I remember one of the few times that I’d begun to contemplate my own mortality.
It was October of 2013 — I was living in a 3-bedroom apartment with two roommates in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
I remember it being cold and wet — dreary, grey fall New York weather.
And I was about to get fired from my sales job, just a few months into it.
I assumed that my first successful month was a fluke.
And so, every waking thought was, “I am going to get fired. I am going to get kicked out of my apartment. And I am going to have to go live at home again.”
And finally, “I should just end my life.”
(This was before a time when I’d inherited any money from my grandparents, so my cushion was only a month or two of expenses, not years.)
What came with those thoughts and feelings was this intense amount of shame and self-doubt.
“What will my parents think?”
(Turns out, they’ll be fine with it. They just want you safe and sound. I learned that the hard way a few years ago when I did have to move back home after a particularly tough stretch in life.)
And so, as I thought about my day-to-day sales gig — I was working at a tech company in New York selling a service that simply allowed restaurants (and other businesses) to maintain their menus on different sites like Google, Yelp, OpenTable, etc. — I remember that my sales goal for the month was 20 sales, and I was at 4 or 5 a little more than midway through the month.
So, I had no sense of optimism or hope.
Only fear and dread and panic, and an impending sense of doom.
It felt like the world was caving in on me.
I knew that if I missed my quota that significantly (less than 80%, which was 16) — I would be put on a Performance Improvement Plan.
And, naturally, a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) isn’t exactly confidence-inducing.
Every month, we lost about half of the new sales reps who came with every team, and almost everyone who was ever put on a PIP was subsequently fired the next month for missing their quota, again.
So, I was scared.
And every day, I was trying to come up with answers for what might get me out of that cycle of fear.
One day, as a sorta quick-fix I started to meditate — but instead of just thinking about life or otherwise, I started to think to myself, “Here is everything I’m grateful for…”
I am grateful for:
- My health.
- My parents.
- My sister.
- My mentors.
- The money I do have in the bank.
- My friends.
- My apartment.
And on and on. I would think of this girl who I saw on an old YouTube viral video — she would say, out loud, almost in an exclamatory fashion: “I love my parents! I love my friends! I love my dolls!” and so on.
And so, I’d start to reflect on those things, and say that in my head.
And I’d think of that little girl — “I love my health! I love my parents! I love my sister!”
And those little moments — 15 or 30 minutes in the morning — kept me going.
Little by little, I was noticing the opportunities that were coming up in my sales calls and conversations.
I felt less tight.
People started to say, “Yes!”
By the end of the month, I’d finally reached 80% of my quota.
In fact, on the last day of the month, I got three sales to hit that number.
It was like the universe had started to conspire to fulfill my silly whims and dreams.
By the end of my time working there, I had joined the President’s Club — which meant that I was one of the top sales reps at the company, for a year-long period.
I still don’t fully understand how that piece happened, but it did.
Life is funny.
The point is, gratitude has always been a thing that I’ve used to bring me back from the deepest, darkest moments in life.
After losing $10s of thousands and a falling out with a business partner put me on the brink of suicide.
After breakups that left me lost and alone and lonely.
After moving to Japan at the beginning of Covid, leaving all of my friends and family behind and starting to wonder, “What the fuck is even happening?!”
Gratitude has always brought me back.
And there’s research behind it — according to a Harvard article on positive psychology:
…gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.
So, if the whole Thanksgiving part of Thanksgiving feels particularly silly because, really, it does.
Just know that it’s important, too.
As soon as you stop feeling gratitude for the life you have — exactly as it is, nothing more, nothing less — you stop seeing the opportunities and the things to be grateful for that arise on a day-to-day basis.
But when you’re able to truly connect with that on a day-to-day basis, it becomes almost impossible to forget.
I think about that a lot — especially when I’m feeling awful.
And then I just go back to… “I love my family! I love the money I do have! I love the home I get to stay in! I love the work I get to do!”
And so on.
And then I get back to a place of contentment.
Maybe not happiness — because happiness is fleeting.
But contentment, at least.