Practice Gratitude To Build Resilience During A Crisis

Practice Gratitude to Build Resilience During A Crisis

I haven’t blogged much, but I wanted to let you all know that I’m doing alright and trying my best to stay safe amidst this pandemic crisis. Gratitude is one of the major factors in life that helps keep me going.

The corona virus pandemic has turned the world upside down. It’s a tough and trying time for everyone. During a time like this, it is helpful to build emotional resilience and maintain a positive perspective. We can achieve this is by practicing gratitude.

Gratitude, by definition, is a thankful appreciation for what we have. It’s a positive emotion that is associated with happiness and greater life satisfaction. Practicing gratitude can help us cope with stressful situations and reduce overall life burnout.

By etymology, the word “gratitude” has a Latin origin from the word “gratus” which means “pleasing” or “thankful”. Here are some of the things I am incredibly thankful and grateful for.

 

Health

They say if you don’t have health, you have nothing. You can have all the riches and fame in the world, but if you’re sick and dying, nothing really matters. Unfortunately, many people have fallen ill and succumbed to Covid-19 and my heart goes out to their families.

I am really grateful that my loved ones and I remain in pretty good health. Fortunately, I don’t personally know anybody who has been infected or traumatically affected by the pandemic. Hopefully that continues.

To maintain our health and well being, we continue to cook homemade healthy meals and do our regular home workout routines. Additionally we try to practice mindfulness and meditate every day to help manage stress and anxiety. While it can be tough with a two year old, we also try to maintain good sleep hygiene and habits.

Health is the best kind of wealth and I have a deep sense of gratitude for it.

 

Home

For a while, I used to wonder if I had bought too much house. We live in a four bedroom house which is more than enough space for us. Because it was a new construction home in a relatively affluent area of Southern California, it was expensive.

But I don’t really question it anymore. We had the means to comfortably afford it. We love our home. And during a time like this with stay at home orders in place, I’m thankful that we have a spacious house. There’s enough space for my daughter to run around. And there’s also some parks and canyons she can explore too.

Almost every day, I take my daughter on walks around our community. It’s great because we get a good dose of vitamin D and a little bit of exercise too.

One thing that has been a pleasant surprise during our walks is meeting some of my neighbors. I’ve met several other physicians, including a couple of pediatricians who live in a nearby community. They have two kids that are similar age as my daughter.

While we were chatting, I had this feeling that I had met them before. Eventually, we connected the dots and realized that six years ago we were on the same mission trip in Southeast Asia!

It’s cool how a time like this allows people to engage and connect with others in ways they may not have otherwise. Also, I’m always amazed at how small the world really is.

 

Work

Now, more than ever, I’ve never felt more grateful to have the a great job. As an anesthesiologist and pain physician, I’m able to do meaningful work and get paid quite a bit for it.

Not everybody is in the same situation though. Sadly, many people have lost their jobs as over 20 million people in the country has filed for unemployment.

Many physicians are affected too. I know some anesthesiologists in town who have seen an ~85% reduction in hours due to the cancellation/postponement of elective surgeries. Unfortunately, many of them also maintain a very expensive lifestyle. Because they live so large, they are basically wage slaves who live paycheck to paycheck with minimal emergency savings. I would hate to be in their fancy, expensive shoes

Fortunately, we don’t live like that. As a family, we live pretty far below our means and we have emergency savings in a high yield (used to be high yield) savings account that has more than 6 months worth of expenses. We could probably stretch our savings for a year if we had to live ultra frugally.

I also feel grateful that I work in a large physician group that is flexible. The past few weeks I’ve split my time doing virtual telehealth pain consultations, going in to the hospital to do emergency/urgent pain procedures, doing anesthesia, and helping out as part of the intubation team. I’m even ready to help out in the ICU’s if a surge happens and the need arises. As they say in the military, Semper Gumby (“Always Flexible”). Being able, available, affable (sometimes), and always flexible has allowed me to continue doing meaningful work without a reduction in hours or pay.

Protection for Physicians

Also, I feel very grateful to work at a hospital and healthcare system that supports the physicians and staff. We all have adequate personal protective equipment that allows us to perform our work with confidence. This is so important because as an anesthesiologist, it could feel like you’re looking down the barrel of a virus-loaded gun every time you intubate a Covid+ patient.

Many people have called us healthcare workers heroes. I definitely appreciate the recognition, but I also acknowledge we are just doing our job. A time like this makes me especially proud to be a physician serving others in need.

 

Finance

The pandemic has obviously rocked global financial markets. I’m not sure if there’s going to be a V-shaped recovery back in which the market goes back to all time highs or if a great depression is coming. Nobody really knows.

However, whatever does happens will not drastically change what I do. I’m going to stay the course and stick with my financial plan as outlined by my investor policy statement. Admittedly, it does help to have a high, stable income and a long investment horizon with no plans to retire within the next fifteen years.

Yes, I’ll admit that it’s rough seeing the value of some of my funds go down considerably. But since they are in my tax-advantaged retirement accounts, I don’t plan to touch it any time soon anyway. I’m sure they’ll come back up at some point during my investing career.

Meanwhile, my taxable account hasn’t really seen a huge drop because I got very lucky with some individual stocks that performed well. One of those stocks was Tesla. I’ve been using the gains that I realized from selling TSLA and buying other individual stocks that have really gone down in value. I’m betting/hoping that they’ll gain in a year or two as the economy recovers. At the same time, I’ve been tax loss harvesting by exchanging total stock market funds for large cap and S&P500 funds to offset those Tesla gains.

I wouldn’t have been able to do all this if I hadn’t learned some of the fundamentals of financial literacy from various books and helpful blogs like White Coat Investor and Physician on Fire. I’m grateful for this knowledge because without it, who knows, maybe instead of living like a resident and investing, I could have been slaving away living paycheck to paycheck to support an inflated lifestyle.

 

Travel

This one hurt.

Ever since I was a kid I loved traveling. And since getting my first rewards credit card I was hooked on travel hacking. Nowadays, you can’t really do either. Because of the pandemic crisis, nobody travels beyond only what is deemed essential travel.

Several of our trips have been canceled. Fortunately, we were able to get just about all of our money (or points/miles) refunded back to us. Last year I had booked round trip tickets to Tokyo on JAL business class for my parents this summer using American AAdvantage miles. It was for their 40th anniversary. Luckily I was able to cancel the flight and have all 240,000 miles redeposited back into my account with no redeposit fee.

Also, we were all very excited about our huge family cruise. Our parents, my siblings, and 30 of my relatives were scheduled to set sail in a few weeks across the Mediterranean. Obviously, the cruise isn’t happening. Fortunately, since the cruise line canceled the trip (and not us), they offered a full refund or a 120% credit for a future cruse. Without hesitation, we selected the full refund option. It still sucks though because I was really looking forward to this vacation. My wife and I had already taken her parents to Paris and Rome, but we also wanted to show them some of our other favorite places, like the Amalfi Coast. Hopefully there will be a next time.

All this leaves me in an interesting scenario. I earned so many Amex Membership Rewards (100,000) and Chase Ultimate Rewards (50,000) points just by using new credit cards to pay for the cost of the cruise. In effect, I earned some very lucrative sign up bonuses on those cards. Now, I’m expecting a refund of that money. Hopefully Amex and Chase don’t claw back those points.

So now I have a huge stash of points with no where to go.

In total, I have more than 2.5 million points including:

• 450,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points
• 410,000 Amex Membership Rewards points
• 150,000 Citi Thank You points
• 815,000 Hilton Honors points (plus two free weekend night certificates)
• 20,000 Hyatt points (plus a free night certificate)
• 105,000 IHG points (plus a free night certificate)
• 80,000 Marriott Bonvoy points (plus a free night certificate)
• 75,000 Alaska Mileage points
• 70,000 United miles
• 240,000 American AAdvantage miles
• 176,000 Southwest points (plus a companion pass)

It’s an obscene amount of miles and points that I can’t use right now.

One thing that I can do is redeem all 1 million or so of my banking points from Chase, Amex, and Citi at a penny per point to earn $10,000. This wouldn’t be the most valuable redemption, but at least I can put that money to work right now if I invested it.

Eh. I won’t do that. I’ll just hold on to the points and redeem them for luxury travel when we are actually able to travel again. Whenever that will be.

Travel itself is a luxury

It’s definitely a first world (or first class?) problem when your’e trying to figure out what to do with travel rewards points that you can’t effectively use right now.

I have to say, I am very blessed to be in the position to travel in the first place. Many people do not have this luxury. Also, my wife and I are grateful for being able to take her parents on their dream vacation to Paris and Rome. Just a week ago, her parents were saying how they are glad that they visited Paris before the corona virus pandemic happened.

Who knows if cities like Paris will ever be the same again. I’m sure the whole world will be different in the post-covid era.

I’m grateful for the fact that I have seen and enjoyed much of the world before all this happened.  Nothing will ever be the same.

Travel has also given me a different perspective. For example, when I volunteered in India for a mission trip, I saw firsthand how unfortunate the living conditions are for so many people in the world. It made me feel incedibly grateful for living in the United States.

Without a doubt, travel has given me a deep sense of gratitude.

 

Final Thoughts

It’s relatively easy for me to practice gratitude because I’m grateful for so many things. Chief among these things are our health, home, my work, our financial situation, and the fact that we’ve been able to do some amazing things over the years, such as traveling.

Practicing gratitude has always helped me maintain a positive mindset and it helps me keep things in perspective. I understand that the world is always changing and, at the same time, we are changing with it because we adapt. Realizing this, things will never be the same as it once was.

It’s important to acknowledge change and fully accept it, while remaining hopeful for the future. This is a tough and unprecedented time, but it won’t last forever.

Like any bad storm, this too shall pass. Meanwhile, it’s important to build our personal resilience to help us whether the storm.

One way to do this is to practice gratitude.