Things I’m Grateful For, by Josh Stallings

Q: Okay – time to confess…those “New Year Resolutions” you made way back in January…how well have you done?

A: I understand the question and it makes sense. The problem is I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. This is largely because of sobriety. I came to believe in taking things one day at a time. If I make a commitment to what I’m going to do over the next year, it creates a big opportunity to make myself feel bad. Much can change in a year. I can promise I’m going to write the great American novel, and then someone gets sick and needs me. Or I get sick, or I’m called to do other work. I have goals, mountains I want to climb, both metaphoric and geologic. But a goal is not the same as a resolution. The former feels like a flexible plan, while the latter is an iron clad commitment. 

I feel New Year’s is a time for accounting. Thinking about what I accomplished and where I failed, in a non-judgmental way. Accounting, or in sober speak “doing an inventory” is a way to look at what actually happened and finding what I want to change in the coming year.  

Back to the actual subject of the question, resolutions. If resolutions make me feel shitty about myself, what makes me feel good?

Today is the day after Thanksgiving, that’s a clue. 

Gratitude makes me feel good. 

I am grateful for sobriety. Grateful for some wise questions my sponsor Richard asked me in those early days, questions I still think about and still ask myself.

Would you rather look good or feel good? 

Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy? 

Would you rather get what you want or want what you’ve got?

These seem like simple little questions but they turn out to be complex. Would you rather look good or feel good has many different levels. Looking good doesn’t just mean physically. Would you rather look good to your peers or would you rather have people respect you? Would you rather be on the NY Times best seller list, or would you rather feel good about what you’re doing, is another way to think about the question.

Would you rather be right or happy? This is an interesting question because many of us will argue for something because we believe we are right, not noticing that being right doesn’t bring us joy. I don’t argue to be right anymore with people I love and care about. I’m… well I do actually still fight to be right. Erika is going to edit this. She’ll see what I said and she’ll say bullshit or her version of that. I do argue with people I love but when I do, I realize it doesn’t help. 

Short digression, on my wedding day my grandfather said to me, “Josh, you’ll be happy when you realize she’s right.” At one level I thought it was one of those husband versus wife jokes, but that wasn’t my grandfather’s way. He tended to tell me koans. I turned this one over in my head for years and finally realized that if I approached every conversation with Erika with the perspective that she’s probably right and I’m just not understanding her point, then we were having a conversation as opposed to an argument.

This had much wider applications in my work life. When getting notes I don’t agree with from an editor or agent or trusted friend, I think maybe they’re correct and I’m just not getting it. I say to them, “Pretend I’m an idiot because I may be and tell that to me again in a different way.” I have found that once I actually understand what they’re saying I often agree, and if there are parts that I don’t agree with I can see clearly why and say, “I get what you’re saying, and in this case, here’s what I don’t agree with and why…”  

Would I rather be right or would I rather be happy? I’d rather be happy. Being right doesn’t ever make me happy. It’s sometimes a good thing, sometimes not but it’s not connected to my joy. Being right means making somebody else wrong. That is never gonna bring great piles of happiness.

Would you rather get what you want or want what you’ve got? They have this acronym now, FOMO. Fear of missing out. What I felt forever was at least adjacent to the idea. Whenever I went to a restaurant, I’d study the menu. I'd order my meal, and then I'd look across the table and see somebody who I thought got a better meal. If somebody was more successful than me then they must've stolen my success. 

I had a successful year in movie advertising and I remember clearly there was a moment I was making more money than a poor kid could ever imagine. I was driving to a Porsche dealership to buy a car I couldn't afford to drive to a job I didn't enjoy anymore. Did I want to get to the office quicker? My wife and I have had an agreement that we don't spend more than $100 on nonessentials without checking in with the other one. Having to talk to her about wanting a Porsche kept me from buying the car, good move. 

We were evacuated off our mountain because of a forest fire a couple of years ago. I realized everything that I cared about would fit in our truck, my wife, my sons, dogs. Those were the things I really cared about. Cars, homes, stellar reviews for a book you wrote, they all will eventually fade from memory. I’m happy to want what I have, not get what I want because when it comes to wanting, I can be shallow.

When I started writing this I was thinking about Thanksgiving. It is problematic like so many holidays. We all know too much history to buy into the cultural myths. Michael Horse, a friend, actor, and stand up comedian used to start his act with a riff on Henny Youngman, “Take my land… please.” Then he’d bag on those early indigenous people who welcomed the white land thieves of the Mayflower. If we buy into Thanksgiving as a sharing myth, the beginning of a story of mutual concern and cooperation, we also need to accept that the story ends in the genocide of indigenous people. So around our house we never shared that mythological cluster fuck. We chose to celebrate a day to remember what we are grateful for. 

Here is my gratitude list for today:

I am thankful for my health. 

My eyesight. 

My ability to tell stories. 

My sons Dylan and Jared, both joining us for the meal this year, both healthy, both wonderful men. 

Erika, without whom I would not have those sons or the joy of the life that she and I share together. 

My parents for giving me breath. And for giving me much to push against. They gave me a childhood full of love, and lots to chew on. It has been one of the driving forces of my writing. 

My siblings, both from blood and marriage. I’m a lucky man to have them all . 

I’m thankful for my nieces and nephews, beautiful men and women who keep me tapped into the world and bring me joy. 

My two dogs who remind me, take nothing too seriously, except chew toys, take those very seriously. 

I’m thankful for music. I’m thankful for books. I’m thankful for my fellow Criminal Minds who bring me joy and thoughts and force me to think about the craft of writing. I’m thankful for the world of crime writers and readers who embraced me long before they had any reason to. Before I had any published words, I had friends in this community. Writers who were willing to look at my early work, and help me make it better. I am thankful for libraries and librarians. 

I am thankful for my sobriety. I used to think I’d stop writing if I stopped drinking. My sponsor said to me, “That could happen. But if you want to get sober you have to be willing to give everything up, holding nothing back.” I’m grateful the writing came back. And the work I’ve done in the years post sobriety is so much better than any writing I did pre-sobriety. 

I would’ve written a novel when I was drinking. I would talk about it and think about it and wish I could and then I’d say I can’t do that. I had the useless ability to think any problem to its natural conclusion, failure. Now I have no idea how I can write the next novel. Feels impossible from the start. I’m thankful for bull headed tenacity to just keep writing until I find my way to those glorious words “the end.”

I am thankful for all the readers out there, not just the ones that like my writing. I do like them best because clearly they are the smartest and wisest ones, but honestly, I'm thankful for all readers. We all have very different taste based on what we’ve read before and our worldview, what we’ve lived through, our socio-economic upbringing, all of those factors affect what we want to read. There is no such thing as a bad reader. Reading makes people into critical thinkers, reading allows us to imagine other worlds and other people, to be inside the heads of someone who is not us. It opens our hearts and minds to a bigger world, whether that world is full of wizards and sword fights, or Martian giants, or honorable criminals and heartsick lawyers, or cats that solve crimes. Reading takes us to other places and brings us home, but we don’t return as the same people who left. The journey changes who we are and what we can imagine to be possible.

I’d love to know what you’re grateful for.