Learn to be thankful

It makes a difference in your quality of life.

Photo by Roman Nguyen on Unsplash

It’s easy for me to be thankful.

I learned that lesson early in life.

It’s one I picked up in middle school, while living in West Africa for what proved to be a critically important two-year chapter in my life.

My mother worked as a U.S. diplomat in my adolescence. Her first tour stationed us in Dakar, Senegal when I was in seventh and eighth grade. I attended an international school off the country’s coast that was filled with similar children who arrived from all corners, from America to Zimbabwe.

As a household representing the U.S. government overseas, we lived a charmed life. We enjoyed maids and chauffeurs, gardeners and 24-hour security. It felt like we were the royal family. Meanwhile, so many others I witnessed weren’t so fortunate.

Outside of my bubble, the ails of Africa were never far. Poverty surrounded us. People who were suffering and needed help lined the streets. Handicaps and hardships could be seen at every turn.

And we rarely stayed inside our bubble.

My mother made sure we mingled with the locals, went on excursions and traveled to far-off villages. We were welcomed into homes and honored with feasts, treated to dance rituals and taken on safaris. I played a lot of soccer, not well, with African children.

All of it was life-changing. From the people to the culture to the traditions to the food to the languages.

Accepting a parting gift from one community during our travels through West Africa.

I want to say this is during a visit to South Africa.

Me and my brother Clifton at The Island of Gorée, where slaves were held captive and tortured before being transported West from the continent.

But there’s one thing I can never forget about my travels through Africa. It was the smiles on people’s faces.

Their problems never seemed to matter. And I saw families managing afflictions I couldn’t fathom. Homes lacked air conditioning and running water. Children ran up and down dirt patches that passed as soccer fields. Often, they played in flimsy flip-flops, sometimes even barefoot.

Still, they smiled.

They didn’t need the material things that so many Americans stress over. They had family. They had love. They had joy.

It was an unbelievable experience that gave me invaluable perspective. With it, I accepted the gift of gratitude at 12 and haven’t put it down since.

I have an incredibly blessed life. I haven’t suffered major hardships. I don’t have a history of trauma. My pain and suffering has been mild, certainly manageable. Nothing I’ve been through and nothing I’m currently going through can compare to the afflictions I saw in Africa.

So why shouldn’t I smile?

It’s one of the reasons I believe it’s imperative for Parker to journey to Africa. She’s only two years shy of the age I was when we moved to Senegal. Like me, I know her mind will be exposed to a whole new world the second she steps foot on the continent. I owe her that experience.

It will go a long way toward shaping her perspective. It will give her peace knowing this world is massive and there’s more to life than our everyday surroundings.

And it will help her smile as she moves through life armed with a realization I was fortunate to have at an early age.

I lack nothing, and I’m grateful for everything.