美妙生活的三个秘诀

美妙生活的三个秘诀The three A’s of awesome

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So the Awesome story:It begins about 40 years ago,when my mom and my dad came to Canada.My mom left Nairobi, Kenya.My dad left a small village outside of Amritsar, India.And they got here in the late 1960s.They settled in a shady suburb about an hour east of Toronto.And they settled into a new life.They saw their first dentist,they ate their first hamburger,and they had their first kids.My sister and I grew up here,and we had quiet, happy childhoods.We had close family,good friends, a quiet street.We grew up taking for granted a lot of the things that my parents couldn't take for granted when they grew up --things like power always on in our houses,things like schools across the street and hospitals down the road and popsicles in the backyard.We grew up, and we grew older.I went to high school.I graduated.I moved out of the house, I got a job,I found a girl, I settled down --and I realize it sounds like a bad sitcom or a Cat Stevens' song.

(Laughter)

But life was pretty good.Life was pretty good.2006 was a great year.Under clear blue skies in July in the wine region of Ontario,I got married,surrounded by 150 family and friends.2007 was a great year.I graduated from school,and I went on a road trip with two of my closest friends.Here's a picture of me and my friend, Chris, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.We actually saw seals out of our car window,and we pulled over to take a quick picture of them and then blocked them with our giant heads.(Laughter)So you can't actually see them,but it was breathtaking,believe me.

(Laughter)

2008 and 2009 were a little tougher.I know that they were tougher for a lot of people, not just me.First of all, the news was so heavy.It's still heavy now, and it was heavy before that,but when you flip open a newspaper, when you turned on the TV,it was about ice caps melting,wars going on around the world,earthquakes, hurricanes and an economy that was wobbling on the brink of collapse,and then eventually did collapse,and so many of us losing our homes,or our jobs,or our retirements,or our livelihoods.2008, 2009 were heavy years for me for another reason too.I was going through a lot of personal problems at the time.My marriage wasn't going well,and we just were growing further and further apart.One day my wife came home from work and summoned the courage, through a lot of tears,to have a very honest conversation. And she said, "I don't love you anymore."And it was one of the most painful things I'd ever heard and certainly the most heartbreaking thing I'd ever heard,until only a month later,when I heard something even more heartbreaking.

My friend Chris, who I just showed you a picture of,had been battling mental illness for some time.And for those of you whose lives have been touched by mental illness,