Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Life: Unconditional Gratitude - Embracing a Heart of Thankfulness

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." - Marcus Tullius Cicero

"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us." - Albert Schweitzer

"Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world." - John Milton

Warning: 

This post contains disturbing content regarding suicide. The content may not be suitable for all readers. 

Part 9 of my personal mental health journey continues .... 

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down a road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant - Thank You for Being a Friend - Andrew Gold

My therapy session started as most of them do. 

My therapist uses a number of different techniques to loosen up my mind before the session starts. Today he used yarrow stalks to cast an I Ching reading. For those who are not familiar with the use of I Ching, I invite you to explore it here.

Today's I Ching result was hexagram 15, interpreted as "humility" or "authenticity". If you are interested, here are some interpretations of this hexagram.

As he named the hexagram, but before we began to analyze it, he said quickly, "First word that comes to mind."

"Gratitude", popped out of my mouth before I had a chance to reflect.

Gratitude has always been important to me.

People who don't know me well are not familiar with how I started in this world. My parents were married in April and I was born in August. The primary house I lived in until I was seven years of age is shown below.


It had no running water. Our commode was a white enameled pail, and potable water was drawn from a well. The three kids that started here grew up to become a Wall St. strategy guy, a pediatric oncologist in palliative care and an engineer respectively.

In my career, success has come and gone and come again as it does for many who know the thrilling and terrifying cycles of entrepreneurship. Anyone who accompanies entrepreneurs like me deserve a medal of courage as we experience dizzying heights of success and the terrifying darkness of complexity. Many of us have a mantra - "Never look down". Most of the people around us can't resist a peak, and are often terrified of how high the tightwire really is.

If you had told me when I was young that I was destined to live the Life that I ultimately lived, I would have thought you had lost your mind.

As my therapist and I discussed my Life journey today, I was overcome with emotion.

"What are you feeling?" he asked gently.

"I don't know how all of this happened", I replied.

I'm not ashamed to say
I hope it always will stay this way
My hat is off, won't you stand up and take a bow - Thank You for Being a Friend - Andrew Gold

"Let's break down your journey", he said.

My mother always read to my siblings and I with the limited books we had. 

Mrs. Rowe, an early elementary school teacher, fed my insatiable thirst for reading by providing me with more books than I could ever have dreamt of. She asked me a lot of questions about them to make sure that I understood what I was reading.

When I was ten years old, my first librarian allowed me to take out eight books at a time when the limit per person was two.

My dad was strong in mathematics and always helped me with math homework.

Mr. Morgan, my high school geometry and trigonometry teacher, took that math foundation and set it on fire, filling me with a love of mathematics, logic and critical thinking. 

When I found out that he also purchased clothing for kids who couldn't afford their own in the cold winter months, the seeds were planted in me for a future of service. I later learned that he caught a lot of flack from other teachers, and the school system itself, for doing this.

My therapist and I moved from my early childhood years to my career.

Without exception, every significant success in my Life came "by accident". I say "by accident" even though I do not believe in accidents or coincidences. There was no grand strategy in play on my part. There was no masterful, cunning execution by an aggressive (assertive), "brilliant", decisive alpha male.

Everything significant came to me without any intention, desire or action on my part.

My inner child ever needing to be affirmed, said "yes" to practically every opportunity that arrived. Saying "yes" to so many things led to an amazing, Blessed career and Life.  

Saying "yes" to so many things also led to complexity. Relationships are hard to maintain and family time is hard to come by when you're flying at a million miles an hour. People who have come along for the ride often live in terror (remember - don't look down), and then wondered how the hell things fell into place when they were given the time to do so. People who bailed prematurely often missed out on the "harvest". I don't blame them. I would not have had the courage to follow me on the ride either.

And then there were the other things that happened. 

I survived stage four, three-month-terminal cancer, diagnosed in March of 1996. 

I have survived five airplane "incidents": two RPM governance failures on takeoff, a structural integrity compromise during heavy turbulence, a sudden depressurization at cruising altitude and a near mid-air collision on final as I flew into Toronto.

I split my bicycle helmet when I went over my handlebars at 50 km. per hour.

I have had three near lightning strikes (within 25 feet of me each time).

I was mugged five times in NYC. My martial arts background got a little exercise: two were unconscious before they hit the ground (they swung first), two were knocked to the ground and I talked my way out of the fifth incident.

I was stabbed in the side by a man with dementia while waiting for a subway train in Toronto.

I was knocked out by a guy who drove past me from behind with a long piece of lumber sticking out of his car window. At the moment just before the lumber struck me, I thought I heard someone yell "Look out" in my ear. The command caused me to jump and the lumber struck me across the shoulder blades instead of my neck. Interestingly, the witness driving behind the car in question thought I jumped because of the flash by my head that he saw. EMS told me I should have been killed.

What do you think of guardian angels?

The list of things that I have survived is much longer than this. 

The point that became clear to me as my therapist and I went through all of this was that I cannot claim to have had any role in anything significant in my Life.

At all.

God, the Source, a Higher Authority, Goddess, or however you define "something greater than we are", clearly had a major hand in many of the significant events in my Life.

As for the rest, I am nothing without the people who have been in my Life. 

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
Well, you would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say
Thank you for being a friend - Thank You for Being a Friend - Andrew Gold

As Newton once said:

"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

Where to start ...

My family. Say no more. Being with an entrepreneur is not easy. I wouldn't have had the courage to be with an entrepreneur like me.

The amazing friends that I have, who I would stack up against any group of friends anywhere for their intellect, their wisdom, their love and their support. How I have deserved to be blessed by them still escapes me.

The mentors who took the time from their busy lives to guide me. They didn't need to. My drive for service is in part my way of saying thank you to them. My inner child, in its need to be recognized, pushed this desire to unhealthy levels.

The people who showed up serendipitously over the years just when I needed them, and waded in to help me unconditionally with whatever I needed help with, are living angels. Some came and stayed. Some stayed for a while and moved on. Their significant impact on me is not dependent on the amount of time we spent together. The fact that we connected matters to me.

The business colleagues whom I have been blessed to forge new paths with are heroes of courage, audacity and perseverance.

The new friends I have made after I survived an attempt to take my own Life. Their offering of wisdom and unconditional love and support as I navigated early shame, confusion and weakness, is something that is transforming me.

The random people whom I encounter every day, either as "that Starbucks guy who always sits at the same table with a mountain of books" or wherever I am blessed to encounter you. You bring light to my day.

The people I have been in relationships with over the years. The list is not long but it sure is quality-filled. I am a better human being because of every one of you.

But as my therapist and I reflected on what I referred to as "the whole smash", there was another group of people who are equally important.

We all know people like the people on this list. They are the people that disagreed with me, fought with me or pissed me off. Some were the people who fired the first shot in many conflagrations. Some were the people who were defending themselves when I fired the first shot. There were the ones who thought they were right in their action.  There were some whom I knew were wrong and deserved whatever they got. 

So I thought.

There were the ones that wounded me or were wounded by me. Sometimes the action was accidental. Sometimes it was on purpose. 

There were the ones who weren't patient with me while I did ten million things at once. It seemed a normal way of living for me while it was frustrating or terrifying to them. However, their perception is their reality. I should have seen their side of it more often.

Today, I realized it didn't matter.

Many of us spend so much time and energy trying to keep score from the past that we lose sight of how to live for the future.

Or, we prevent others from living the future they deserve. throwing obstacles in their path as if we have the karmic authority to judge the sins of others while conveniently overlooking our own. 

In doing so, we violate a simple precept as expressed in this ancient Chinese nugget:

Those who seek revenge dig two graves.

When my therapist and I were finished analyzing all of this today, he gave me some important homework.

I was tasked with the job of cultivating maitri within me. Maitri is the Buddhist philosophy of "placing our fearful mind in the cradle of loving-kindness".  Acts of maitri must be offered free of attachment and thoughts of self-interest.

When cultivating maitri, one must express gratitude to seven circles of people. The circles, from the inner one closest to you to the one furthest from you, are:

  • Ourselves (not as easily done as one thinks).
  • Family.
  • Friends.
  • Neutral people (the random strangers we meet on a daily basis or who create products and services that we consume but whom we will never meet).
  • People who have hurt us (or whom we have hurt - including the people who really piss you off or whom we have pissed off).
  • All of the above as a group (embracing everyone as a group removes imagined barriers between them).
  • Everyone through time and space.
If we are honest with ourselves, we are nothing without everyone. 

Everyone.

I once led an exercise with a group of people where we were able to establish that the modest bagel with cream cheese before each of us touched thousands of people. From farmers to bakers to delivery people and everyone in between, it took all those hearts and hands so that we could enjoy such a modest food item.

If it's a car you lack
I'd surely buy you a Cadillac
Whatever you need, any time of the day or night - Thank You for Being a Friend - Andrew Gold

But I wonder if the people who have hurt us intentionally or accidentally, are responsible for revealing the most about us to ourselves. 

I wonder if our greatest leaps in self-discovery and behavior correction are due in large part to that group of people.

It's true that we could never thrive without strong family, great friends, amazing coworkers and the neutral people in our lives.

But what about the people we see as difficult or impossible to be grateful for, either through their actions or the embarrassment of our choices?

Do they not deserve gratitude as well?

I posit that in some cases they deserve the most gratitude of all. 

They are most likely to be the best mirror that reflects back to us who we are, who we think we are and who we would like to be.

Maybe, through interactions and explosions, misunderstandings and attempts to wound, they have contributed to the person that we are today.

Or maybe at some point, they put us on the path to be that person?

Do you know of such a person?

And when we both get older
With walking canes and hair of gray
Have no fear, even though it's hard to hear
I will stand real close and say
Thank you for being a friend (I wanna thank you) - Thank You for Being a Friend - Andrew Gold

One other thought on those people. 

If we examine their inner child and understand the experiences that those people witnessed and endured, I believe it is highly likely that we will feel compassion for their Life, past and present. 

Maybe even unconditional love.

And if we can reach that understanding, maybe we will find it even easier to thank them for who they are in our Life.

I've spent a good part of yesterday and today reaching out to people to express my gratitude for them.

In part, it is to fulfill my therapist's homework request.

But the reality is that my heart needs to do this.

The list is long. If I haven't gotten to you yet, don't sweat it. I'm getting there!

If you are in "that special list", you may be shocked or surprised when you receive my expression of gratitude.

You may be angered by it.

You may be grateful for it.

It's from my heart. There is no reply necessary.

Wherever you are in my maitri list, you have all made my Life better, and for that I am eternally grateful to you.

My successes are entirely due to you and a Higher Authority. You are the giants on whose shoulders I stand, in gratitude, awe and wonder.

My mistakes and failures are my own.

Please be patient with me. 

I'm a work-in-progress.

And when we die and float away
Into the night, the Milky Way
You'll hear me call as we ascend
I'll see you there, then once again - Thank You for Being a Friend - Andrew Gold

To be continued.

With love,

Harry


Long Distance Dedication

I wanted to name names in this post when I wrote it. The people whom I am proud to know as friends (or better) in my Life deserve to be identified for the incredible people that they are in my Life and in the lives of others.

To do this would require permissions to be requested from a lot of very humble people.

You know who you are. 

I am indebted to you.

As for the people in my past who are no longer with us, I can name them and then live in worry that I left out an important person.

They know who they are as well - wherever they are.

But I will dare to name a few of them who appeared in my Life at pivotal moments and who transformed me for the better:
  • Margaret Rowe - Grades 1-3
  • Newton B. Morgan - Grades 9-11
  • Paul J. Johnson - my first boss and mentor
  • Gerald Weinberg - my second mentor (from a distance)
  • Richard Giordanella - who taught me that one can lead with one's heart even on Wall St. (a dedication within a dedication - Chris de Burgh's Snows of New York )
  • Kareen Tucker - my former wife
  • Bonnie Petten - defended me in school from bullies
  • Doug Picirillo - a great friend, mentor and colleague
  • Eric Bennett - a great friend and colleague lost in the World Trade Center
  • Narender Nath - a dear friend and team member lost in the World Trade Center 
  • Stephen J. Fiorelli - a great friend and neighbor lost in the World Trade Center
I will see you again and thank you for what you did for me!

Thoughts on Gratitude and Compassion

While my post is about gratitude, I think unconditional gratitude requires compassion, so that the heart-connection can fully blossom.

Pema Chödrön, in her book, The Places That Scare You, says this about compassion (in conjunction with loving-kindness):

We use the same seven-step aspiration practice to soften our hearts and also to become more honest and forgiving about how and when we shut down. Without justifying or condemning ourselves, we do the courageous work of opening up to suffering. This can be the pain that comes when we put up barriers or the pain of opening our hearts to our own sorrow or that of another being. We learn as much about doing this from our failures as we do from our successes.

In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience - our suffering, our empathy, as well as cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. 

An area where I really need to grow is in the area of people who are often the easiest to judge and to hate - specifically those whom we label as criminals, terrorists, and the like.

As I noted earlier, when one digs deeply to understand the inner child within those individuals, we can see how that person was created and how we should feel compassion for them. We could have gone down the same path more easily than we realize.

However, compassion for such people should not prevent us from administering punishment or incarceration where warranted. It should also not blind us to the reality that many will commit other crimes if they are not prevented from doing so.

Judging the sin while not judging the sinner is a complex beast. 

Unconditional love, gratitude and compassion is not easy.

But they say that the most difficult things in Life are the ones most worthy of our efforts and aspirations. 

What do you think?

This Series

This post is part of a series describing my personal mental health journey after considering taking my own Life. It is my hope that something within these posts will help others find the courage they need to ask for help, to persevere with the help, love and support of others and at some point, to be the strength that someone else needs.

This is part 9.

The entire series can be found here:

The 1970s produced many great songs. Andrew Gold's Thank You for Being a Friend is no exception.



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