Celebrate gratitude - even now
T’wina Nobles doesn’t take anything for granted. As a child, she suffered years of abuse and homelessness, moving from one shelter to the next, at one point completely on her own, without any family. She eventually moved into the foster care system in Alabama and, somehow, put her life together.
Actually, she did more than that. When I met her in 2020, I had trouble wrapping my head around everything she had going on: CEO of the Urban League, school board member, leading a non-profit called LadiesFirst to mentor young girls and mother of four children. Given her passion for community involvement, people started encouraging her to run for office a few years ago. T’wina hadn’t warmed to the idea, in part due to everything else on her plate. Until one day in March of this year. She had scheduled a meeting with the state senator who represented her district (and mine). The meeting had been set to discuss issues related to her work for the Urban League. The state senator didn’t show up to meet with her group.
“I remember being really excited to meet him and talk about the Urban League,” T’wina recalls. “People had been spreading rumors that I was going to challenge him in the fall and I was thinking at some point (in the meeting) I would say don’t worry, I’m not going to run.”
She never got that chance and, following the disappointment of the no-show, T’wina filed the paperwork and started assembling her team to challenge the incumbent. She surprised many when she won the primary in September by a few hundred votes. That led state and national party fundraisers to bolster her opponent with new infusions of cash (and attack ads) in an attempt to hold on to the seat. In November she won in a narrow race with 50.6% of the votes. In 2021, she will be the only Black senator in the state of Washington.
“Him not coming to that meeting—honestly I felt disappointed,” T’wina says. “It made me feel not represented and feel for all those people who are not feeling represented.”
The year 2020 taught us all many lessons, maybe none more important than to stop taking things in our life for granted. Above all, be grateful for what we have, especially if you made it through the year safe, healthy and employed.
“This year I became especially grateful for stability,” T’wina said at the end of 2020. “Specifically, housing security. I found myself reflecting on the many times our family would be walking up and down streets seeking food or housing as children. Life would’ve been pretty bad for us if we had experienced a similar pandemic.”
Books, articles and research on the powerful benefits of gratitude have exploded in recent years. While still limited, research on gratitude in the workplace has linked it to more positive emotions, less stress, fewer health complaints and sick days, and higher satisfaction with our jobs and our coworkers. In short, gratitude is another powerful tool in your toolbox for building work-life happiness.
- This is an excerpt from The Butterfly Impact, a new book on creating work-life balance through small, meaningful actions.