What are you grateful for?
Archives: Daily Issues
Issue #2524
- WEALTHY: Happy Thanksgiving! (Michael Masterson)
- HEALTHY: A spice-cabinet staple that can fight aging (Kelley Herring)
- WISE: Brother David Steindl-Rast on being grateful
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- If you get to this point, you’re done (Suzanne Richardson)
- The best of both worlds (Wendy Montes de Oca)
- It’s Fun to Know… about the origin of Thanksgiving
- Add "postprandial" to your vocabulary
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"Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy – because we will always want to have something else or something more."
Brother David Steindl-Rast
Wanting Things
I don’t remember being thankful very often when I was a kid. I remember wanting things – lots of things – all the time.
I wanted toy trucks and cap guns and Lionel trains and baseball mitts. I wanted army men and model planes and erector sets. I wanted everything I saw advertised for boys on television. And everything other kids at school had, including boxed lunches and meat sandwiches instead of peanut butter and jelly in a paper bag.
I wanted to live in a nice house instead of the broken-down place my seven siblings and I grew up in. I wanted the new bikes and new clothes and professional haircuts my schoolmates had.
I wanted, as I said, all kinds of things. But gratitude? I didn’t have much time for that.
Check that.
I was thankful to Bruce Conger’s family for donating a box of his clothes to our family one Christmas. Bruce was the coolest dresser in 7th grade. I became, at least in my own mind, the coolest kid in 7th grade the following year when I wore his clothes to school. Tight, tight olive-green pants with creases so sharp they could cut you. Shiny black shoes with tips so pointed you could open a beer can with them. And sky blue cashmere socks. Oh, was I cool!
I was also thankful two years later when my godmother, Jean Kerr, gave me one half of a share of one of her plays. It wasn’t one of her big hits, but it was enough to buy me a brand-new pool cue that I used at the Rockville Centre Cue Club.
I was grateful, too, in my senior year, when, after having gotten caught in a riptide at Jones Beach and given up my life in an exhausting attempt to swim directly ashore, I was carried by the current around the jetty and back to safety. I had already lost my faith in religion at the time, but I was grateful. Very grateful.
Otherwise, as I said, I spent most of my emotional energy wanting things.
After high school, I was grateful that I wasn’t drafted into the Vietnam War. Someone from my local draft board called me up and told me I was to report for duty, but they never followed up on that call and I never heard from them again. I can only imagine that my file was lost. I still sometimes expect it to be found… and then find myself the oldest recruit in the army.
In college, I developed an appreciation for learning and learned to be grateful for the great teachers I had. Harriett Zinnes, who taught me something about poetry, and Lillian Feder, who taught me to love good writing, were two of the best.
Then, after college and graduate school, I spent two years in the Peace Corps. I remember sitting on my porch in Africa, watching the rain pour down on my plaster-coated mud house and thinking, "You may get rich one day but you’ll never live in a house that will give you more pleasure than this."
I was grateful for that house – for having the privilege to live in it when so many of my students lived in shacks. And I was also grateful for my gratitude. I had begun to understand how good it feels.
When I returned to the States, a married man, I remember feeling grateful each time one of my sons was born. Grateful that they were all healthy. And I remember feeling grateful when, on Sundays, we would take the children on walks up and down 16th Street in Washington, DC to look at the stately mansions there. I was not envious of those elegant homes. Being able to see and appreciate them was enough.
In 1982, we moved to South Florida and I took a job with a small newsletter publishing company there. I felt lucky to have the job – running the editorial department – because it meant that I was on my way to achieving my longtime goal of becoming a writer.
But two years later, I had a change of heart. I switched my goal from writing to making money. And when I did that, I stopped being grateful.
It was an interesting experience. I was fired up about making money. And I spent all my emotional energy pursuing it. But, looking back now, it’s clear to me that I was once again preoccupied with wanting things. I wanted a higher income. I wanted money in the bank. I wanted a new car. And I wanted a mortgage-free home.
I’ve written a good deal about the tricks and techniques I used to acquire a lot of money during those years. But I never wrote about how ungrateful I was for the things that money bought me. I felt like I deserved them. And the moment I got something I wanted, I was thinking about the next thing I wanted.
When I turned 50, I realized that making wealth my number one goal had been a mistake. In doing so, I had learned a lot. But I had also lost a lot, not the least of which was my capacity for gratitude.
I am grateful now that I didn’t lose my soul completely during those wanting years. And, yes, I realize that it’s much easier to feel the way I now feel when you don’t have to worry about expenses. Still, I feel grateful that I was able to make that change.
Lest you think I am grateful only for soulful things, I readily admit to being grateful for material things too. I’m grateful for my 17-year-old NSX and my eight-year-old Ranger truck. I’m grateful for some of my clothes (those that make me feel good) and for my pool table (which I keep in my office) and to be living in a house that gives me as much pleasure as the mud house I lived in 30 years ago. (I was wrong when I thought that couldn’t be possible.)
But when K and I talk about how grateful we are, the same three things always top the list:
1. We are grateful that we and our children are alive.
2. We are grateful that we and our children are healthy.
3. We are grateful to have so many good friends.
And I am personally grateful for being able to spend most of my working hours writing – which was my first and most important lifetime goal – and especially grateful that ETR affords me 400,000 readers to write to!
What’s on your list?
[Ed. Note: Another thing that Michael Masterson is grateful for is that he is making a living by selling products and services he's proud of - products and services that help ETR's customers achieve their own goals. So, as a special thank you to our best customers, he has started a new VIP service in which he gives insider business-building advice usually reserved for his private clients - a twice-weekly newsletter called Ready Fire Aim: The Michael Masterson Dispatch. If you have bought an ETR product or attended a conference and are not receiving Ready Fire Aim, please let us know by sending an e-mail to Michael@ETRfeedback.com.]
Your Chance to Take Your Business to New Heights
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Learn Something New Every Day
Guess what? You don’t know everything.
And MaryEllen Tribby doesn’t either.
If you think I’m being impertinent, please read on…
MaryEllen, as you know, is a successful woman. She’s got 20+ years of publishing and business experience. She’s responsible for more than tripling ETR’s revenues in 15 months. And she’s the co-author of an Amazon.com best-seller.
There’s no doubt she’s an expert in marketing and business building. And she has a lot to teach.
In fact, she let a truly important lesson drop last Wednesday morning, during an informal chat before a meeting.
A couple of ETR staffers had just returned from a search engine marketing conference. They were talking about one of the other conference attendees who’d put up a stink. He was an expert in search engine marketing, he kept saying. And the conference leaders had a lot to learn from HIM – so he wasn’t going to listen to what they had to say.
"I’ve occasionally run into people like that," MaryEllen said. "They’re accomplished in their careers and, for some reason, think there’s nothing left for them to learn."
"I hate that attitude. If you get to a point where you believe you know everything, you’re done. You’re just done.
"You can learn something from everyone, every day. Even when I’m speaking at a conference, I always listen to the other speakers’ presentations. Because you never know what useful idea or process you’re going to pick up."
A big part of being successful is opening yourself up to new ideas, new people, and new experiences. If you’re not always learning – actively – you might as well pack up shop.
If the CEO of a multimillion-dollar company can say she still has things to learn, so do you. So make sure you get out and learn something new – every single day.
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A Tasty Way to Reduce Wrinkles
Do you want people to do a double-take when you reveal your real age? Then do this: Eat cinnamon and cloves.
Recent research published in the Journal of Medicinal Food found that these spices – which are often used in holiday goodies – not only provide antioxidants but also significant protection against the formation of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs).
And "AGE" is certainly an apt acronym. You see, AGEs trigger the body’s defense arsenal and lead to inflammation and tissue damage. This results in lines on your face, inflexible arteries, and a host of other metabolic consequences.
So, how do you get the most out of these age-defying spices?
The first rule is this: The fresher the flavor, the more benefits. The researchers found a direct correlation between the phenol content in the spices and their ability to block AGEs. And since phenols are destroyed by light, heat, and exposure to air, keep your spices in a cool dark place for maximum potency.
Plus when you bake with these spices, make sure you use a safe sweetener too (i.e., one that does not spike blood sugar and promote AGEs), like erythritol or stevia.
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My Favorite Thanksgiving Tradition: The Best of Two Worlds
For my husband and me, Thanksgiving is an international delight. My family is Italian and Irish. His is Latin American. When he was growing up, my husband and his family did not celebrate our American holiday. But since they’ve moved to the United States, they have embraced it wholeheartedly.
Dinner at our house is a culinary tour de force with the best traditional American, Italian, and Latin American foods you can imagine. Of course, we have turkey with stuffing (pavo con pan relleno), mashed potatoes (pure de papas), and veggies. We also have my Uncle Joe’s famous antipasto with the sharpest of provolone cheese, pepperoni, and artichokes, as well as my mother-in-law’s mouthwatering lechon and ensalada Russa. Lechon, a holiday dish in South America, is a whole or quarter roasted pig. And ensalada Russa, or "Russia salad," is simply potato salad with peas, carrots, and hard-boiled eggs.
After hours of eating, chatting, drinking sidra (apple cider), and listening to Uruguayan folk music, the meal is topped off with good ole American apple pie… and a game of soccer. Truly the best of both worlds.
[Ed. Note: What is your #1 favorite Thanksgiving tradition? Let us know right here.]
It’s Fun to Know: The Origin of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving, as we celebrate it today, did not originate with the special event we know and love. There were several "thanksgiving" feasts held in early colonial days, including the most famous one at Plymouth.
Most historians agree that the holiday grew out of a combination of the religious tradition of New England Puritans, which was more a day of prayer than of feasting, and the traditional harvest celebrations of England.
Thanksgivings were celebrated sporadically (on different days of the year) throughout the colonial era and in the early days of the United States. Abraham Lincoln officially decreed the last Thursday of November to be a national Thanksgiving holiday in 1863. His proclamation played a dual role. It was also a call for unity during the Civil War.
(Source: History.com)
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Word to the Wise: Postprandial
Something that’s "postprandial" (post-PRAN-dee-ul) – from the Latin for "a late breakfast or lunch" – happens or is done after a meal.
Example (as used by Sylvan Fox in Newsday): "When I wake up in the morning, I can have my usual breakfast – a slightly bizarre concoction of three kinds of cold cereal topped with grapes and a cup of decaf – and then stagger back to bed for a postprandial snooze."
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Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008
Thanks for sharing this. Gratitude is so powerful. I think it was Albert Einstein who said that he’s grateful every day for the accomplishments of others, which he gets to enjoy every day. And yes – being alife, healthy and happy are on top of our gratitude list too!