The novel Anna Karenina begins with “All happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
I have always loved this line, mainly because it’s not just about families. It tells us something we know already, which is happiness, when you experience it, seems pretty simple. But if you are having a down period, you might be the first person to deal with that unique problem. A while back, I fell into a “I’m sad, and I don’t know why” period. While in this period, I found my dad had registered my brother and me for the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation. We were to go to the Scapegoat side of the Bob Marshall, and come out a week later, hopefully having built a small punch-in bridge over a bog within that time. Before this, I had just read Into the Wild, so you can imagine, I was ecstatic. Yep, I was one of THOSE kids. I thought I would go out there, brave the backcountry, and come out feeling so much better–all my problems solved, no longer sad.
My crew members were easy to make friends with. We were all there for, more or less, the same reason. Friendship happened spontaneously and without warning. I remember one man, named Collin, who had just moved to Montana from the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. He was in training to do be a trip leader in the Bob Marshall. I can still remember, despite the amazing views, we still couldn’t stop chatting about video games. What I had with every one of those people on the trip was extraordinarily special. When hiking in, we laid our eyes on the spectacular formation called Heart Lake. The water from glacier melt was cartoonishly blue and frigid. The lake proved a bright blue contrast to the dark trees, while also matching the sky. The prettiness of these things made it easy to forget about problems in favor of something greater.
Even in the face of things that felt horrible, it was easy to look at the astonishing views and have all misfortunes be forgotten. To be more specific, there was a time when we were walking back to camp, clearing trail of fallen trees in the pouring, cold rain. It felt miserable, but all it took was to look a little closer and watch the gentle caress of a raindrop on a wildflower, and suddenly, the rain wasn’t so bad.
This can be a metaphor in life. In the face of great uncertainty, looking closely at your circumstances can reveal something beautiful. The trees teach you lessons such as these. Did I come out with all my problems solved and everything alright again? Absolutely not. Did I come out, realizing that I can fix my problems? Of course. All I must do is look a little closer at the beauty of the sadness.
