Counting Waterfalls

"We can only be said to be alive 

in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." 

— Thornton Wilder

Photo by Dave Pomes

I remember a moment.  Dave and I were on a cruise in Alaska  sitting on the balcony of our stateroom, sipping wine, watching ice- and tree-covered land slide past us in the fading light. We counted waterfalls, not talking very much. The sunset did all the work needed.

I remember thinking: I am so grateful to be here.

Not in a journal-prompt way. Not in a "list five things you're thankful for" way. In an I-am-fully-inside-this-moment way. The wine, the cold air, the quiet, the waterfalls — I was there for all of it. I wasn't thinking about what came next or what I should be doing instead. I was just there.

That's what gratitude is, to me. It's not a stopping point. It's an appreciating point.

There's a version of gratitude that gets handed around like medicine — the kind where someone tells you to be grateful for what you have, and the unspoken ending of that sentence is "...so stop wanting more." I've been on the receiving end of that, and I think it's one of the most unhelpful things you can say to a person. It turns gratitude into a cage. It says: you have enough, so sit down. Be quiet. Stop reaching.

That is a lie.

You can be grateful for where you are and still want to go somewhere else. You can appreciate your life exactly as it is and still be building toward something bigger. Gratitude and ambition are not opposites — they never have been. In fact, I think gratitude is what makes the next thing possible, because when you're actually present to what you have, you open yourself up to receive more. It shifts your energy. It clears the channel.

I know this because on February 11th of this year, I paid off $150,000 of debt. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars — in under six years. I honestly don't even know how. I had an ADU built, I borrowed the money, and then I just... paid it off. Consistently, stubbornly, month after month, until one day it was done. And now I can adventure all over the world and stay out of debt while I do it. Tokyo. Australia. I don't even know yet. There are so many places to go that I haven't seen yet, and for the first time the doors are wide open.

I didn't get there by ignoring what I had. I got there by appreciating it — and by believing that more was coming.

There is magic in feeling gratitude for what hasn't manifested yet. That sounds like a strange thing to say, but I believe it completely. Gratitude isn't just about looking backward at what you've been given. It's about looking forward with your arms open.

Right now, as I'm writing this, I'm cutting coupons. Teachers at my school are going to get five dollars off a twenty-dollar purchase at the spring book fair that starts tomorrow. My school is located in what you'd call a book desert — there are no libraries or bookstores anywhere near us. Just a lot of trash, unhoused people in tents, and more trash. And yet, tomorrow, there will be a book fair. Kids are going to walk in and see shelves full of books they can choose and take home. I am heading that up, and I am so grateful to be the person who gets to bring this to my community.

Photo by Dave Pomes

It is not a glamorous moment. I'm sitting here with scissors and a stack of paper. But gratitude doesn't need a balcony in Alaska to show up. It just needs you to be paying attention to where you are, right now, and to feel into what's real about it.

It's being intentional. It's being present. It's noticing the small things — not because the small things are all you're allowed to have, but because the small things are where you're actually alive.

Gratitude is not a stopping point. It's an appreciating point. And from that place of appreciation, everything opens up.