My wife and I are currently rereading one of our favorite Dan Brown novels together. As she was reading a passage where the main characters are looking through books in their wealthy family’s vast library, I couldn’t help think of, and feel thankful for, my own library–hundreds of books on a vast array of subjects…
Years ago, I was teaching a workshop at Bell Labs in New Jersey. A group of Indian participants invited me to share lunch with them in the company’s cafeteria. During our warm and engaging conversation, I got the courage to say, “I have noticed a disproportionate number of Indians here at Bell Labs. Is there a reason for that?” It was a sincere and honest question. My hosts smiled back and forth at one another as the man who had invited me to lunch started to speak.
Mark, we all grew up in very poor communities in India. Unlike many children in the United States, we did not have the opportunities for extracurricular activities like music lessons and sports. Our families were very poor. As children, we were taught, over and over again, that our ticket to a brighter future was education, specifically science and math.
One day in the village where I lived, one of our elders showed up at our village square, where we received our daily lessons, with an old, used book on algebra. We were ecstatic to have an “advanced” mathematics text to study. We all learned algebra inside and out. Whenever we procured a “new” book to study from, we learned everything we could from it. Eventually, some of us were lucky enough to win scholarships to study in formal settings…
When my wife and I finished our reading for the evening, I visited the math section of my library and scanned the titles. I pulled these three books I bought the same day over 40 years ago–all for under $7! I quietly thought to myself, “Mark, do realize how fortunate you are to have grown up in the circumstances you did–to have had access to books on any subject your heart wanted to pursue–and to have had money to purchase them for your own library?”
I have been trying hard to live with an attitude of gratitude–especially with so much negativity currently in the headlines. This evening, I am thankful for the hundreds of books in my personal library on all the subjects that have held my interest during my years on this planet. Life is good–so very good!