Whenever I manage to wake up at 5 AM, I find myself immensely grateful for those extra morning hours. There’s magic in being awake when no one else is. You feel as if you have all the time in the world and, in a sense, you do—for the world is still asleep, and you’re off to a head start. To me, no matter how I spend them, these hours are always filled with joy.
The thing is, I created them, didn’t I? It was my own doing to wake up at 5 AM and claim those hours. I made time—so why do I feel grateful, and to whom?
There’s a similar dynamic with my favorite articles I’ve written over the years. Many of them are old now, and yet, when I come across them again, I often notice a feeling of gratitude. “Thank god I was in the right space back then to write these as I did.” Because of course, only the me from that time could have written them. I could never write the exact same piece now.
Yet, once again, I wrote them. I showed up back then, and that’s why the writing still exists today. So what’s with the gratitude?
I don’t have children yet, but I can already see them as the ultimate example: Technically, we created them—but millions of parents feel immense gratitude for their children’s existence every day.
Of course, our feelings of gratefulness aren’t wrong. They’re exactly right. But, as a symptom, they reveal something about the underlying cause: Even for our own creations, we can’t take 100% of the credit. There are always other, invisible forces at play.
From waking up early to making art to raising kids—for even the tiniest success, everything must come together in perfect harmony. Billions of microscopic preconditions, all leading up to a single intersection in time. One moment to cement their result. Then, an eternity of said result existing or, at the very least, once having existed for however long.
Take pride in your creations. You did all the showing up it took to carve them into reality. But show thanks, too. When you feel an inexplicable wave of gratitude, don’t override it with entitlement. Nothing in this world happens entirely according to our own will. There’s always a little stardust involved, and that’s worth appreciating.
