by Sudhakar Ram

“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” ~ M K Gandhi

Money has been the world’s primary measure of success over the last 200 years. Nations want bigger GDPs. Corporations want higher market capitalization. And we individuals all want fatter bank accounts. The assumption is that if we have the money, everything else can be acquired. Money can buy us better health, more leisure time – and even increased happiness.

If you look back over the course of history, what started as a trickle of inventions has turned into a waterfall. Imagine it: first came fire, then five thousand years later the wheel, then a thousand years later the plow, then five hundred years later the printing press, then a hundred years later the telescope. Now, every day brings new inventions and advancements in previous inventions.

The internet is one of the more recent developments when you look at the timeline and it has been fascinating to watch it morph from a data transfer technology into a realm of unspeakable possibilities.

Some years ago I played baseball in Japan. If you looked at our team, you wouldn’t think much of us. Our team was a collection of older office workers and a couple husbands who had put on a few pounds around the waist over the years and one tall gangly American. We looked like an easy win, but for three years our team was one of the best in the league and always had a chance to advance to the national tournament.

We want to wish everyone the best of holidays. May this year top all the years that have passed in joy and abundance!

Personally, this year’s holidays will be the best in a long time. I am headed out on another adventure for Christmas this year. Los Angeles and meeting some new family! I can’t think of another place I want to be either. It won’t be my traditional family Christmas, but I imagine there are going to be some great moments with that same kind of newness that a visit to a new country brings. And then New Year’s is going to be a family celebration back home with great food and fellowship. Lobster and crab legs and at least a dozen different appetizers. I can’t wait.

Some years ago, when I thought about traveling overseas to live for the first time, I couldn’t contain my excitement. I was enjoying my life in America, but there was definitely a desire in me for more. I wanted more than I had, more love and more money and more adventure. And I knew it had to be out there, just waiting for me to find it.

I recognize the same desire for something more in the children I work with. They are completely content with the toys they are playing with, until they see a toy someone else is playing with. I love watching their eyes grow big and then invariably they reach out to grab that toy.

Last week, I talked about expectation and how developing it can create positive action toward a desired goal. Well, this week I was watching a bit of TV and my program was interrupted by a commercial for Red Lobster, an East Coast seafood chain that serves some great food. It also happens to be one of my favorite restaurants. The commercial proceeded to display larger than life dishes of succulent crab legs being dipped in butter, juicy shrimp basted on the grill with garlic and parsley, tender lobster tails split open, and salmon dripping juice as it roasted on a cedar plank. It was only an hour or so after dinner, but that commercial made me hungry. I sat there on the couch and my mouth was watering! I could almost taste the crab and lobster I wanted it so bad.

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us and I am excited. I love any holiday dedicated to eating. But I also love the idea of being thankful. I have always worked in people oriented businesses and have seen first hand how a thankful attitude can affect others. It is more fun to work with someone who appreciates the things and circumstances around them. I also find that I am happier the more I realize how many things I have to be thankful for.

With this in mind here are some of the things I am thankful for: tea, baseball, hunting, New York, being born in America, being born male, computers, the internet, HDTV, hotdogs, lobster, butte

I have never been too keen about going out to a movie with a friend and having to pay twice to see it. Think about it. I can rent a movie for about four dollars—one payment—and an innumerable amount of people can watch it with me, all for that price. But when I go out to the movies, it costs my ticket price and their ticket price. With today’s prices, if four of us go, it is forty dollars to see one movie. Maybe that doesn’t bother you, but it does bother me.

What makes this unbearable is when you go to a movie you think is going to be good, and it is awful, as was the case with The Box.

Checking my personal email has become a daily ritual for me, just like brushing my teeth. First thing in the morning, last thing at night. But it is a lot more fun. Email messages are like electronic presents.

As a boy, I loved going down to the mailbox to pick up the mail. I went with a certain amount of anticipation, hoping that that great big black box held something for me. On rare occasions it did; the latest issue of Nintendo Power or an action figure that I had saved up enough Kool-Aid points to buy. Over the years, I have developed the same kind of excitement for opening my inbox.

In 1983 one of my favorite toys was a Return of the Jedi sand skiff. It was light gray with a retractable plank (for making my action figures jump to their terrible deaths in the sand pit) and a huge, black laser canon. When it was playtime, I might play with Legos one day and knights another day, but I played everyday with that sand skiff. When I became a huge collector of Star Wars figures in my teens, I dug up my old collection. Only I could never find that sand skiff despite the many hours rooting through the closets, the basement and the attic.

We all lose things in our lives.