On the morning of January 15, 2013, I was in my San Diego hotel room packing to catch a flight home to Orlando. It was a Tuesday, and I had been gone for a week, including the weekend. My wife was seven months pregnant and I obviously felt a need to get home.
As I was packing, I had anxious thoughts running through my mind. The slow season for my business was approaching and I had a daughter on the way. Since I wanted to be home for her birth, I was skipping ISC West – the conference that is my Black Friday. I secure or spark about 60%-75% of my annual business in the three days of ISC West, and I was skipping it. We had just remodeled our new house and our debt was higher than ever. To cap it all off, I was sick, and didn’t have time to be sick. To say I was anxious is gracious – I was scared. Then, I got the call.
(As I typed the last four words, I teared up. Really, I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Bluffton, SC typing this with tears in my eyes and self-consciousness filling the rest of my body.)
It was my wife. She was at the emergency room having complications with our baby. My wife doesn’t panic. My wife doesn’t worry. She was scared. I knew it was the real deal, and all my “worries” disappeared and were replaced with real concerns… concerns that mattered. I immediately begged to have my problems back. I wanted the debt, the uncertainty, the anxiety, all of it – just don’t take away my daughter or hurt my wife. Please. Just give me what I had three minutes ago before the phone rang. Give me those “problems” but take care of my girls. Please … please … please.
We hung up so my wife could be further examined and I could begin waiting. For the first time in my life, truly waiting.
Forty-five minutes later as I stood in the longest security line of all time (it was probably 14 minutes long for all I know), my phone rang. It was my wife. I didn’t have one of those reflective moments of staring at the phone and contemplating life. No, I practically broke my thumb and cracked my screen answering it with unapologetic violence…
“You ok?”
“Yes, and so is Baby P.” (We hadn’t named her yet and called her Baby P.)
I remember the smells, the colors, the temperature, the time, and everything else about that moment. If the six or seven people close in proximity to me in the San Diego TSA line that day walked into this Starbucks right now, I’d recognize them. It was the most exhilarated and alert I had ever felt in my 43 years (this feeling was topped a few months later with my daughter’s birth).
What’s this story got to do with gratitude? Obviously, I was very thankful to God for taking care of my wife and daughter that day; but these feelings of gratitude disappear, right? Well, that’s what I want to share with you. That feeling hasn’t disappeared. The intensity has faded, but I’m able to recall it and bring it back to the surface when needed because of a technique that I practice. It’s a technique that’s easy for me and anyone to use. Here’s what I do…
Whenever I feel overwhelmed or anxious, I remember that moment my wife told me that she was having complications. I remember and feel the desperation, fear, and uselessness that I felt; and I actually feel the misery again. Not as intense, but I feel it. I let the feeling fester for 30 – 45 seconds. Then, I ask myself this exact question: “if you received a similar call today, wouldn’t you be begging for your ‘problems’ again?”
It works. I use this technique whenever I’m in a negative state of mind. I don’t have a problem with gratitude – I’m a pretty grateful guy. However, I do have a problem with catastrophizing: “if that happens, then this and that might happen, and the next thing you know we’ll be homeless”. Whenever I fall into that type of negative thinking, I use my gratitude technique. Living with this level of appreciation snaps me out of my thinking pattern and brings on an overwhelming feeling of “thank God for my life … ‘problems’ and all”.
Most, if not all of you have some type of horrible moment in your life similar to my wife’s call. Maybe not as bad, or maybe worse. Maybe it didn’t have a positive outcome like my call had. You can still use that moment in this technique. I had a call from my boss shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. As I stood at a Burger King pay phone outside of Pittsburgh, he told me that the company was reducing its sales force and had removed my position. My only options were to move to the Midwest or California, both of which were impossible options for me. Not nearly as tragic as my wife’s call and it didn’t product a happy outcome at first, but I still successfully use this moment every now and then when using my technique, and it works.
Try it out. Are you worrying too much today? Are you overwhelmed? Sit down somewhere quiet and try these two steps: imagine that moment and then ask yourself this question: “if you had a similar experience today, wouldn’t you be begging for your ‘problems’ again?”
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and thank God for my life … “problems” and all.
