A missing tooth gets all the attention of your tongue. Your brain does the same with what you don’t have.

Whatever is absent gets a wildly disproportionate share of your attention. A tongue finds a missing tooth a hundred times an hour, and your mind does exactly the same with what you did not get: the place you did not make, the money you do not have, the friend who moved away. The gap is not more important than everything else. It is just more interesting to the part of you doing the looking.

When you catch yourself circling a gap, name it once, then deliberately count what is present. Write three things you have that you were not thinking about. The gap stays, but the proportions change.