In a recent post, I mentioned a coaching class I was attending. In this class, students (agents) are given weekly, personal assignments, designed to help them grow, dynamically and financially. In many ways, the advice, or required curriculum is doing what you already know you must do to be successful, difference being that in this class, you are held accountable by your peers. All good stuff. My challenge from the beginning was the daily task of writing down (pen to paper- as the instructor hammers home), at least 5-10 things you are grateful for. 25 things on a bad day is also suggested. As I mentioned then, I feel grateful throughout everyday and felt offended that it was required in this class. I felt that; or it came across that we (students) hadn’t done it before and needed to do it now. It was if he was the individual “enlightening” me to show gratitude on a daily basis.

Today I am compelled to express my gratitude in writing.

Everyday seems to bring a new hardship or tragedy; each more senseless than the one before. Yesterday in Texas was horrific, as was Buffalo and every shooting before, but it also caused me to be grateful for entirely selfish reasons. Like most of us, I wanted to hug family after hearing the news, and was truly appreciative that as bad as this was, it had happened to someone else, not me. As I continued processing this, I was even more grateful for not having young children or grandchildren and being confronted by the reality of trying to explain and comfort these young souls. I also tried to imagine how hard it must be as a parent to be doing this after being forced to home-school their kids and explain what a pandemic means. All this with a backdrop of Ukraine and trying to navigate regular shortages and inflation. Reflecting now back on the early days of the pandemic, it now seems surreal. Most of us were in some form of lockdown, yet found ways to connect and often inspire. We we unable to leave and cause random senseless harm to innocent people because we lived on Zoom.

I understand the debate will once again focus on guns, but feel the bigger issue is mental health. There is no way to justify any of this violence, but fear because of the scope of what we have gone through over the last several years, many are surviving day to day. Mental health is a serious issue and deserves our immediate and complete attention.