Josh Goldberg | Appreciation for Life and Education

Every single morning when you wake up, you get to choose two things. You get to choose what level of effort you’re going to put into that day, and more importantly, you get to choose your attitude. Do you choose a negative attitude, a bitter attitude, or do you have an attitude of gratitude?

And this idea of gratitude, of course, is what appreciation for life is about. And it’s something that’s deeply meaningful to me because there was a time in my life when I had no gratitude for anything. And it was Thanksgiving of 2011. I sat at a packed Thanksgiving table with my friends and family, and we did our normal annual tradition of asking everyone to go around and talk about what they were thankful for over the course of the year. And when it came to me, I passed. And as I look back at that moment, I consider it my rock bottom, because it was a moment where I couldn’t see that I had a family around me that cared, that I had friends at that table, I had beautiful food to eat at that table, and I got to watch the Cowboys, which is just one of my favorite pastimes at Thanksgiving. I couldn’t see any of it because I was trapped in this impenetrable fog of sadness and suffering. I didn’t know how to get out of it.

And that’s why it’s so important to be able to work on gratitude practices and appreciation practices, because it’s so easy to look past what’s there and see what we can be grateful for. So when we think about appreciation for life, the way that it’s defined in the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory is as a sense of gratitude for the small and large things in life. A sense of gratitude for the small and large things in life.

And there are three statements that come from the words of people who’ve walked the path of struggle to strength. Not someone sitting with a clipboard, not someone sitting in the stands, but somebody who’s actually been in the arena.

The first of these three statements is: “I’ve changed my priorities about what is important in life.” Let me say that again. I’ve changed my priorities about what is important in my life. And this, to me, is probably the most important thing that we hear time and time again when it comes to the journey of PTG. It’s the fact that what used to be meaningful, what used to be important, no longer is. And I think about my own life—chasing money, power, and respect like a rap song—as a traditional civilian chasing fame and glory. And the fact that those things mean nothing to me now. It’s all about internal connection and what I can bring into the world in terms of service.

As members of the military, veteran, and first responder communities, you know this. You know what matters better than the average civilian.

The second statement is: “I have a greater appreciation for the value of my own life.” A greater appreciation for the value of my life. I see how my life adds value to the life of the people around me. I see that even though I may struggle, I may be struggling—even though I may encounter difficulty and challenge through the course of my life—I see that remaining here and figuring out what the point of all of this is, and being able to pay that forward and share those lessons with others, is a critical part of my life.

Suicide is certainly a topic that is very common amongst this community and amongst our world, and that’s something that I struggled personally with for a long period of time. And the recognition of the value of my life, the true meaning of my life that I have now, the recognition that I have a life that is worth living and worth fighting for, is such an important part of this journey.

The third thing is: “I can better appreciate each day.” That I look at each day as an opportunity. And as I said earlier, every morning we wake up and we have the opportunity to choose the level of effort we’re going to put into that day and the attitude we bring about. We get to bring an attitude of gratitude if we so choose.

And it’s why it’s so important that we start each day with a gratitude practice. Because I went from that table in 2011 at Thanksgiving with zero gratitude to waking up with this sense that my cup is full. Every time I get out of bed, I get the opportunity to do amazing things with my life.

So that’s the definition of appreciation for life. When I think about this domain of growth and the communities that we serve, I think they’re natural companions. Given what you are exposed to—the dangers associated with your jobs—you tend to appreciate things that most people take for granted. Gratitude and appreciation are a critical part of your experience, and it’s also an aspect of the wisdom that you gain.

We talk a lot about the idea that we believe that the members of the communities that we serve have unique skills and attributes and abilities that the rest of society doesn’t have and desperately needs to understand. You have access to experiences the rest of us don’t have, and a critical part of that is understanding what to be grateful for. To be grateful for the ability to walk through the door and see people you love every day is something that often people take for granted—and you don’t.

We have to work to create this attitude of gratitude. And in every single one of our programs, and written on my wrist as I say it right now, is a gratitude practice—is the question: What are you grateful for? And I hope that you’ve taken what you learn and you continue to practice it and to spread it—at home with your kids, with your coworkers, with your family members. This idea of having a regular practice of cultivating gratitude, of helping to shift the perspective that you have, is really important.

Remember that 80% of our thoughts on a daily basis are negative. Gratitude is a great way to flip the script and our perspective and feed the 20%.

When we talk to people who’ve struggled, when we talk to people who spent years in the Hanoi Hilton, what they will tell you is that when everything else is taken, it really clarifies the things that matter in life. And what tends to matter are intangible things—not things that you wear, not things that you drive, not things you can buy. It’s intangible things. It’s about service to other people, taking care of other people, a sense of deep connection and relationship with other people. Those are the things that matter.

And I’m reminded of a quote, which said that happiness doesn’t lead to gratitude—gratitude leads to happiness. By practicing gratitude, by focusing on shifting our perspective, we can help ourselves see what is true about our lives.

The last thing that I think about when I think about appreciation for life in the communities we serve and the programs we run—it goes to a quote I talk about a lot, and I think it may be one of my all-time favorite quotes. And it’s from Arthur Schopenhauer, and he said: “We mistake the limits of the world for the limits of our field of vision.” That we don’t see outside of our blinders. And when we think about appreciation for life, when we think about shifting our priorities, what we’re really reaching for and accessing are the things that are outside of those blinders.

And so if we can take those blinders off, we can truly have a full view of our life. And shifting perspective is what we’re talking about. That’s why we give out t-shirts and sell t-shirts that say “Shift Happens.” We can’t shift what happened. We can shift how we interpret it, what we learn from it, and what we take from it, so we can decide what happens next.

I now want you to reflect on four questions. The first is a bonus: What or who are you grateful for right now? Why? And how can you share that gratitude with them? Second: What does appreciation for life mean to you? The third: Where have you cultivated appreciation for life in your life? And the fourth: Why would it benefit you to have a greater sense of appreciation for life?