Be happy...be grateful

Life can be a great symphony below and beyond the canopy of stars. Silence becomes the canvas where the music will sound. We need to be silent in order to let in the timpani, then the strings, then the bassoon, the horns, the tenors; then all together in a specific lapse of time as the orchestra director marks the rhythm and the different musicians interactions. The composer wrote the music sheet. The musicians make the notes actually sound. The orchestra director will put together the musicians and elicit the beauty of the symphony as one piece. Everyone will have our time to play. That can be an instant or several minutes. The universe will let us play alone, with the rest and eventually will put us in silence again.

These times have been tough. We have gone through big challenges never faced before, as human beings, professionals, trainers and/or coaches. In my case, economic, market and customer setbacks were present with their felt impact in my life. My self and many others, have experienced the sudden absence of very dear beloved ones. Ambiguity, complexity, uncertainty and change are now the constants. Many of us have also experienced vulnerability in a deepen way that has opened new life meanings, in relation to ourselves and in relation to others and the world around us. The composer has brought another music sheet for the world to play. He knows when to call our participation.

Amid this environment I feel a certain rush to live and complete some basic human tasks. One very critical one is being grateful. Grateful to God, nature, or "superior force," however you want to see it. Grateful to others such as our parents, wife or husband, kids, brothers, friends, coworkers, clients, peers, bosses, neighbors, doctors, nurses, officers, partners, teachers and every soul that has served us when we needed them. 

Gratefulness welcomes the little or abundant goodness we have experienced in our lives over the setbacks and the negative experiences or perceptions. After all, being alive is much greater than the bunch of experiences we have gone through since our birth to now and in between. Gratefulness brings out the voice of our hearts to balance harmony. The harmony of our own and other’s happiness.

One great question I have made to myself and others, Isn’t there anything you can be grateful for today? This question leads to actually “seeing” all the benefits and blessings we have received through our lives. Usually thousands of reasons arise in the sense of being grateful to so many people and human beings who have touched our lives somehow. Before we engage in my client’s problems and challenges I make them this question and suddenly half of their problems magically disappear. Then we can talk.

My dear daughter Anita who passed away last July was treated since birth by a more than a dozen doctors, specialists, nurses, surgeons, cardiologists and a great number of them served her and maintained her alive for 27 years. She had a very unique pacemaker implantation 5 years ago. This fact allowed Anita to complete her college degree and serve as a kindergarten teacher, a dream she had since childhood. The least I could do is thank them all. And I did. I did also manage to find her first heart surgeon back in 1993, Dr. Ott who is now retired, and thanked him. His response was “your note means a lot to me”. Anita left us, yes. As her father I experience deep pain and as I do, I experience also a profound gratefulness. I had the privilege to have her among us 27 years when her life expectancy was much briefer. Being grateful has been a much better and healthy state than grief. Anita now plays above and beyond our understanding harmonizing with the universe letting her voice sound in our hearts.

Isn’t there anything you can be grateful for today?