Wanting what I already had seemed straightforward, but it proved surprisingly difficult until life taught me this hard lesson.

The one thought that scares me more than losing my own life is the thought of losing someone close to me. Yet, that is precisely the frightening reality I confronted when my wife of thirty years was diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition.

And it may be one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Why?

Because it taught me an important lesson about how to live a happy life; the importance of wanting what you already have rather than getting what you want.

My Story

I woke in the middle of the night to the cold realization that my wife might no longer be breathing. Earlier that day, she had undergone a routine medical exam and testing. Afterward, she handed me a piece of paper and asked what I thought.

That piece of paper was the tracing from her electrocardiogram (ECG). I’m a general surgeon and not a cardiologist or even an internal medicine doctor, so when I recognized this was dangerously abnormal, that should tell you it wasn’t subtle.

I could see that although her heart was generating a regular electrical signal to beat, it responded inconsistently.

She had developed a heart block. The main chambers of the heart that pump blood to the lungs and body were only responding to every other signal to beat. For most people, this results in symptoms from lightheadedness to loss of consciousness, but not my spouse.

My wife exercises daily, eats healthy, attends weekly HIIT classes, runs half-marathons, and teaches yoga. She is fit and has a strong heart. She was strong enough to compensate for a heart rate that sometimes dropped into the twenties.

Although she could tolerate a slow heart rate, that wasn’t the real danger. The most significant threat was that this condition could progress to a complete heart block at any time, a condition known as sudden cardiac death.

That was why I was lying awake; I feared her heart might stop at any moment.

The dark night of the soul

As I lay awake worrying, I could not keep dark questions from entering my mind.

What would I do if she died? Do I call 911?

What would I tell the kids? Her parent?

Would she want to be cremated or buried? Where?

What would my life be like without her?

A new morning

That long dark night dawned on a new morning that made me appreciate my wife in ways that I should have been all along but never took the time to think about.

Being forced to think seriously about losing the most important person in my life made me appreciate what I had in her, what we had together, and how fortunate my children are to have such a loving and caring mother.

Confronting losing something valuable made me appreciate what I had. That morning all I wanted was for her to be healthy. I didn’t care if it cost me all I had worked so hard to save. I didn’t care if it meant I would have to abandon my plan for early retirement. I realized that I would willingly surrender all the things I wanted and worked so hard for to keep her with me.

We Can All Be Happy Now

We can all be happy now if we learn to want what we have rather than trying to have what we want.

Learning to appreciate what we already have may be vital to living a content life.

There are two ways to be happy.

1. You can get what you want.
2. You can want what you already have.

The reality is only one of these strategies works.

Think about the things you want. A new car, a bigger house, a certain someone, a job promotion, or whatever your heart desires. According to a recent study, the average person has 2.5 things they want. That number doesn’t seem so bad. Two to three desires are achievable, right?

Wrong!

Here, the research delivers a fastball to the head, achieve those 2.5 things, and nothing will change. Instead, you will add a new 2.5 things you feel you must have to be happy. It’s like sinking in quicksand; the harder you try to swim out, the worse your situation becomes.

The pursuit of what you want is a Sisyphean task. No matter how hard you work and how much you acquire, you will always want more. It’s just human nature.

The other path

The other option is to want what you already have. Wanting what you have seems like a great idea, but it defies some basic human instinct and proves surprisingly hard to do.

The self-help genera is filled with advice on how to want what you already have. From gratitude journals to practicing mindfulness and writing thank you letters. But if this worked, people wouldn’t want more self-help books, yet Barnes and Noble seemingly get more daily.

What You Need is a Shock to Your System

I discovered the hard way that what you need to make you appreciate what you already have is a shock to the system. Something an entire order of magnitude higher in voltage than a gratitude journal.

To appreciate what you have, you must seriously contemplate losing it

Not like losing the remote in the couch cushions, but like the death of a beloved spouse.

The sad reality of our lives is that everything is transient. Things will wear out, relationships will end, and people will die. You will one day die, and most of the treasures you worked so hard to amass will be just so much junk that someone else will have to throw out. It sounds harsh, but that is just the way it is.

Thinking is not enough

Thinking about this reality makes a difference, but it is not enough. You must do more than think about it or write in a journal; you must feel it.

The best and worst part of my sleepless night was that I felt the loss of my wife. I felt the pain, absence, fear, loneliness, and void that would never be filled. I experienced it as a pit in my stomach, a cold chill down my back, an ache in my chest, stinging in my eyes, and warm tears that made a cold, wet patch on my pillow. I felt that loss as if it was real, and that feeling changed me.

It is your feelings that change you

I felt that loss as if it was real, and that feeling changed me.

Contemplation of death is not fun; that is the point. It’s not an exercise to be entered into lightly, but it can be a powerful tool to shock your system into wanting what you already have and making what you desire seem trivial by comparison.

How?

To try it, you need to set aside time when you will not be interrupted. Then sit and think about what you may lose. It could be a spouse, child, close friend, wealth, respect, job, health, or anything else you value.

Contemplate it as irretrievably gone, like seen at the funeral. Think about the loss deeply. When you do this, uncomfortable feelings will arise. You naturally want to push them away, but don’t do that. Instead, feel, recognize, accept, and inspect those emotions.

Your feelings aren’t wrong, and neither are you

Your natural tendency is to assume that if something feels bad, it is wrong, or you’re wrong for feeling it. But bad feelings are a part of life. They are organic reactions to natural events. So accept your feelings. Sit with them because your feelings are not wrong, and you are not bad for feeling them.

The fundamental transformation happens in the feeling; this is not an intellectual activity.

Cry a few tears, let out some anguished sounds, and grieve as if the pain is real. It is in the feeling where the shock to the system occurs, and without the shock, this is no better than a gratitude journal.

In Conclusion

I would never ask for that long, dark night of the soul. I did not want to be overwhelmed by those emotions, yet I’m so glad I was. It has given me a more appreciative, loving, and mature relationship with my wife, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

PS: The story has a happy ending. My wife flew to a major medical center later that morning and is doing fine. She now feels stronger and more confident than she has in some time.