“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into precious, precious gifts.” – William Arthur Ward
While on an Adventure Treks trip, life becomes simple again. No phones, no Internet or social media, and minimal distractions. This is all by design as we leave behind many of our creature comforts and our routines. We trade a bed for a sleeping pad and a kitchen sink for a three-bin. We get a bit dirty—even a bit smelly. We sit on the ground and enjoy meals in sitting in a circle.
For all those homey comforts we subtract during those few weeks at AT, we gain exponentially more in spirit and character. The greatest of those personal riches is a deep and lasting sense of gratitude.
Gratitude can be a wonderful feeling of thankfulness and appreciation, and it’s something we encounter quite often at Adventure Treks. And it’s much more than a fleeting feeling—rather, gratitude is a practice, a choice. It’s something that unlocks tremendous potential to transform the way you look at your own life.
Greeting each morning with a sense of gratitude helps our students connect with and value others; it helps them focus on the positive even through hardship; it helps them reflect, appreciate, and celebrate; and it helps foster a sense of confidence and courage. Seeing the world through a lens of gratitude instills a sense that the world will not grind you under, but rather it will lift you up.
Many social scientists and neuroscientists agree with us—like Michael McCullough and Robert Emmons at UC San Diego and UC Davis. They have found that gratitude-based practices make us happier, increase our self-esteem, and improve our psychological well-being. In their studies, the effects of a gratitude practice took as little as journaling for five minutes a day! On Adventure Treks trips, there’s even much more going on to instill this perspective. Below, how a summer camp like Adventure Treks can help students adopt a more grateful perspective.
Leaving creature comforts behind
When we leave our literal and figurative comfort zones for outdoor expeditions, we get to see how lucky we are to have such luxuries as fluffy beds and pillows, daily showers, and climate control in the “readl world.” No longer will a kitchen table or dishwasher be taken for granted. And with fewer distractions like constantly buzzing phones, our attention can be focused onto more meaningful things, like connecting with others and finding value in the small things we might normally miss.
Plus, being surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery the outdoor world has to offer makes it easy to practice gratitude.
Living in a community
Although they may start out as strangers, students on an AT trip soon recognize that each of their peers has their own unique and interesting story. Where do they come from? How do they spend their time at home? What brought them to this exact moment? They learn about each other, begin to understand each other, and discover what they have in common—which is almost always much more than they initially assume. That commonality and understanding are the roots of strong interpersonal connection.
Plus / delta land!
This is perhaps our most hallowed tradition. At the end of every day, we share with each other all that we’re grateful for. This looks like highlighting our successes, “plussing” each other out for acts of kindness, and remembering the exciting and fulfilling moments of each day. This is also a time to reflect on how we as a community can improve to make our next day even more fun and impactful for everyone.
Adventure Treks trips provide a fantastic structure to live gratefully, which hopefully makes it easier to apply the same principles to students’ lives in the outside world. Because outside of AT, students still live in a community back home! It may not be the same as at Adventure Treks, but each of your neighbors and classmates have a wonderful story of their own. All it takes is the initiative to be curious and to lead by example.
No matter where we live, we can always step outside and appreciate the nature we have access to. The sky, the clouds, the trees on your block, and even the little blades of grass pushing their way up through the cracks in the concrete are there waiting to be appreciated.
This Thanksgiving and holiday season, let’s remember to look past the distractions, to hold tight to what truly brings meaning and joy to our lives, and cherish all that we have to be grateful for.