Seeing the opportunities for gratitude

Being human, we have a gap in our lives where we too quickly grow acclimated to those things in life we want to be grateful for. I’m as guilty as anyone. I fail to stop to reflect on all the beauty and love around. This opportunity slips by when I’m focused on my todo list, rushing around here and there. I often forget that each day I’m alive, a new day before me, an opportunity to impact the world in a small but positive way.

Let’s not miss this opportunity and fail to be fully human.

What kind of opportunities does gratitude bring us?

• How about the opportunity to see the positive in others. 
• How about the opportunity to connect with the wonders of the world around us. The people, the things in our world and also the ideas alive.
• How about the opportunity to express love for those who support our existence and for all the things that also support us.
• How about the opportunity to involve ourselves with the caring of life, the nurturing of happiness.
• How about the opportunity to be at peace with just what is happening now.
• How about the opportunity to reflect on our own motivation rather lacking or complete.
• How about the opportunity to be happy for the lack of pain, suffering and anger in this very moment. 

True to the place

Wallen Road looking south.

Is blogging a form of journaling? It seems so, especially the way I’ve approached it. It is a way to flush out what I think. To practice writing and being clear. Blogging as a practice. I don’t have to good now. I only need to be true to the place of my practice right now. True to the place of my practice right now. This now reminds me of Dogen’s 'Time Being’. Moments are lined up and at the same time "in each moment there are all existences and all worlds.” Be where I am. It is fine.

Lists

I have been a compulsive list maker for as long as I can remember. Shopping lists, todo lists, aspirational lists, don’t do lists, gratitude lists, accomplishment lists and just miscellaneous lists. I have been successful at various times keeping tract of and completing tasks with the help of lists. I feel freer once a task is on a list. I have recorded it and can refer to it later and I feel confident that I will not forget it. Forgetting is problem and often a real embarrassment. Lists has improved my life in so many ways. Lately I created a list of aspirations and referring to this list has really helped me "focus on what is essential” (one of the aspirations on the list).

Lately I noticed two problems or gaps in the list strategy. First, it is all to easy to say yes to every input (a request to put an item on the list). It matters not rather if it comes from outside my sphere of family and friends, a family request, or a more personal area of responsibility. Some of these inputs are essential but many are not. Saying no to non-essential inputs frees time for the essential. I must do more of this.

This points to the second problem. Time and energy. We only have so much time and our energy levels fluctuate from manic to a flow state to slothful and a couch potato. It becomes so easy to just put more and more on a todo list without consideration of rather there is enough time and energy to accomplish the task. We don’t consider our schedule in conjunction with our lists. I must improve this.

META Thinking

             Camus field next to the Latah Trail.

I create my world through thinking. Anything that helps my thinking, helps my world. Our world, together, matures and ripens. More mature thinking leads to a more mature life. Happier thinking leads to a happier life. The quality of thinking is intimately related to the quality of life. Nothing else has as big an impact as the quality of thinking. Writing make this clearer and flushed out new connections.  

14 hugs!

My second bell sold and is in a great home. It was so popular at the Farmers Market. I may do another.

Opportunity cost is an idea that everything we do has a cost. Mostly the cost is that the time invested in doing one thing precludes the opportunity to be doing another thing at the same time. For example, being a vendor at the Moscow Farmers Market every weekend negates the opportunity to participate in the seaming plethora of other social events scheduled for Saturdays during the summer. I have a desire to change my schedule and reallocate the ‘costs’. 

Yesterday I participated in 14 hugs! A new record for me. Such a lovely day. 

Gratitude

Gratitude is the bringing into conscious awareness an acknowledgement of other, other people, ideas and things. This reminds me of the two states of being. Being Alone and Being with Others. Being with Others is not just existence with other people, like trees in a forest, but interconnected and dependent on each other. Associated with an all permeating pulse. Very real but mostly we are not aware of it. An analogy would be water and the fish. The fish doesn’t experience the water as water but as the space in which it lives. Likewise, we don’t experience this Being with Others because it is the space we live in. In the mythology of Buddhism it is called Indra’s Net. 

Well and good. A little meta. Now - how to make gratitude a bigger part of my own experience. What tips can I apply to be better than before? To move from being less mature to more mature. Lists have helped. Making a daily habit of listing three things I’m currently grateful for has helped me bring gratitude into focus. I recently heard of a guy who, together with his family, each share one thing from the day that they are grateful for before they eat dinner. Kind of like a benediction. Informal and takes less than a minute. Great tips.

What do you do? Do you have any great tips to share?

“As Long as the Good Habits Outnumber the Bad Ones, I’m Ahead of the Game.”

Boykan 10 years ago yesterday, before all the gray and stiffness today. 

More converging memes.

There are multiple modes of ‘me’. Some positive and life affirming, some not so much. Where to start. I want someone to give me pep talks when I need inspiration. I want someone to catch me and warn me that what I'm about to say will result in a hurtful outcome. I want someone to help me choose between this chocolate cake and going for a walk. I want someone to tell me what to spend my money on. I want someone to tell me what to do and who to do it with. 

That someone is ‘me’ and so is the ‘I'. These different modes want better communication. Be both my teacher and the student. Make it so.