step back

I’ve spent a bit of time taking inventory of what I’ve got – not so much with material things, though that’s been happening a bit, too – but with the more intangible blessings and curses. I know for a fact that the blessing outweigh the curses, but I certainly have a propensity for focusing on what I don’t have, and even worse – what I don’t have anymore.

I imagine I’m not alone. I’ve heard it described as an evolutionary trait from previous iterations of survival, where we focus on the more dangerous and threatening things more than we do the gracious and joyous where, for example, we might overlook something as nice and inviting as a fruit tree while focusing on venomous snakes, because as wonderful as a fruit tree is, missing it won’t kill you the way a venomous snake might. Chemically, we would be on high alert, triggering what we now commonly call our ‘fight or flight response’ upon observing such a threat.

This is problematic now, as we’re constantly in a state of fight or flight due to the stresses of everyday life – work, money, rush hour traffic, etc. – causing us to contend with; among other things, stress and anxiety – which is literally the body’s response to being in a heightened state for far too long. This means that even those of us who wouldn’t necessarily refer to ourselves as anxious or stressed out are still in a heightened state most of the time, that stress just manifests differently.

The commonality for all of us; though, is a focus on the negative.

But to step back and take an objective look at what we have going on is not only difficult, and not only important, but also relieving. The truth is that everything is amazing. Alone, the fact that most of us walk around with the combined information of the known universe in our pockets is an incredible feat. Myself; I have a lovely home, and beautiful girlfriend and an amazingly smart kid, and a wonderful dog. I play in a great rock & roll band and I drive a cool car, I have a cool job. I get tattoos from incredible artists and have been to exotic locations… yet for some reason all that takes a back seat when I get a toothache, or when one of our bicycles gets stolen… or when I don’t like the number on the bathroom scale.

What are you grateful for? That’s a question we’re met with every morning, before we even have opportunity to scrape the crud from our eyes, and it truly sets the tone for the day. Sure, we get pulled off course from time to time, but in the grand scheme it’s of little consequence when we stop to really evaluate what we have.

It’s always easier said than done, but it’s an important, objective look at where you’re at – and as soon as you can do that with regularity, all the while understanding that you can’t control anything except your reaction… then you’ve really got something.