Grateful

Grateful is a pretty big word when you’re a kid when your parents tell you, you should be grateful for something like a having a little brother or having food on the table. This is a pretty foreign concept for a 5 or even a 10-year-old.

Then as a teenager you’re just busy ‘being busy’ with friends, cool stuff and obsessed about what others think about you that being grateful is furthest from your mind and besides,  if there’s anyone that should be grateful, it should be your parents because after all you’re the smartest one in the family.

In your 20’s you’re finishing school, exploring new things, people and bars and being grateful is well, for old people.

In your 30’s you’re understanding the challenges of raising a family or building a career yet how is it possible to be grateful when you’re barely surviving?

In your 40’s you’ve heard someone tell you to  “count your blessings” which is a very common expression in North America which means that you should stop, smell the flowers and recognize all the precious things that you’ve got going for you in your life, but till now you’ve been too preoccupied to notice.

I think when you hit your 50’s you become more aware of the good things and you begin to appreciate what your parents told you when you were a kid. You realize that to be grateful for something, you need to take stock of the good things you have going for you that really matter, then counting your blessings starts to resonate a bit more.

Most recently, I was blessed a with a bit of time to reflect, take stock and in noparticular order, here are the 61 things I am grateful for:

  1. Being alive
  2. My health
  3. My two sons: Olivier and Phillippe
  4. My Maria that kisses me goodnight
  5. My brother and sister
  6. My doggie Souri that depends on me.
  7. Having the best clients in the world
  8. Getting out of bed on my own
  9. Parents who taught me to be honest, fair and persistent.
  10. High school friends calling me out when I claimed I just turned 50 years old
  11. Romania accepting me as a resident
  12. Rotary club
  13. Ice cream on a holiday
  14. Former staff that are now friends
  15. My network
  16. Ioan – he knows who I’m referring to!
  17. Not falling off a windsurfing board when trying 45 years later.
  18. Floating in a mud bath
  19. Ability to keep learning
  20. Greek hospitality
  21. A dependable Toyota
  22. Friends from Canada that visit
  23. My god parents
  24. A cold Mythos beer
  25. My Dutch business colleagues
  26. Goal setting
  27. Having lived in 10 countries
  28. Reconnecting with friends after 20 years
  29. My rudimentary writing skills
  30. Giving back my knowledge
  31. Fresh fruits straight from the farm
  32. Horse back riding
  33. Motown music
  34. Stimulating authors: Marshall Goldsmith, Earle Nightingale, Napoleon Hill, Stephen Covey, Dale Carnegie
  35. Ability to laugh at myself.
  36. Not obsessing over money
  37. Ability to dance – well sorta 😊
  38. My bicycle
  39. God
  40. Heroes that push me to be better
  41. My former students: CEU, MSM, UNYP, Algonquin
  42. Ability to think coherently
  43. Mary, my book editor
  44. My numerous mistakes
  45. The benefits of a power nap
  46. Meeting and learning about new cultures
  47. A good movie
  48. Helping my clients find their way
  49. My ability to listen
  50. Dependable business partners
  51. Enjoying my solitude
  52. Free will
  53. A bottle of Bordeaux
  54. 4 seasons
  55. Bees and sharks
  56. Greta and global warming activists
  57. “Having all my marbles”
  58. My ability to love
  59. A good cappuccino
  60. Trying to succeed during my holiday on this planet!

I feel good!

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