Episode 030 - All or Nothing

This is In Brief. Let's get to it. Hey there, and welcome back to the In Brief podcast. I'm Jordana. I'm the CEO of the Recon Network. And each week here, we take just a few minutes to dive into a topic that hopefully makes your post-military transition a little bit easier. Or maybe it just gives you a new perspective to take into a new week. This week we're talking about all-or-nothing gratitude. When you think back on your life, what are you grateful for? There's a few typical answers: my family, my house, my job, or my car. You know, the things that really affect our lives and who we spend them with. But what about the bad things? Have you ever heard someone say that they were grateful that they got sick? Or thankful that they lost a job or a friend? If you have, I promise you're one of the few, and I'd also recommend keeping that person around you for a while to learn a few things. See, I recently saw a taped interview of comedian Stephen Colbert by CNN's Anderson Cooper, in which Cooper asked Colbert about his view on gratefulness for everything. Colbert's words, which I'm going to share here, changed my entire perspective on how to approach the things that we regret or that we wish had never happened. Colbert said, yes, it's a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. There's no escaping that. But if you're grateful for your life, then you have to be grateful for all of it. He continued on, I want to be the most human I can be, and that involves acknowledging and ultimately being grateful for the things that I wish didn't happen because they gave me a gift. That gift, he goes on to note, is the understanding that with suffering or tragedy or pain comes a deeper understanding of that suffering or tragedy or pain. And with that understanding, it becomes easier to connect with other human beings going through the same thing. Leaning on these shared experiences, he says, allows him to be conscious of what other people are going through and to feel empathy for them where he might not have otherwise. Now, while this approach may seem counterintuitive— after all, who's thankful for something awful happening to them?— it's a belief founded in many philosophies and religions, from Christianity to Buddhism to Stoicism. In another point of view, the concept is that life brings suffering, but that suffering allows us to not only understand pain, but better appreciate our blessings. Now, for veterans, this is critical to understand because all that you've experienced in military service, from war to brotherhood, is a gift that you've been given and that few share with you. That gift allows you to connect with others who have experienced the same thing. And connect on a deeper level with them. This is why your network and your brotherhood is just as important outside of service as it is within. As humans, we need connection, and having people around us who understand and appreciate our experiences is a gift in and of itself. And as Colbert noted, the gift isn't the happening itself. Of course, there are things that we wish never had to happen. But if we can separate the happening from what the situation offers us afterward, we can learn to be grateful for even some of the worst things imaginable. Now, even better are the effects that living a life of gratitude consistently can offer. Not only does a mind founded in thankfulness have reduced anxiety— after all, why worry about what's ahead when everything can be a blessing?— but it can improve your emotional state. boost your immune system, and even improve your resilience to future challenges in life. In short, thankfulness and seeing the good in every situation can change your life. So your challenge this week, for once, is not to look forward. It's to look back. What thing in your past, a thing you most regret or hate that happened, can you look at through a different lens of gratefulness? What did that event allow you to do or to become? Take a few minutes this week and sit with it and find ways to be thankful for it. Learn to lean into the hard times in order to appreciate what they gave you and how they changed you to better relate to others along the same path. But most of all, remember that life includes pain just as much as it does joy. And as Colbert said, if you're grateful for your life, then you have to be grateful for all of it. You can't pick and choose what you're grateful for.