Rabbit Hole Gratitude
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
One of my favorite gratitude practices is picking an activity or object and tasking my brain to think of all the people who had to pitch in to make it a possibility.
For example, let’s assume I want to go to an apple orchard to buy some of their apples. Who needs to pitch in for me to have that possibility? There’s the people who planted the apple trees, the people who picked the apples, the people who sell the apples, the people who market the apples, the people who do the accounting for the apples, the people who help with the parking at the apple orchard, the people who clean the apple orchard, the parents who raised those people, the doctors who kept those people healthy, the farmers who fed those people…
Then there’s the car that carries me to the orchard. Think of all the people who invented the parts in any car, manufactured the individual pieces, put those individual pieces together, paved the roads to get to the orchard, fixed those roads over the years, paid taxes to make those improvements possible, created the stop signs for safety, invented the traffic lights…
The clothes I wear to the apple orchard were designed by someone, material was made by someone from cotton raised by someone, someone sewed the garments together, someone delivered the finished product to a store where someone sold it to me…
In order for me to exist I needed parents and grandparents and great grandparents and great great grandparents in an unbroken chain. This gratitude practice constantly reminds me of how connected we all are to one another, and how much we all need one another. Even for the simplest of activities, if I think of everyone needed in order to accomplish it, this thought practice sends me down an unending rabbit hole of gratitude for the efforts of people who have made my life a possibility. If you’re ever feeling down about the state of the world and people in it, remind yourself of all the people who have given time and effort to make your own life possible.
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Sincerely Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team