The Greatest Gift

The other day after I had finished working out, I walked into the gym’s locker room as usual. As I was opening my locker, two older ladies were chatting. I didn’t catch the entire conversation, but the last sentence that one of the ladies said was “God gave us everything we need to live happily in this world. Some have money, some have beauty, and some have good health.” Then she turned to me asking for support. “Don’t you agree?” I smiled at her as a response without saying a word, grabbed my gym bag, and left the locker room.

As I was walking out of the gym, I asked myself “What did God give me so that I can live happily in this world?”. It took me about 30 seconds before I gave myself the answer. “God gave me the positive attitudes to take any setbacks with good spirits and the wisdom to see and solve the problems and obstacles I have had in life.” Yes, I think that is God’s greatest gift for me. It is not the good family I was born into, not the brain, not the physical appearance and strength. Well, those are gifts from God too. But they are not the greatest gift. The good things are easy to be happy about. The bad things are harder to make rainbows out of it. So it is the ability to be happy and at peace when bad things happened that I call “the greatest gift”.

Having this greatest gift from God doesn’t mean that I can just sit back, relax, do nothing, and all of the sudden, feel happy when bad things happen. It takes some work. The positive attitudes need regular exercises. And the wisdom to solve problems requires that I need to use it to explore and learn different problem solving methods, and to take actions to solve problems and get rid of the unhappiness in life.

For me the easiest part is to exercise the positive attitudes. I think it’s like what the book “Outliers” said that if you practice something over and over for 10,000 hours, you’ll be excellent at it. I’m not sure whether the 10,000-hour rule only applies to activities, or it also applies to attitudes. But you get the point. Practice makes perfect. There is no specific set of rules of positive attitudes that would work for everyone in every situation. So I’m not going to force my way of thinking onto anyone by giving you “10 things you should do to be positive”. You too will have to do some work. You have to find your own positive triggers and exercise them regularly.

The problem solving method part is pretty straightforward and can be taught to anyone. Since I was 7 years old, I was taught that whenever I felt unhappy, first I needed to understand what I was unhappy about. Second, I needed to identify the causes of my unhappiness. Third, I needed to figure out what I needed to do to get rid of the unhappiness. Fourth, I needed to find out how I can execute on it. If you studied Buddhism, this teaching will probably be very familiar to you. Or if you studied business, this framework might be familiar to you as well: Understand the problems, identify the causes, come up with strategies to solve problems, and execute on the strategies. They are all the same logical problem solving framework whether it is solving business cases or solving life and mind cases.

Although this 4-step method seems pretty simple, it might not be easy for a person to answer each question correctly. Some people don’t know what they are unhappy about. Some people misunderstood the causes of their unhappiness. If that is the case, then they will also misunderstand the “what to do” and the “how to do” parts. Some people understand the causes of their unhappiness, but don’t know what to do and/or how to make their pains disappear.

Therefore, one needs to learn and practice to come up with the right answers to these four basic questions, just like a successful CEO needs to learn (from formal education, books, trainings, work, mentors, advisors, consultants, career coaches, and other kind of coaches) and builds skills, knowledge and experience, to be able to answer the four questions, make good decisions and make the company successful. The same is true when it comes to happy living. Everyone needs to learn and build skills, knowledge, and experience to be able to use the problem solving framework effectively and successfully in life. And if we think solving life and mind problems and feeling happy and at peace are at least as important as solving our business problems, maybe it deserves at least as much efforts as we put into our careers.

For me, the most difficult part is to take actions once I understand what I’m unhappy about, what caused the unhappiness, what I need to do and how I need to do to be happy. There are many hindrances to taking actions. Sometimes, it is the fears: fear of the consequences, fear of making other people unhappy, fear of the unknowns. Sometimes, it is the naivety, hoping that things we don’t have control of will change in a better way. Sometimes, it is the indecisiveness. And sometimes, it is the laziness. This is the part that I need a “reminder” for myself, that if I’m unhappy about something, after I analyze it and know what to do about it and how to execute on it, then I need to take actions to make my happiness happen too. If I don’t take actions, there’s really no one else to blame. After all, God already gave me everything I need to be happy. I already have “the greatest gift from God”.