Contrasting Gratitude

How the contrast effect can turn negativity into gratitude.

Author

Kevin Luten
March 16, 2025

Welcome to the 19th edition of Second Act Creator! I’m Kevin Luten, guiding Gen X mavericks like you to craft a second act worth celebrating—health that lasts, connections that matter, adventures to remember, and work with purpose.

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Good morning,

How is your Sunday morning going?

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Cool. Now, here’s what’s in today’s issue:

  • One big thing. Did your parents toss out the “starving kids” line when you didn’t eat all your food growing up? Find out what they had in common with Don Draper.

  • You have to check this out. The science of gratitude and the power of meaning.

  • Tools and tech. Wildsam, I am.

Let’s jump in.

1️⃣ ONE BIG THING

Contrasting gratitude.

Finish eating your food. There are hungry children in Africa.

Was this your parent’s go-to way to persuade you to eat your vegetables?

There are actually two wonderful comedy bits poking fun at how practically absurd this is.

One is from this African comedian, laughing about the classic line: “It has never helped us in any way. I’ve never been hungry and thought, ‘You know what, an American is eating for me out there’”.

Or this perfectly deadpan Finnish comedian, “As I got a bit older, I thought, ‘How have I helped?’ I am now a little bit overweight. I hope they are happy. I have done my best.”

The strategy your parents were using was ultimately about contrast… First, imagine being perpetually hungry, and then consider how fortunate you are to have a big plate of overcooked broccoli staring back at you.

In fact, the deeper punchline of the African comedian’s bit is that African parents use the same tactic by saying: Eat your food. There are hungry children in Somalia. And parents in Somalia say: Eat your food. There are hungry children in that neighborhood over there. And ultimately, in that neighborhood, they say: Finish eating your food. Jeff is hungry.

In behavioral science, this is known as the contrast effect: your perception of ITEM B can be distorted by first presenting ITEM A.

Sweet tea can taste bland if you first take a big swig of syrup. The price of one item can seem reasonable if viewed after a more expensive one. Something can seem more attractive that it is if seen after something unattractive.

In its most basic form, the contrast effect is the basis for many optical illusions. In the image below, the grey square on the light background appears darker than the same grey square on the dark background.

Let’s explore some of the ways the contrast effect can help us.

The midnight alarm.

Last Thursday, I was in Los Angeles for work. I set my alarm for midnight to see the total lunar eclipse. Did you get up to see it?

When the alarm went off, I was in the throes of deep delta sleep. For a full ten seconds, I couldn't have told you my own name. I shook it off, threw on a coat, and stepped outside. If you're picturing a balmy LA evening, think again. It was in the low 40s and blowing a gale. I found the red moon camouflaged in the night sky, thought, "Wow, cool," and scurried back inside.

The moment I slipped back into bed? Pure, transcendent warmth. I hadn’t noticed this at all when I woke up. But experienced after a chilling wind, my bed suddenly felt like an indulgent luxury.

Everything meaningful exists in relationship to something else.

Mad Men, in contrast.

Mad Men is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. Its main character, Don Draper, is based on legendary ad man Rosser Reeves. He's the man behind the M&Ms tagline: "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand" (perfect contrast) and the foundational advertising technique known as the unique selling proposition.

A famous (though likely apocryphal) story has Reeves walking through Central Park with a colleague when he sees a blind man soliciting spare change with a cardboard sign that reads "I am blind." Everyone passes the man and his sign without giving him any money.

After a moment, Reeves asks the man if he can add just four words to the sign. He takes out a pen and writes down the four words. Then Reeves and his colleague step back to observe.

What happens next is part of advertising legend. Pedestrian after pedestrian pause, reach into their pockets, and drop a few coins or dollar bills into the man’s cup.

What three words had Reeves added to the sign??

It is springtime and…

It was no accident the new words were placed before the existing words on the sign.

It is springtime, and I am blind.

Stunned, his work colleague asked, “How’d you know that would work?”

Contrast! Contrast. Contrast, my friend. Those busy saps are always in their own heads. It’s our job to help them see what we want them to see. I added four little words that would starkly contrast their world to that of the blind man's. I know people. They had no means by which to empathize because his world is just too disconnected, too unreal from their own. Ah! But with the right words, you can make people see whatever you want. Words, how innocent as they stand alone in a dictionary, but how powerful when combined by someone who knows how.

Words, my friend, have a power to help us see. But only if we contrast it with what we cannot.

Only if we contrast it with what we cannot.

In my newsletter The Distractions of Unhappiness, I described the hidden benefits of what is known as negativity bias.

The human brain prioritizes processing and remembering negative experiences over positive ones. Like most cognitive biases, evolution explains its origins. Back in the day, if you passed a cave and heard a bear growl from the darkness, you would really want to remember to avoid that cave in the future.

“How does this work in the modern world? You might receive ten positive sentiments about your work and one negative one. Guess which one you will most likely remember?” says Rob Davies.

Our built-in negativity bias may keep us safe, but it doesn’t always enhance our sense of well-being.

Enter contrast.

Contrast can help you see what you have overlooked.

This is one of the things I love most about camping.

Since 2020, I've been overlanding and camping in my Jeep in remote spots from North Dakota to Far West Texas. With no services or facilities, the typically mindless tasks of everyday life become effortful and time-consuming. Making coffee and cleaning up are a whole process. Biological needs at 3 a.m. when it's freezing outside are an undertaking.

What's so good about it, then? One benefit is experiencing things that are missing from my typical day-to-day: observing the natural world, slowing down, and seeing the Milky Way.

But the bigger benefit pays its dividends when I return home. It’s the contrast.

It’s easy to overlook the many modern miracles in your own home. Unlimited clean water, on demand. Cold, warm, hot? Sure, that's easy. Biological waste instantly whooshed from sight. No wind, no bugs. Tiny holes in every wall that deliver limitless electricity.

Camping creates the contrast that returns life’s mundane miracles to full awareness.

Contrast overcomes negativity bias.

Contrast fuels gratitude.

Sometimes, contrast arrives at your doorstep uninvited.

Late last year, over 48 hours, I went from "Hmm, my back is kind of stiff" to lying completely immobile in a stretcher in the hallway of an emergency room. Completely immobile. Any attempt to move at all triggered incredible back spasms. Not my finest hour.

Staring at the hospital ceiling for hours, what thoughts do you think went through my mind? Would I hike again? Climb the stairs into my rooftop tent again? Was this my life now?

I don't consider myself an overly dramatic person, but this was a real shock to the system, like watching a preview of a future movie of my life.

A stark contrast.

I spent about 36 hours in the hospital but soon recovered (with support from dear friends).

The contrast-sharpened memory of this experience has not faded. I think about it all the time. I am regularly grateful for the basics—getting out of bed and walking where I want to go. And it's led me to double down on many things I was doing to be fitter and stronger.

If you've ever temporarily lost something you value – your health, mobility, a relationship – and then regained it, you know this feeling. Contrast creates the conditions for profound appreciation.

Compared to what?

Hearing you should practice gratitude can feel forced and vague.

Instead, try asking yourself, “Compared to what?”

I have spent decades learning from Dr. Robert Cialdini, the author of the seminal book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. I am a founding member of the Cialdini Institute.

Cialdini knows the power of contrast. He says if you can’t find a way to contrast your idea/product with something else, you aren’t looking hard enough. Contrast is always there.

Start by asking, “Compared to what?” And place the point of comparison before the thing you are trying to highlight (just as “it is springtime and…” was placed before “I am blind.”).

It’s freezing and windy outside. So, I’m grateful for my warm bed.

Making coffee and cleaning the French press take a lot of time when camping. So, I'm grateful for my programmable coffee maker at home.

I was immobile and staring at a hospital ceiling. So, I am deeply grateful for the basics of my health.

Improved parental advice might use this sequencing: There are hungry children in the world with nothing to eat, so finish eating your food.

What went well.

If you’d like to experiment with a daily way to cultivate gratitude, I recommend Dr. Martin Seligman’s “what went well” process.

I'll leave you with this background context and directions directly from Seligman’s book Flourish:

“We think too much about what goes wrong and not enough about what goes right in our lives. Of course, sometimes it makes sense to analyze bad events so that we can learn from them and avoid them in the future. However, people tend to spend more time thinking about what is bad in life than is helpful. Worse, this focus on negative events sets us up for anxiety and depression. One way to prevent this is to get better at thinking about and savoring what went well.

“Every night for the next week, set aside ten minutes before you sleep.

“Write down three things that went well today and why they went well.

“You may use a journal or your computer to write about the events, but it is important that you have a physical record of what you wrote. The three things need not be earthshaking in importance (“My husband picked up my favorite ice cream for dessert on the way home from work today”), but they can be important (“My sister just gave birth to a healthy baby boy”).

“Next to each positive event, answer the question, "Why did this happen?"

“For example, if you wrote that your husband picked up ice cream, write “because my husband is really thoughtful sometimes” or “because I remembered to call him from work and remind him to stop by the grocery store.” Or if you wrote, “My sister just gave birth to a healthy baby boy,” you might pick as the cause … “She did everything right during her pregnancy.”

“Writing about why the positive events in your life happened may seem awkward at first, but please stick with it for one week. It will get easier.”

🔗 YOU HAVE TO CHECK THESE OUT

⏱️ QUICK HITS

Here are a few science-based articles on gratitude if you’d like to explore this more:

📖 LONGER READS

  • The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with Happiness — I mentioned Emily Esfahani Smith a few weeks back (and included a link to her TED Talk, There's more to life than being happy, which has over 14 million views). In The Power of Meaning, she argues that seeking happiness is less fulfilling than pursuing meaning. Meaning arises from four pillars: belonging, purpose, transcendence, and storytelling. Smith primarily uses stories to make her points, an approach I sometimes appreciate and sometimes find unhelpful. But her primary points have significant overlap with the framework I am working on for Second Act Creator.

🛠️ TOOLS & TECH

Wildsam 📖

Wildsam was founded in 2012 to create a series of story-driven field guides to American places. Here is their guide to New Orleans, for example.

I like their guides fairly well (3.5 stars), but I love their magazine, launched last year. It’s right up my alley… which is somewhere in the overlaps of a Venn diagram including RV, vanlife, and overlanding circles. Here are few examples to explore:

Thanks for reading today. See you next Sunday.

Kevin

P.S. - In case you missed it, here are a couple of my favorite prior newsletters: