The Four Words to Focus On in 2022 – Part 1

Someone posted this picture of random letters on a Facebook group: The first four words you see are your focus for 2022. Just for fun, I looked for the words among the sea of random letters. The first word I saw was GRATITUDE. I continued to scan, as if I was looking for Waldo. Then I saw the word CHANGE. Within seconds, I found the word FAMILY. My eyes then took me to the word ALIGNMENT.

Members shared their words, which included connection, care, money, strength, among others.

Let me take each day to look at each word at a time.

Gratitude. The definition from the Oxford Dictionary is “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness”. Gratitude comes from appreciation of things and people around you. When someone does something nice, such as opening the door for you, doing your laundry, or giving you a gift, it is easy to have the “readiness to show appreciation”. What about in situations like the project didn’t exactly go as planned, or kids didn’t follow your instructions, or the cancer got worse despite doing all the treatment as planned?

Gratitude to me is being thankful in all circumstances, the good, the bad and the ugly. It certainly takes practice to be thankful when things don’t go your way. I believe that there is always something positive that comes out of a mostly negative situation. It all depends on how we view things. To appreciate life is to be content with what life has to offer. This does not mean you don’t want some other outcome at times. It just means that you accept what it is, face value, and no blaming other people or things. We can be thankful for the challenging opportunity to learn and be a better person.

When I discuss the cancer diagnosis and management plan with patients and families, I always remind them that there is something to be thankful for. No one wants to have any cancer, but your cancer is detected at a very early stage, so there is a cure and the chance of recurrence is very small. Or, this is an advanced cancer. It is treatable and there is a whole team of doctors and medical staff all working with you to get through this together. Or, the cancer has spread to different parts of your body. The different treatments you had been on did not seem to work. Let us shift the focus of keeping you as comfortable as possible. There is always something we can do to help.

The more we practice gratitude, the easier it comes. It is hard to be thankful if you always feel like the world is not fair to you or if you always feel that you are lacking something. I am thankful for being alive another day. I am thankful for my family. I am thankful for my office staff. I am thankful for the challenges put in front of me to make me grow (even though I wasn’t thankful the very first second I faced them). What are you thankful for today?