Cannot see the forest for the trees

As I am surrounded by my wonderful family and friends at my daughter's sixth birthday party, I hear this conversation, "can't believe how the trees are so blah this year!  Where is the color this fall?  They are so drab, I don't understand it."  I was somewhere between refilling cups for people and stirring soup for later when I had to clarify what I was hearing.  Were we having the same experience?  Did we live in the same place?  I made them all repeat it and still couldn't believe they thought that. 

We live in a beautiful valley between two sets of purple mountains.  The leaves in the fall with their orange, red, and yellow hues are spectacular paired with the pink skies and the purple mountains.  It is rare that I leave my house and don't see something that actually takes my breath away in the fall!  This year, the leaves on some trees actually seem to glow from within like actual magic.  How do I see that and other people don't?

It made me think about gratitude in general, because these people are all fairly positive and definitely most are nature lovers.  So why are they only seeing the empty branches or the brown leaves that failed to be brilliant this year?  Does what you focus on expand to make you see more of the same?  Where I see magic, does more magic appear for me to enjoy? 

About a year ago, I started keeping a gratitude journal, and each morning I write down 10 things for which I am thankful for and why.  Now, some mornings my pillow wins, but I try to get this done most days.  The difference in my day when starting this way versus another is pretty astonishing, too.  The more grateful I become, the better my life is.  The more I see the gifts where someone else (even me a few years ago) might see the mundane. 

A few years back, my father took a drive a few hours away to look at the foliage in the fall and he was wearing a pair of cheap sunglasses with rose colored lenses.  He said, "You don't see what I see!" gleefully as he got his own tickets to his magic show, and I feel like that is what daily gratitude really does for you-puts those rose colored lenses on you to see life in a way others will not.  What I know for sure is this:  you want to be wearing yours!