Count your blessings.
If I could pass along one sentiment to my children it would be the idea contained in these three little words.
I believe the world has two kinds of people: the grateful and the aggrieved.
Our COVID-19 environment has magnified these feelings. And, truth be told, most of us swing back and forth. But if you choose gratefulness as your North Star, it will always be easier to recover your balance in hard times.
I’m grateful that the pinpoint of hope we see in the distance is – at last – the light at the end of the tunnel. Vaccinations have begun. At the very least we know we are in a tunnel and not headed down a mine shaft.
The COVID-19 pandemic will end some day, and we are probably closer to the end now than the beginning. If we were in the McCallie Tunnels on Missionary Ridge, it would be time to honk.
If the pandemic has a legacy, maybe it’s to make us more grateful. As an exercise in hopefulness, I decided to make a list of things that I will no longer take for granted after this is all over.
* I will try to be more present for every visit with somebody I love, knowing that any hug could be the last.
* I will enjoy every last bite of a hot dog at a ball game. Social dining and live sports are two of the things I’ve missed terribly in the last 10 months.
* I will smile more. I didn’t know how much I would miss seeing people’s incisors.
* As a part-time college teacher, I will empathize more with students. I have seen some of them overcome unimaginable hardships – loss of grandparents, jobs, hope – that would crippled me in when I was younger. I don’t want to hear any of my baby boomer friends use the “snowflake” slur again.
* I will maintain my energy for voting. America will be stronger if more people vote. Pick a person in your family who served in the military, and dedicate your future votes to them. The high turnout in the November elections should be the norm.
* I will pay less attention to social media and read more books. Social media has its rewards, but it handcuffs your brain while reading books sets you free.
* As an older American, I will try to waste no days.
* After months of wearing my “personal space” on my sleeve, I will enjoy talking to people while waiting in lines at the supermarket.
* I will continue paying a pandemic bonus on tips to to wait staff in restaurants because it will take them months – if not years – to recover financially.
* I will redouble my admiration of schoolteachers after watching my wife working punishing hours to keep her virtual learners afloat.
* I will continue to wash my hands more and gargle twice daily with Listerine, because I have a new-found aversion to germs and viruses. Plus, it makes me feel more civilized.
* I will never resent a vaccination shot of any form.
* I will count every day alive in America as a gift. In the scope of human history, 21st-century Americans are the lottery winners.
* I will say my prayers with the same urgency, and reverence, as I have tried to in the last 10 months – lifting up gratefulness, most of all.
* I will try to use COVID-19 as a launching pad for remaining years of my life, replacing complacency and entitlement with thankfulness and awe.
* And lastly, I will try to be more like our dog: loyal, protective of the people I love and grateful for small treats.
Email Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.