Good Things Jar

Note: in a previous post on LinkedIn I shared that instead of setting resolutions for 2019, I’d be picking a theme that I could practice in the hopes of increasing the joy and abundance I experience in my daily life. My theme for 2019 is Ease. My buddy Matt Loos commented on that post, and suggested I share occasional updates about my real-time experience with Ease.

Good Things Jar

A few years ago I was in a pretty dark place. It felt like everything I tried to accomplish, both personally and professionally, led to an awkward or unsatisfying outcome. I was feeling heavy; out of sync, ashamed, and a little desperate.

Then my friend Sam Beasley started talking about Ease.

Sam had a hardscrabble childhood. Big family, little money, few positive role models. His early-adult years were filled with booms, busts, high highs, and low lows. We met decades later, after he’d learned some things and built an incredible life filled with comfort, creativity, and good friends. I was honestly was a bit jealous of Sam and the wonderful things he had in his life. As I heard more of his story, I grew eager to understand. Might I be able to have these things too?

I was raised quite differently from Sam. I grew up with plenty of food, cool toys, and no chores. Family vacations to Hawaii were normal in my neighborhood, and every material need I had was met. I was given an excellent education. I found a fulfilling career, and even won recognition in my field. Everything was great for many years – until it all came crashing down.

I burned-out professionally, got divorced, and opened a new business. It did well for a few years, but one economic downturn later I’d burned thru my life savings. About that time my new wife, Julie, was recruited into an amazing job in a different city. So, with great relief, and excitement and hope for a new beginning, I sold the business to my partner George and moved to Seattle.

I found myself more challenged than ever – to build a new life, in a new city, almost from scratch. I felt like I’d lost everything.

So you can imagine how good the life Sam was enjoying looked to me. But I couldn’t make sense of how he’d made it from a brutal childhood, thru the turmoil of his early adult years, to a life of considerable ease. I swallowed my pride and asked Sam if he’d be willing to share with me how he did it. To my great surprise, he said he’d be happy to.

There is no shortcut, he explained, and one positive early step for him was “really experiencing gratitude”.

Experiencing gratitude? That sounded a little insulting. I’d been taught that the only path to financial freedom and ease was hard work and discipline. But since I’d given that a try and it hadn’t worked, not even close, I pondered this supposed insult for a bit.

To my next question, “How can I possibly experience gratitude given that everything I’d enjoyed in my fat years, the creature comforts, my friends, my intellectual pursuits and my hobbies had been taken away from me?” Sam replied, “Great question! Now we’re getting somewhere.”

But rather than give an answer, he gave me an assignment. He told me to take an empty jar and label it “Good Things”. I was to leave it out somewhere I could see it every day. When good things came into my life, no matter how big or small, I was to write a note about it and put the scrap paper into my Good Things jar. I was a little embarrassed to leave the jar out, where people might see it and ask me about it, but I was also willing to take any suggestion that Sam might have to offer. And this one seemed pretty simple, and didn’t cost a dime, so I put aside my pride and labeled my jar.

At first, I had to force myself to add to the jar. Then I realized that my jar was slowly filling up with good things.

To my absolute surprise, acknowledging these good things was making the rest of my life a little bit easier.

Sam had also instructed me to hold off reviewing the good things in my jar until the year was over. He suggested I save that for New Years Day, then celebrate each one of those little scraps of paper. It was important, he added, to re-experience the joy that those good things had brought into my life, and to express my gratitude in return. The first New Year’s morning I did this I was shocked at how many good things I’d received in 12 months – many of them already forgotten – and to see in my own writing what an incredible life I was already leading. It was surprising to realize that many of the notes were about things that had nothing to do with stuff, and everything to do with being in the moment. A weekday walk in Discovery Park. A kiss from my wife. Seeing Sleater-Kinney at the Showbox. A kind word from a stranger.

Reading, my heart flooded with gratitude.

And in the following weeks, like a snowball rolling downhill, my gratitude gathered momentum. Things kept getting a little bit easier, every day. Today, they’re easier than ever – so long as I remember to let them be.

Take what you like from my story, but as far as I’m concerned, Sam was right: any Ease I enjoy is proportional to the amount of gratitude I allow myself to feel and acknowledge. I’ve done this for a few years now, and I'm still not sure why it works. But from Sam I've also learned that some questions can’t be answered with words.

My Good Things Jar for 2019 already has a few good things in it. Which reminds me -- I owe Sam a call.