23 Million: What you are NOT, and being thankful for it
Between Thanksgiving and into December’s frenetic scramble during the holidays, we find ourselves taking an inventory of our lives; looking at the things we should be thankful for – including our family, a good career, internal peace, financial blessings and more. It is traditionally a time of reflection on the past year, combined with our hopes and plans for the New Year to come.
That all said, the holidays can also be a time of stress. We can easily get caught up in all the craziness – the cooking, hosting, travelling, buying gifts, managing relationships and dozens of other stressors that inevitably come around these last five weeks of the year.
On the Friday following Thanksgiving, my wife had set us up as a family to volunteer at a soup kitchen and help serve meals to the homeless here in Hartford. It was a wonderful experience for us as a family.
Earlier in November, and again in mid-December, I was back in prison. Thankfully, it is not what you may think coming from a man who already spent 2173 days under the care of the Connecticut Department of Corrections.
Part of my job as the Manufacturing Manager at Freedom Reads is to go back into prisons and install libraries that we build at our shop in Hamden CT. This valiant organization was created by a formally incarcerated man who found salvation through literature and has made it his life’s mission of putting books into the hands of every man and woman in prison.
I now get to go into Prisons, install bookshelves we have made in our workshop (staffed by all formally incarcerated men and women), and leave 500 brand new books in each housing unit within the Prison. I speak with the men in the housing units, introduce the Freedom Library and spend some time talking with them.
These two experiences, being back in prisons among incarcerated men, and spending an afternoon with homeless men and women here in Hartford gave me pause and got me thinking.
Amongst a time to celebrate all we have been blessed with; I think we can also take a moment to realize and be thankful for all the things we are not.
Perspective is an ability to look at things from other angles, from other sides. Let’s look at this from another point of view.
Currently there are about 1.86 million men and women in prisons and jails in this country (sources Vera.org; statista.com).
In 2022 there were over 580,000 people who were homeless here in the U.S. (endhomelessness.org).
A step further, I would add that according to statista.com there are over 6.62 million unemployed people in our country.
So here is the math: 1.86 million in prisons + 580,000 homeless + 6.62 million unemployed adds up to over 9 million people.
Be thankful for all YOU ARE and be thankful for all you are NOT.
If you are not in prison, not unemployed and/or not homeless – be grateful for it.
Many of us 9 million people are there due to bad choices. But still, many are on these lists for any number of reasons not due to personal choices.
Trust me, life can change in an instant. I went from a highly compensated financial services career to broke in just over 3 years. I left a 3000+ square foot house for a 6’ x 12’ cell due to not properly addressing my addiction. Choices abounded, but I failed to take the paths offered and instead ventured farther and farther into darkness and despair. For months on end, up until my arrest in 2016, and for some time after it as I sat in a cell, contemplating my own end was commonplace and basically a daily occurrence. I often wondered each morning if this would be my last day among the human collective.
That leads to me adding another statistic on top of the 9 million: according to the CDC, 48,183 Americans died by suicide in 2021 and that went up to almost 50,000 people in 2022.
In 2021 it is estimated that over 1.7 million people here in the U.S attempted to take their own life, and there were 12.3 million American adults who “seriously thought” about ending their own life (cdc.gov/suicide/suicidal-data).
Thankfully, there is a very large gap between attempts vs. actual deaths. But for those of us in the 1.7 million who attempted, and those additional 12.3 million of us who gave serious thought to the notion, life can seem bleak. Despite my own attempts and ideations during my spin-out and collapse, fortunately, somehow, I remained among the living on this equation.
Adding it all up, over 10.7 million people here in the greatest country on earth are either in prison, homeless, jobless or depressed and lost enough to attempt suicide. Put in the additional 12.3 million adults who got to a point where they seriously thought about suicide, and our total swells to about 23 million Americans in some sort of darkness.
So what is the point here?
Simple. Be thankful for all you are. Realize how special each of us are and celebrate the magic of being you. Celebrate that you are 1 in over 117 billion human beings to have come and gone. There never has been, and never will be, another YOU. Look and love the people in your life. Take a perspective based on optimism, faith and hope and have gratitude for your blessings. On these lists or not, we can all, with perspective, find the light.
Be aware of the things you are NOT. Take the blessings and remember all you are and all you are NOT as you reflect during the holidays. Remind yourself to have PERSPECTIVE when you examine your own life. If you are not amongst the 23 million, you are blessed.
We are all allowed any feelings that come to us as we reflect on the year and look at our lives. We are allowed stress, strife, and some chaos during the holidays. Just take a moment each day to remember all you ARE and all you are NOT. Perspective will do the rest – it can take you from stress to delight and celebration. Practice perspective and get better and better at pulling yourself up from the stressful moments.
Celebrate all you ARE and be thankful for all you are NOT.
There are over 23 million people on these lists. If you are able, find time to volunteer and help those who are in need, help us forge pathways forward, toward the light. We are your brothers and sisters and fellow human beings. Regardless of how we got on to any of these ominous rosters, we could use all the help we can get.
If you need help or have someone desperate, reach out to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention -
Call 988 or text TALK to 741741.
And as always, reach out to me here through my website if you want someone to listen.
God bless all for the holidays, and just remember to have perspective and be grateful for your blessings as well as thankful for the lists you are not part of.
