Gratitude
by Lee Goldberg
I was originally going to close out this year's series of editorial mutterings with a sum-up of the 802.11 Planet conference. The fact that it was the most well-attended event I've been to since early 2001 was news enough, but with nearly 50 chip makers now either producing, or promising to produce wireless LAN silicon, the heated debate over 802.11a versus 802.11g, and the exploding market for public WLAN services, there were enough juicy goings-on to fill this column twice over. But a couple of things happened on the way to this editorial that started me thinking about the year we've put behind us, what the future holds, and maybe a little about what it all means.
Like many of the friends and associates that fill my life, 2002 has been a difficult year for me. The excitement and freedom of having my own publication has been tempered by the challenges of getting a startup business off the ground in the middle of a deep and persistent recession. The first six months of my tenure at analogZONE were an unending series of 14-16 hour days at the keyboard and phone as my three sections of the website struggled to get the attention of both the chip makers I write stories about and the people who read them.
Over the last couple of months, I've started to regain my balance. Even though I still work long hours, I make sure I devote some time to simply hanging out with my wife and daughter each day, and do my best to get to the gym for exercise two or three days a week. Another part of my survival strategy is to practice gratitude.
While it's a terrible cliché, I've found that making it a habit to count the many blessings I have is an effective antidote to the constant pressures and worries I carry with me about my life, my business, and the state of the world. Without boring you to tears with the saccharine details of my practice, I'll suggest that if you just sit back and think about what's right and good and right in your life on a regular basis, it becomes markedly easier to face the rough tasks and outright insults we face each day. In fact, remembering that your kid is one of the great blessings in your life also makes it much easier to keep from strangling them when they are less than grateful for having you as a parent.
The other byproduct of practicing gratitude is that it's helped me get through the nerve-wracking times I've had as I raced my slowly dwindling bank account against the promise of a profitable business. Remembering all the friends, family, and internal resources I have to support me has gone a long way towards making me feel wealthy regardless of what was in my checkbook.
But while our situation is far from desperate, the family budget for holiday gifts will be quite modest for this holiday season. This means that while our nieces, nephews, and kid-cousins will all be taken care of in one way or another, the adults in our life will be enjoying jars of home made jams, pickles, and peppers we put up this year, and little else.
Meanwhile, there is one holiday expense we have not spared. A few years ago, we started a tradition of making an additional holiday gift to a couple of charities on top of our regularly-scheduled donations throughout the year.
Typically, we split several hundred dollars between local causes and organizations that reach across the world. Last year, for example, the local homeless shelter and soup kitchen got checks, along with the Heifer Project , a program that helps families set up livestock breeding programs that break the cycle of poverty and hunger in every continent except Antarctica. At other times, we've donated to SEVA , a foundation dedicated to building partnerships to solve locally-defined healthcare, nutrition, and economic problems, and Church World Services, a low-overhead global relief and educational organization, have gotten extra checks for the holidays.
Happily my gamble on analogZONE seems to have paid off and I'm expecting to see the first revenue from sponsorship of my well-trafficked ZONEs early next year. In a year or two, some of the books, liquor, gadgets, and power tools will probably return to their places under the Christmas tree, but for the moment our homemade goodies do an equally effective job at saying "I love you" as any expensive bauble.
And even if times remain tough, I'll still be grateful for all the many blessings in my life and will do my best to find something to share with those in need on the holiday season. Besides any humanitarian consideration, giving my daughter the promise of a slightly better world is one of the best gifts I can give her.
Comments? Questions? Ideas for inexpensive gifts? Write me at: lgoldberg@green-electronics.com.