And so it begins...

This is birthday season for the girls and women in our family across multiple generations. March 6, marked our first daughter and child’s 37th birthday and was soon followed by her sister’s 35th and then our darling first granddaughter’s 1st. While my wife and their Mom will have to wait a couple of weeks for hers, (out of respect I won’t share her number), Easter Sunday would have been my mom’s 99th. Though we were blessed to have her with us for 93 healthy and happy years we still miss her every day.

As every parent knows, the birth of a first child changes everything. The night we brought her home from the hospital and had her cradle next to our bedside, I lay there awake, listening to her little breaths, one after another, scared to my core that she might stop! I remember thinking that for the very first time in my life I had made a truly irrevocable commitment; and through that lens, life would never be the same, and how right I was!

Being a parent for the first time gave me a much more profound respect for how miraculous bringing life into the world is, especially for the women who do all of the sometimes very painful heavy lifting through birthing and beyond; and of course, what an incredibly courageous and unselfish life every loving mother leads.

I find that as time goes by I gain a much greater appreciation for almost everything that I might have earlier taken for granted, and what tops the list is just how lucky I was to have the parents and family that I was born into. The whole reality of being born into a loving family with all that comes with it, from the genetic foundation we’re given, to the place and moment in history that we happen to occupy for our life’s journey is something that we had no control over…in the truest sense of the word, it was a gift that we were given. Our response to that gift is the story of our life.

Within that framework what I’ve learned is that gratitude is the truest source of inspiration to not only appreciate all that’s been given, but more importantly to motivate us to “pay it forward”, and make the lives of others just a bit better by our presence. I recently listened to a very popular podcast generated by a group of very smart young investors and analysts in the technology and media space. While I appreciated their intelligence and insights there was a comment that bothered me. One of the speakers said that “people want to help others out of a sense of guilt and self loathing”. Maybe that might be true for some, but definitely not the way I see things. I believe that most people respond to a broken world, not out of guilt but out of a profound sense of gratitude; both fully appreciating how fortunate they’ve been no matter their circumstance and willing to help others in appreciation. In our day to day living we are constantly confronted by the reality that others might have much more than we and others so much less. Where we choose to put our focus makes all the difference. Envy or gratefulness…it’s truly a choice.

As I look back, and at this stage of life, there’s a lot of road to look back at… I guess nearly all of what I believe and hold dear comes from the lessons my parents taught me and repeated endlessly, “Be grateful for what you have and always look for the good in others”. As we collectively face what sometimes feel like insurmountable problems in our very broken world, those words and lessons speak louder to me than ever and challenge me to try every day to repay a gift that I will likely never be able to fully do..and yet I also believe to my core, that trying to act in that spirit is the best that I can do. So Mom, wherever you are, thanks again and again and again, and yes, rest assured, I’ll keep trying to do just a little bit better.