We can’t have the highs without the lows, and the lows actually make the highs. I’ve tried keeping gratitude logs, because I heard that it’s good to draw attention to the good in your life, but I haven’t stuck with it. Recently though, I’ve heard about a different kind of gratitude log, where you put good and seemingly bad things under the heading of gratitude.
Holly Whitaker, author of the sobriety blog Recovering, started listing both good and bad at the end of each day. She’d already realized how grateful she was for her addiction, because in getting through it she’d come to know herself and her potential in ways she doubts she would have otherwise. But listing the good and bad under the heading of gratitude, and making a long-term habit of it changed her attitude on another level. She doesn’t overreact everyday setbacks as much. And looking back through the records of her day-to-day challenges brings out how fleeting they really are. How in days or weeks, the most hopeless feelings have disappeared in the rearview mirror.
Applying this to bigger hurdles reminds me of Viktor Frankl’s findings from people near the end of their lives, how they’re proudest of the most difficult parts of their lives. It’s possible to see the meaning in most of what we’ve suffered, and it becomes an accomplishment more than indiscriminate adversity.
I haven’t made a habit of this yet, but I’ve found some comfort in it after days of doing nothing at home but scraping by with my young kids. Some days I feel that my life is on hold, that only when my kids are in childcare for most of the day will I be able to test my potential in ways that I want to. But before kids, I felt heavy with angst, and even less able to make headway towards my major goals in any given day. I chewed on the excuse that I didn’t have a clear purpose to commit to, that when I found it, then my calling would wash away the details. Parenting has washed a lot away. Some days it feels like a healthy cleanse, some days it feels like a pressure washer lingering too long in one place. Paint flakes off, but there is no moss. The metal is bright in the spots that do the most. Looking back, this is the deep commitment I longed for.
Writing and running a commercial fishing boat fills me up enough to reaffirm the importance of spending time with my kids. As Stephen King says, “Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.” I used to think of this in terms of food and shelter, but now I think it’s about inspiration. No one can live a full, healthy life consumed by work of any kind. Nor can someone feel fulfilled by simply passing through. But working to interpret the events of our lives, good and bad, to see how we’ve been shaped by the world, that informs how we can best shape the world back.