“Thank You for the Gift of Another Day”
On the Power of Gratitude
“Thank You for the gift of another day. Thank you for the opportunities presented by this gift.”
Such is how I start every day.
When I was 24-25 years old, I was addicted to drugs. I lost four friends in that period; one to an overdose and the other three because one was probably high, driving back to Georgia where the three of them were going to enter re-hab, and nodded off at the wheel on a remote highway in Texas. All three burned to such a crisp that the local authorities took weeks to figure out who they were.
Even with such losses, I remained addicted. Once you are in that cycle, it’s not an easy thing to break out of. Even when you know you should. In fact, knowing it might make it worse; it’s just one more thing to beat yourself up about, one more thing to make you seek solace in the very thing you know might lead to your death.
But I was saved (I’ve written about it here). I use that syntax deliberately. I’m never interested in forcing my metaphysical worldview onto anyone else, but my experiences in life have led me to the strong conviction that there are other forces out there, some of them helpful, some which mean to harm us.
And for whatever reason, reasons which I’m still exploring 20 years later and likely will be for the rest of my life, one of the positive forces intervened to help me out of that situation.
I was in a jail cell in downtown Los Angeles, tossing and turning through the withdrawal symptoms that heroin and cocaine addicts experience, when I heard a Voice: “It’s over. You can move on now.”
It was loud and clear. Now, it’s funny because as I’ve related this experience over the years, the exact words have changed. I honestly don’t recall them. All I recall is the spirit of them, which was quite simply that I was being granted a second chance and that this harrowing experience was over.
In spite of the pain of being in withdrawals, I felt tears of gratitude well up. And during the next day and a half in jail as I waited to be released, even though I didn’t sleep and felt like I had the worst flu in my life, I was filled with happiness.
I told myself I wouldn’t take it for granted, that I’d be grateful for every breathe I would take going forward. Because others, not only my four friends but my girlfriend of the time, the first love of my life, who was lost to her drug addictions several years later, didn’t get that chance. Not everyone does.
We all know that people can be taken from this world through no fault of their own. Someone out taking their dog for a walk gets hit by a driver who has momentarily dozed off at the wheel. Someone who’s been healthy and the life of the party suffers a massive stroke at age 42.
Such stories are part of the tragic nature of this world we live in. There are, of course, worse ones.
The point of such stories, I believe, is not to dwell on them, not to be consumed by their unfairness, but to realize that every second we get is a blessing, every second worthy of our saying, “Thank you.”
Now, have I fulfilled that promise to myself in the jail cell to not take any of it for granted? Are you kidding me? I’m human, after all—promises made, even the most sincere ones, are going to be broken sometimes.
And in this world of experiences that sometimes seem oh-so-pointless and hard to enjoy (waiting for hours at a DMV, anyone?), it’s hard to constantly remember to say thank you.
This, however, is why I start each day with that invocation. Because who knows, maybe one of these nights I won’t wake up the next day?
In addition, as I’ve grown older, I’ve learned that our challenges are often our best teachers.
Let’s look at not necessarily a hard challenge, but a challenge all the same. It happened yesterday.
Summers in Japan are hot. And I happen to live in an inland area that is often the hottest of the hot. So yesterday, my friends and I played a round of park golf in the hottest part of the day in the hottest season of the year in the hottest part of a hot country. Smart, right?
Yet it was a special occasion. You see, I was meeting a treasured friend, a guy I met in 2004, my first summer here, and who I thought would be here as long as I was. Then, as these things go, he moved back to the US several years back.
There was a group of six of us that wanted to get together. It’s hard in these busy times to get such a group together at an agreed-upon time. But because I hadn’t seen my friend for two years and this would be the only chance I’d get to see him, I wasn’t going to miss it.
Our original plan was to meet at 10:30, play park golf, go home to refresh and meet at a beer garden in the evening. But a typhoon offshore changed the plans, so we were teeing off at 1 p.m, the peak of the heat. It was hot (around 100-105 F heat index). I’m not going to deny that.
How does gratitude play into this? Well, lately, I’ve come to be grateful for climatic extremes because I realize they present opportunities for pleasurable experiences.
In this case, I knew the hotter I got, the better my cold shower and cold bath at the ‘onsen’ (Japanese hot springs) connected to the golf course would feel. So my mindset was, “Bring on the heat.”
And my friends can tell you, I was a ball of energy in spite of the heat. I had a blast out there with everyone, though I probably ought to apologize for yakking so much. Then again, it’s possible had it not been for my chatting, everyone would have fallen into a permanent, heat-induced stupor (we did actually see someone who’d been playing tennis next to the course being carted off in an ambulance!).
Anyway, after just over two hours on the course, I finally got into that bath. And in spite of the fact that it was designed for at most three people but an old man squeezed in so that four of us we were balled up like Japanese monkeys, it was like a slice of heaven. And when I got out, that hot air felt wonderful.
So yes, I’m a deep believer that gratitude is one of the great life hacks. It can be used to make difficult experiences cherished ones. So much more I could write about this, but I’ve well exceeded my 1,000-word word count (Please forgive me!) Not to worry, I’ll re-visit this topic in the future. For now, thanks for reading!
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