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Be Happy (A True Story)


Around twenty years ago, I was living in Seattle and going through hard times. I could not find satisfying work, and I found this especially difficult, as I had a lot of experience and a Masters degree.

To my shame, I was driving a school bus to make ends meet and living with friends. I had lost my apartment. I had been through five interviews with a company and, one day between bus runs, they called to say I did not get the job. I went to the bus barn like a zombie of disappointment.

Later that afternoon, while doing my rounds through a quiet suburban neighborhood, I had an inner wave - like a primal scream - arise from deep inside me, and I thought, "Why has my life become so hard? Give me a sign, I asked, a physical sign, not some inner voice type of thing."

Immediately after this internal scream, I pulled the bus over to drop off a little girl. As she passed, she handed me an earring and said I should keep it in case somebody claimed it. The earring was stamped metal, painted black and said 'BE HAPPY.'

At first, I got angry - yeah, yeah, I thought. Then it hit me. I had been putting all of my energy into what was wrong with my life rather than what was right! I decided, then and there, to make a list of 50 things I was grateful for.

At first it was hard, then it got easier. One day, I decided to up it to 75. That night, there was a phone call for me at my friend's house from a lady who was a manager at a large hospital. About a year earlier, I had submitted a syllabus to a community college to teach a course on stress management. She asked me if I would do a one-day seminar for 200 hospital workers. I said yes and got the job.

My day with the hospital workers went very well. I got a standing ovation and many more days of work. To this day, I KNOW that it was because I changed my attitude to gratitude.

Incidentally, the day after I found the earring, the girl asked me if anyone had claimed it. I told her no, and she said, "I guess it was meant for you then."

I spent the next year conducting training workshops all around the Seattle area. Then I decided to risk everything and go back to Scotland where I had lived previously. I closed my one-man business, bought a plane ticket and got a six month visa from immigration.

One month later, I met my wonderful English wife and best friend of 15 years now. We live in a small, beautiful cottage, two miles from a paved road in the highlands of Scotland.

'THE ONLY ATTITUDE IS GRATITUDE' has been my motto for years now and, yes, it completely changed my life.
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