What WE Can Learn From Winter
In January when I think of winter, I look outside begrudgingly at the slush and ice covered roads. I think of how cold it is going to be when I open my front door. I think of how unpleasantly treacherous the walk to class will be. I think of the futile hours I spend shovelling, only for the ongoing snowfall to erase any traces of my hard work several hours later. I think of how I will take off my winter boots only to step in slush in my front hall. I think of how winter only lasts a few months and how thankful I am for its short duration because in the moment all I want is a 25 degree, sunny day. To me, winter is a subpar placeholder that fills the environmental void in time, until summer arrives.
But in the same breath I will acknowledge my appreciation for the contrast that winter provides to the utopic summer days. I imagine people in the tropics, who do not understand how lucky they are to live in an eternally warm climate because they have never had to shovel snow or fall on black ice. They don’t call the arctic tundra “paradise” for a reason, right? Yet for some reason, I am oddly grateful to have a season that I can firmly denounce as the worst because it makes summer days even more special. Without the contrast, summer would not seem comparatively better, it would just be the ordinary, a not-so-special season, standard.
I tend to justify many things in my life with this logic. Something is only tolerable because if I had the ideal all the time, it would not seem as special. Akin to how I accept that I will have a least favourite class each semester, that I dread attending because the prospect of liking all my classes seems unrealistic. Using winter to appreciate the ideal may be an effective way to tolerate unpleasant activities, but it seems like a fairly backwards way to experience gratitude. And while it may be true that loving every aspect of my life is too fantastical to be reasonable, it is true that I need to somehow find a way to endure my “most hated class” every week and the winter season every year- the latter for a much longer duration.
But even during winter or during “the worst class I have ever taken”, there are moments of enjoyment, of growing, of experiencing something that is uniquely possible because of the situation. I think that is what we can learn from winter. Change, however unpleasant, enables growth and there is nothing more symbolic of this process than watching the leaves fall off the trees and ice form on window panes. Without these seasons, our lives would be monotonous repetitions of the same day, same routine, and the same environment. Each of these seasons teach us something that is important, not necessarily because of the content of the experience, but because it is unique to that moment.
There certainly exists an aspect of gratitude for winter’s finite length and a greater appreciation of summer weather brought about by living through Canadian winters. But I think this only furthers how important winter is. I think winter means learning that despite the unpleasantness of winter, we should seek to appreciate it for what it is, not for what comparative gratitude we can derive from it. Because there are good parts of it and frankly, when you ask me to describe winter during a July heatwave, I will likely only mention these good parts. I digress. Winter may not be perpetually enjoyable and shoveling will forever be dreaded, but I think learning to be able to discern positive moments from an otherwise less-than-ideal situation is something only winter is able to teach us.
Don’t take winter for granted, nor that class you hate, because it acts as an irreplaceable catalyst for growth and gratitude. I am going to remember that when I am walking around on a beautiful summer day wishing it to never end, and even more so the next time I spend twenty minutes shoveling because both experiences are uniquely special.