On Cultivating Gratitude, Training Log

     I've had a few unlucky streaks the past few days with getting sick and stubbing my toe really really hard. It was purple for a few days but it healed up pretty quickly, probably due to the bed rest I had to endure. I always find a bit of resolve after I've been hurt or sick. I resolve to appreciate my normal every day circumstances more. I've read that gratitude is one  of the biggest pieces in the puzzle that is human happiness. I often write and think about how I'm not strong enough to do this thing or I don't make enough money to do that thing, but when I take a step back to see where I'm at in life, I'm flooded with gratitude. I've got a lot of friends that help me out, a loving wife, hot running water, and an able body. These are some things that people never find in life.
     The positive psychology movement suggests that people look for what's wrong with the world when looking for what's right with the world makes us happier. It makes sense on an evolutionary level to constantly scan for problems in the environment so as to avoid catastrophe at all costs but in today's world it can lead to us wanting more and more without ever being satisfied. Yes, it's good to understand the crappy things in life so that we can work toward changing them but if we want to be happier people, we ought to keep a wider perspective and be grateful for what we do have.
   I've studied buddhism for the last few years as part of my philosophy training and for my own personal psychology. The literature is full of methods to cultivate various mind states, one of the major ones being gratitude. Once you can cultivate gratitude in yourself it's not so bad when you miss that precision you've been working on for a few weeks, or you stub your toe really hard. Additionally, when you train your mind to also scan for things to be grateful for, you end up doing that all the time as a reflex.
     As for other training, I've just been climbing, jumping, and blasting through various routes in vic's backyard. I've also recently got  a pretty clean russian front step out bhs to back flip the other day on video with jonah. Frontflips have been the bane of my existence for a while so it's nice to see a breakthrough. I should get myself to film more but it takes away from everything else a bit so I keep holding off. Soon.