HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!
I Hope this found you in good health.
In this America, the richest country the world has ever known, on this Thanksgiving Day, it is all too common for people to think primarily of the possessions they've garnered in the past year… the money, the clothes, the new relationship, the scholarship, the jewelry, the car, the toys and gadgets.
But those things, however wonderful, can be fleeting. They can be taken away in the blink of an eye...
You only have to think of the recent hurricanes, the tsunami and to the people every day who are losing their fathers, mothers and children to mad suicide bombers to be brought back to the real truth that material wealth can be here today, gone in an hour.
No. The things we have most to be thankful for is our challenges, our problems, our setbacks, delays… our mistakes, our losses.
No, that is not crazy...
While these things, on the surface, appear to be what blocks us from getting what we want in life, they are not.
Not at all.
They do not stop us from reaching our goals in life. It is our problems that make it possible for us to succeed at all. They make you who you are inside. They are your greatest gifts...
Without your failures, you couldn't have learned so well the things you now know.
Without direct challenges to your skills, you could never raise your hands in victory because you'd have had no opponent to vanquish.
Without your mistakes, you'd never know what you needed to work on in order to gain the skills you now possess.
Yes, it is your problems that you have most to be thankful for.
Without false steps when the stakes are low and the resulting practice to avoid them in the future, you'd never be as great as you are now and will become.
Without the pains of yesterday, which strengthened your will, today's defeats might crush your spirit completely.
Without the heartbreaks of the past, you wouldn't be prepared for the love of today and tomorrow.
Yes, it is your challenges that you have most to be grateful for.
If you hadn't stuck your foot in your mouth over and over in the past, you wouldn't be the silver-tongued orator you are now.
Experience is no good at all unless you fall down a whole lot. Each success only teaches you a small amount. But in every failure and the pain that comes from it, you can
become a genius.
Think of scientists who labor for years through hundreds of failed experiments, learning only what not to do. But each failure eliminates one more way something won't work.
Think of the light bulb, the telephone, microwaves, rocket ships, computers, automobiles, airplanes, the Internet and a gazillion other inventions that make your life what it is
today...
All because of thousands of missteps. Because of failures. ...And what it taught the people who made them.
I am thankful for those failures.
If all you did in life was succeed, it would only be because you didn't challenge your abilities and as a result, you would be stupid and small minded.
In our research of the happiest, most confident, inspired, successful people in every area of life, we have found in every case that they do not fear failure. They challenge
life to knock them down. And when it does, they get back up smiling, smarter and wiser than before, better able to handle the challenges that the future will surely bring.
But the average person avoids failure at all costs. So when life knocks the average person down, they vow never to do that again. And they stay down, not having learned a
thing, no wiser than before and no more skilled than before; Thankful only to be still alive in many cases.
The greatest among us challenge their skills constantly and fall down more than the average 1,000 people combined.
In my life, I once felt cursed by my mistakes. So I tried to avoid failure at all costs.
But now I see every mistake I make and setback as a gift wrapped with a beautiful ribbon and bow put there to guide me on my journey and to make me smarter. And as a result of feeling grateful for my own challenges, I do more and get to make more mistakes; fall down more times AND enjoy greater success than I ever dreamed possible just a few short years ago.
So today, when you are posed the question, "What are you most thankful for?", keep in mind that practically everything that is good in your life including all your skills and capabilities came from challenges, mistakes, delays and even from spectacular failures…
...Because without them, you would have very little to be thankful for.
Again… Happy Thanksgiving Day G│A!
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