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:
- Being alive
- My health
- My two sons: Olivier and Phillippe
- My Maria that kisses me goodnight
- My brother and sister
- My doggie Souri that depends on me.
- Having the best clients in the world
- Getting out of bed on my own
- Parents who taught me to be honest, fair and persistent.
- High school friends calling me out when I claimed I just turned 50 years old
- Romania accepting me as a resident
- Rotary club
- Ice cream on a holiday
- Former staff that are now friends
- My network
- Ioan – he knows who I’m referring to!
- Not falling off a windsurfing board when trying 45 years later.
- Floating in a mud bath
- Ability to keep learning
- Greek hospitality
- A dependable Toyota
- Friends from Canada that visit
- My god parents
- A cold Mythos beer
- My Dutch business colleagues
- Goal setting
- Having lived in 10 countries
- Reconnecting with friends after 20 years
- My rudimentary writing skills
- Giving back my knowledge
- Fresh fruits straight from the farm
- Horse back riding
- Motown music
- Stimulating authors: Marshall Goldsmith, Earle Nightingale, Napoleon Hill, Stephen Covey, Dale Carnegie
- Ability to laugh at myself.
- Not obsessing over money
- Ability to dance – well sorta 😊
- My bicycle
- God
- Heroes that push me to be better
- My former students: CEU, MSM, UNYP, Algonquin
- Ability to think coherently
- Mary, my book editor
- My numerous mistakes
- The benefits of a power nap
- Meeting and learning about new cultures
- A good movie
- Helping my clients find their way
- My ability to listen
- Dependable business partners
- Enjoying my solitude
- Free will
- A bottle of Bordeaux
- 4 seasons
- Bees and sharks
- Greta and global warming activists
- “Having all my marbles”
- My ability to love
- A good cappuccino
- Trying to succeed during my holiday on this planet!
I feel good!