Hungary in 1936. A tall, well-built and handsome army sergeant. An excellent shot. This young man was Karoly Takacs. At that time, Karoly was gaining fame not just in Hungary but also across Europe as a world class shooter and was favoured to win a gold in the forthcoming 1940 Olympics. He was a very fine right handed shooter and his specialty was the men’s 25 meter rapid fire pistol shooting.
During an army drill, the hand grenade that Karoly was holding, exploded. And Karoly lost his right arm. His right arm, his shooting arm was no more. Gone in the blast. Gone too his career as a shooter. Gone hours and hours of rigorous practice. Everything finished in that blast.
Karoly was hospitalized for more than a month and made a slow but steady recovery. I am sure, I am absolutely certain that two thoughts must have buzzed around in his mind. And perhaps the first of which was, ‘why did have to happen to me’? And the second, ‘why did this happen to me just now’? Maybe his family, friends and army buddies would have said to him, ‘we are so sorry that this happened to you, Karoly.’ ‘We are so sorry that the universe is so cruel and that not only has your arm been snatched away from you but also your whole career as a shooter’. And amongst those visitors and well-wishers, some may even have said to Karoly, ‘God has been totally unfair to you. Your entire life is destroyed. Your shining future is gone. You could have been an Olympic gold medalist and now everything is lost’.
Well, nobody is very sure what happened during the time Karoly was hospitalized. He emerged from the hospital determined to continue training for the Olympics with his left arm. Somehow, somewhere Karoly had figured out that he had a healthy, fully functional hand. So what if that was not the arm, the hand that he had practiced with for years and possibly decades? So what if he had to retrain himself to use his left arm, his left hand? So what that he had to start from scratch?
Karoly started to use his left arm and gradually started to train to shoot with his left hand. Without a doubt, it would have been painful. Physically painful and emotionally difficult. It may have seemed hopeless and impossible. Yet somehow, Karoly Takacs persisted.
In 1939, just one year after losing his right arm, Karoly showed up at the Hungarian National Pistol Shooting Championship. His former shooting buddies and competitors came up to say hello and compliment him on his sporting spirit that he had showed up to wish them luck despite his own misfortune. They were totally taken aback when Karoly said that he was not there to wish them, not there simply to see the competition but to compete. He went on to win this championship.
Karoly, like so many other athletes and sportspeople, across the globe was so looking forward to the 1940 Olympics. Alas! The Second World War deferred not just the 1940 Olympics but also the 1944 Olympics. And once again, it seemed that fortune was not favouring him at all. Something longed for, something awaited and something for which he had sweated, laboured, prepared and endured was not happening. The future would have been not just uncertain but also bleak.
But when finally the 1948 Summer Olympics took place in London, the one armed Karoly who was by then almost 40 years old, went on to win the gold. In winning he beat the reigning world champion and world favourite Carlos Enrique of Argentina. In 1948, Karoly was the world’s third known physically disabled athlete to have competed in the Olympics. He went on to win yet another gold medal in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.
We suffer through the ‘why me’ of our lives. We feel the pain of being left out. We feel singled out in our misery many a time. Why did this awful lockdown happen now? This is happening to me because of someone else. If only …. my circumstances were not against me. What can I do? This is my fate, this is my destiny. And our sense of hopelessness becomes deeper.
Whether it is this lockdown or the next speed breaker at work, the fact is life seldom moves in a straight line. There is no upward curve that just keeps going up and up without a plateau, without a dip, without a bend. And so, in our work there are peaks and dips, dips and curves.
Yet we peg our happiness to the peaks, the increment, the promotion, the award, the before lockdown incentive trip to Switzerland, the Atlanta visit, the Singapore posting, the Harvard MBA paid for by the company, the year on year at least 25% growth, the quarterly sales target, the new tranche of investment of at least a few million dollars and so on.
But if your happiness and mine is pegged to these phenomenal milestones, to these annual events, to these things that may or may not happen, then are we, you and I, doomed to unhappiness the rest of 364 days? Because all this happens only once a year and we are lucky if there is more than one occasion to celebrate a milestone like this during the year. So, what is going to happen to our happiness? Are we going to stay unhappy or conditionally happy the rest of the days? When we depend on that one thing or that one person to make us happy, we are setting ourselves up for unhappiness.
The key to Happiness 365© lies in cultivating the habit of gratitude. This is the attitude that leads to wellbeing and drastically cuts down on stress. I am near certain that Karoly gave thanks for the one healthy arm and hand that he had. Without that gratitude he may not have been able to even think of starting from scratch with his non-dominant hand.
Research has well established a connection between gratitude and the feelings of happiness. I remember reading this nugget of wisdom somewhere, and I quote “Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.” If this is not the basis for happiness, what is?
So if the practice of gratitude can do all this and more for us, are we still going to continue to focus on what is not? Based on global research and my experience, I know that with gratitude grow our reasons to celebrate. I remember writing this last year, “As we find reasons to celebrate and express gratitude, those reasons multiply and grow”. I feel that somewhere Karoly must have held onto his gratitude for the one arm he had left. And because of the way he responded to his misfortune, he could think about, aim for and achieve Olympic gold not once but twice.
The most amazing things can and do unfold when we live with gratitude for what is. When we are filled to the brim with stress and frustration over what is not, over the delayed stuff, over the unexpected, over the disliked, we are not able to use our mind, our brain and our energy to move ahead. There is a natural conflict within us. We want what we want. We want to progress. But we hold ourselves back by losing our focus. When we lose focus or even when we focus with underlying stress, our brain does not find the space in which to think well, to decide well and to choose well. Gratitude is the one element that reverses all this negativity and allows our mind to relax. Then we think better, we choose better and we do the better thing. We simply live better. We create happiness for ourselves and for others around us.
But how should you develop the habit of gratitude? Is it easy? Is it hard? Is it about just saying thank you God whenever you can or a thank-you- so- much to the people around you?
Well, gratitude is a training like any other. A habit that has to be developed very consciously. You are unlikely to wake up one fine morning and declare, ‘now I have gratitude’. The habit has to be formed deliberately and constructed carefully.
Take a big fat notebook. Something you really like. Maybe with a pretty cover or a macho leather one. Whatever appeals to you and is handy to keep close to your bedside. This is your gratitude journal. This is the key to transformation of stress into ease, unhappiness to happiness and a unique enjoyment of life. Keep a smooth fluid pen specifically for your gratitude journal with a bright ink that appeals to you. We all have our preferences. This is too important to not give it this kind of attention. After all, you and your gratitude journal are about to become constant companions.
Every night, without fail, jot down either three or five things that made you thankful or happy during the day. Please, please be consistent with the number. If you are starting with three points, please stick with three. Do not vary this number and don’t think even for a second that three points of gratitude are way too less. The idea is not write 30 points one nights and then not even one for the next 30 nights. Consistency is key.
After a period of professional struggle in 2015, I felt frustrated and at a dead end. I undertook a deep dive and researched many, many ways of breaking a deadlock in life and of pushing away despair.
The one thing that research threw up at me again and again was the practice of gratitude. Even within the practice of gratitude, there are many ways and many views of doing it. I found the way I have shared with you to be the most practical, the most doable and also the most effective. Within less than 100 days I felt more energized and somehow more hopeful about my professional choices. I felt more empowered. As my gratitude deepened, my relationships improved. I felt calmer and more patient in thinking through my decisions. I naturally took better decisions than earlier.
I do the three points only. And no more than three. And as I wrote in my globally acclaimed bestseller Buddha At Work©, “Each statement must begin with: ‘I am so happy or I am so thankful’. My gratitude index can cover something as basic as the taste of an unusually sweet mango, on the one hand and something far more complex, as getting published in 3 languages, on the other. Without fail, please follow this for the next 100 days. Without any break or any gap. Just do it and feel something shift in the depths of your life. Feel a new sense of ease. Feel and create Happiness 365©!
By the way, Karoly ended his career as a national coach. He rose to the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel in the Hungarian army. And created that happy life that lasted. Happiness 365©