In the opening of his book, Naikan, Greg Krech tells a wonderful story.
One day, he set out on a hike to a promontory that offered a magnificent view. As he climbed, he was dismayed by the large number of trees, felled by winter storms, that made the trek slow and difficult. When he finally made it to the top, Krech thrilled to the view, but couldn’t stop thinking about how difficult the hike was—and how much easier it would have been, if it weren’t for the downed trees.
Then something occurred to him: There were also trees that had been chopped down to clear the path. In fact, the trees blocking the path were far fewer than those that had been removed to open it, as Krech discovered when he counted them on the way down. “The former were easy to count because they were in my way,” he writes. “However, noticing the latter required additional attention.”
And so it goes in life. It is easy to notice and remember obstacles. We are good at counting the things standing in our way, being frustrated by them, complaining about them. Meanwhile, the things that aid us often go unnoticed. They blend into the background of our lives, overlooked and forgotten.
Gratitude turns that equation around. It gets us to focus, not on the hindrances, but on the things that help and support us. “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasure,” wrote Thornton Wilder. That’s why I’m devoting Week 2 of my writing pilgrimage to gratitude. This week, I’ve written about the two people who helped me the most in my writing (and my life): my mom and dad. Tomorrow, I’ll be writing about how gratitude can help writers build careers, and on “Great Stuff for Writers Friday,” I’ll offer some gratitude resources.
I’m not going to pretend that gratitude comes naturally to me. I find it much easier to be grumpy than to be grateful. But this week, I’m making a commitment to change that, to focus less on the trees in my way and more on the ones that have been cleared.