIn included me on their “Top Voices” list for 2015.
This year, both at the beginning and the end, such incredibly bad things happened to me that I thought I would get swallowed up forever.
I didn’t.
Every year of my life, really bad things have happened. That’s called “living on this planet”.
Another thing is that no matter what goals we plan, the goals never happen. What does happen could not have been predicted.
By living a good life, you can react better to the explosions in the life around you. And you can even lessen them. But they still happen because it’s out of your control.
This year started with me losing millions on a single day. Two books and a company were launched in the middle. And the end looks like its closing with some personal catastrophes.
But each year I try to react better to ride these ups and downs. To forgive myself for any chaos in my life.
For giving myself permission to create and love in the tiny needle in haystack that represents the speck of us on this planet.
Recognizing that:
– Life is unpredictable and often painful
– Paying attention to the things that try to cause us to over-react
– Replacing that over-reaction with gratitude, with love and kindness.
– And realizing that always returning to our own health, creativity, friendships, gratitude is always a way to survive even better to the next day
This sounds corny or preachy. I don’t care. It’s what I try to do. And sometimes I fail. And sometimes it works.
All other preachy BS does not work for me.
But each day is a practice to get better at the above. I hope I never forget that.
I hope I never again get swallowed up in the rabbit hole of “why is this happening to me?” when there are rarely any answers.
But I will. I will again and again get swallowed up. And then, like anyone, I hope I can use the above to climb back out.
The past two months, having good friends has saved me. I was always afraid to be a burden on my friends. I would give but be ashamed to take.
These past months I took. And took and took.
What I realized was how grateful my friends were to help.
This is more important than business or career or passions or anything.
Love and kindness between you and your friends turns out, in many cultures of above-average centenarians, to be the key to high quality of life (well-being and health) in 100+ age old people.
Almost nothing else rates on the scale. Not diet. Not money. Not even family.
Every day I practice thinking all day long what I am grateful for. Today I am grateful to my friends at LinkedIn. And all of the other people that intersected even briefly with my life these past two months.
I feel like my life is not made up of my success and failures. But all of the intersections that occur in between these events.
Those are the things I most remember later. Those are the things I hope I never forget. Those are the things that saved my life.
You can follow me on LinkedIn here.