Company Blog

Thank you

by Adam Zack — May 22, 2024

I feel thankful every day for the blessed life that I get the privilege to live.

I have been thinking about gratitude and how we express it in today’s world. When I was a kid my mom would make sure that we wrote thank you notes for gifts we received for birthdays and Christmas. She’d provide the cards and stamps, and usually it was something simple like “Dear Grandma and Grandpa, thank you for the [insert gift name here]. I love it. Love, Adam” I didn’t think of it as a chore (well, maybe sometimes), but more like an essential part of the gift process. Today, handwritten, mailed thank you cards have mostly been replaced by text and emails, or at least a verbal thank you, and sometimes not at all. I really got thinking about the levels of gratitude in January, when my favorite people in the world all gathered together to spend a milestone birthday with me. Eleven people came together to celebrate, some of them coming from very far away. It meant so much to me, that I still get a little bleary eyed at such a humbling experience. I hadn’t written a thank you card in years, but I was so moved by their presence and kind words that I felt it was especially important to tell each of them just how much it meant to me, and to put it in writing. It was necessary for me.

I have a very good friend, Jose Rojas, who goes on a lot of vacations (cruises, European vacations, South America and many more exotic trips) with two elderly neighbors. The neighbors always pay for Jose and his lovely wife Rosie to join them, and they have gone on dozens of trips and seen things they’d never see without their friends’ generosity. Thinking of the huge expense the trips cost, I asked Jose how he thanked them for such benevolence. His first response was that they spent time with them. They visit them regularly, help them with anything they need and express their thanks with love and friendship regularly. It’s what their friends cherish the most in their lives and for Jose and Rosie to provide the actions of thanks makes them feel special and appreciated. It’s a reciprocal relationship that neither party takes for granted.

So where am I going with this? Nowhere really, I feel thankful every day for the blessed life that I get the privilege to live, and I just need to remind myself that it’s important to express gratitude every day to the people that enable me to live my dreams.