Gratitude is Like a Hike

Gratitude is a lot like a hike.  You have your ups and your downs, and sometimes you feel like giving up and going home.  How do I know this? I went on a hike.

I was laying in my bed on an early Saturday morning.  Today was going to be my lazy day.  I was going to stay in bed to the latest possible second.  That all ended with a phone call.

Around 8 o’clock I like to check my notifications.  I check and post to Instagram, read my messages that might have come through the night, and lazily scroll through Pinterest.  This morning I saw a text from my mom saying, “Are you up?”

I thought if I texted my mom back she would tell me something over text.  It came through a phone call.

She basically told me that they were going to do a very famous hike that everyone does around us.  She asked me if I wanted to come with them.

Now, this hike is very steep.  You’re climbing up a literal mountain. There are 13 switchbacks and each one has a bench so you can rest.  That is how hard this hike is.  They actually provide benches at every corner.  And I decided to hike it.

It wasn’t that cold, but I knew that in the mountains it would be colder so I brought a warm jacket with me.  I filled up my water bottle and I waited for my parents to come.  Once we made it to the mountain and I looked up to the challenge in front of me, I immediately knew that the pizza I had before was not going to help me on this journey.

We then started up.  The hike was very steep, even in the beginning.  I had to stop at the first switchback and take a break.  The cold hurt my throat more then I thought it was and I started to feel the pizza I had eaten.  I had only gotten not even a quarter of the way there.  I doubt I made it an eighth.

I kept on going, though.  I wanted to make it to the top and I knew my family wouldn’t let me go home until I made it to the top so I was stuck.  Switchback after switchback I felt more and more like dying.  My body hurt and underestimated how hard this hike was.

Around switchback number nine, I ran out of the water.  I knew my family would give me theirs but it was at this point that I really wanted to just go back down the hill and go back to sleep.  I might have expressed my concerns more than just once.

Basically, I complained, a lot.

I still kept on going and found it started to get easier.  I was keeping my mind off of the pain by talking with my family and found that it went faster than me keeping my thoughts to myself.  I actually made it to the top.

The view was amazing.  You could see the whole valley and the lake too.  I spotted where I lived, where I went to school, and where our car was.  I took pictures and enjoyed the view.

How is this like gratitude?  Well, when I first started doing the gratitude journal, I found that I underestimated myself.  It ended up being a chore and there were many times when I wanted to give up.  It was more of a to-do task then it was for doing it for myself.

It became a struggle for me because I viewed it as a struggle.  You don’t look at a hill and walk up it thinking that it is flat.  I complained and I did a lot of it.  I’m sure my roommate heard me say at least once a day, “I have to do my gratitude journal.”

It was only after I realized that it would be no good to me if I kept on viewing it this way,  I started to take my mind off the task and actually see the good around me.

It changed the way I started to think.  I realized that there was a lot more for me to be grateful for then there was for me to just think of for a task.  The view became beautiful.

Yes, gratitude can help with depression, can make you healthier, can help you sleep better, can help with relationships, and improves self-esteem.  Those are good benefits for us to do a gratitude journal.  But it is about the view and not how hard the hike is.

Gratitude is like a hike because you have to believe that the view is better than the pain you might feel during the task.