The Lightbulb Moment for this week comes from something Mr. Alexander says constantly: “You’ll never get more of what you want until you are grateful for what you have.” This is one of those ideas that sounds simple when you first hear it but becomes deeper the more you think about it. We are naturally focused on what comes next. We want the next concert, the next opportunity, the next achievement, the next goal. As musicians, it is especially easy to think that we will finally be happy when we reach a certain level or accomplish something we have been working toward for years. However, gratitude asks us to stop for a moment and look at where we are now. It reminds us that even while we are reaching for something more, there is already so much in our lives that is valuable.

I have learned that gratitude is not the same thing as being satisfied with everything exactly as it is. We should always have dreams and goals. We should want to improve, to learn, to perform better, and to become better people and musicians. At the same time, there is a great difference between ambition and constantly feeling that what we have is not enough. If I spent all of my time thinking about the concert I have not yet played, I could forget to appreciate the concert I am preparing for today. If I always thought about the audience I hope will hear me someday, I could forget the people who are already listening. If I only thought about the career I want in the future, I could forget the teachers, family, friends, and opportunities that have helped me reach this point. Gratitude allows us to recognize the value of the present without giving up our dreams for the future.

Sometimes our goals can seem incredibly far away. There may be moments when we practice and feel that we are making almost no progress, or when an opportunity we hoped for does not happen. In those moments, gratitude becomes especially important. We may not yet have the career we dream about, but we can be grateful that we have the opportunity to study. We may not be performing everywhere we would like, but we can be grateful for every person who has trusted us with a stage. We may not yet be where we want to be, but we are not the same person we were yesterday. I think gratitude is a way of recognizing the steps of the journey, rather than only staring at the destination. It gives us the patience to continue. It also changes the way we experience difficulty: instead of asking only, “Why am I not there yet?” we can ask, “What can I learn from where I am right now?”

Gratitude should not be something we visit only when something wonderful happens. It should be a place we return to constantly. When we succeed, we should return to gratitude. When we fail, we should return to gratitude. When our dreams seem close, we should return to gratitude, and when they seem impossibly far away, we should return to it again. “You’ll never get more of what you want until you are grateful for what you have.” I think there is tremendous wisdom in those words because gratitude does not tell us to stop reaching. Instead, it teaches us how to reach without losing sight of what already matters. For me, that is one of the most important ways to live—not waiting for some future moment to finally appreciate life, but learning to recognize the extraordinary value of the life that is already happening.