Gratitude and Transition

Howdy! This week’s piece is going to be brief - we all have a lot going on entering the holiday season and I find myself on the doorstep of the next chapter. So, efficiency is key here.

On Tuesday, I head west to San Francisco for my final speaking event of the year on Wednesday morning. Then, while trying to avoid whiplash, I will immediately turn around and travel to Gardiner, Montana to begin training for a winter in Yellowstone National Park as a snow coach driver. Fun!

I spent the past two weeks carefully packing and getting everything I could imagine needing together for a winter in the winter wonderland I will be living in until early March. I was fortunate enough to visit my sister in Yellowstone in January 2018 when she was working there, so I have a sense of just how cold and snowy it can get. Still, I don’t feel like I quite know what to expect.

I was fortunate enough to visit my sister in Yellowstone in January 2018 when she was working there, so I have a sense of just how cold and snowy it can get. Still, I don’t feel like I quite know what to expect.

Why am I going to Yellowstone, you ask? Back in August, I was living in a friend’s home in Boulder, Colorado contemplating my future and felt a strong urge to be somewhere awesome this winter - a place where I can be outside often and be around people who have a great appreciation for place. I applied to work in Yellowstone in response to this urge, not really sure if I would actually pursue the role if I got it, and here we are. I am excited for a change of pace and scenery but I am still unsure of what the future will bring afterward. And that is okay.

Being a snow coach driver will draw on many of the skills I have refined since graduating college and will also be a completely new experience. It feels uncomfortable, a bit intimidating, and exciting and those feelings, I’ve learned, are the exact signals that this is the right move for me.

In the moments where I feel stress about what comes next, I do my best to remind myself of the message I have been sharing with the world for the past two years: the road will unfold in front of you so long as you listen to your heart, lean on the support networks you have, and trust that all of this is working out the way it’s meant to.

On that note, I turn to gratitude.

This year has been filled with piles of negative, sometimes devastating news that are sure to discourage even the most optimistic, hopeful soul. It can be deflating to look at all the hate and violence that somehow exists in the world, and we must remember all of the positivity and gratitude we can extend toward to keep moving forward.

Wherever you may be this holiday season, I hope you have the space and capacity to bring your communities closer together in some shape or form. Maybe that’s by reaching out to folks you are grateful for, extending simple acts of kindness to strangers in your everyday life, or making a sacrifice for someone important in your life. There are countless ways to share and spread the gratitude that sits within each of us, and now is a great time to show the discipline to act on it.

My immediate family will not be all together this holiday season for a variety of reasons (one being my job in Yellowstone). Rather than choose a negative view on the situation and wish things were different, I am focused on feeling grateful for the people who make us all feel loved everyday and the technology that allows us to remain close while so far apart. We must adapt to our circumstances and it’s up to us to bring positivity into the world - it is a choice.

Have a beautiful, safe, and joyful start to the holidays! Talk soon and thank you for reading.

-Ben Grannis
#EyesUp