Gratitude

Monkey has been doing a lot of reading the past week, and constantly, he's stumbled across the notion of gratitude being one of the main forces that moves the universe. Being grateful is definitely difficult when you're facing tough situations, but really, if one can manage to do it, one will definitely enjoy life more.

Whether or not you believe in the power of positive thinking, or visualization, or the Law of Attraction, or any of the new-age, life coaching movement stuff, the sheer logic of being grateful for everything in your life will lead to much more happiness.

If anything, Monkey + Seal have found that when we stop and think about it, we have much more to be grateful for than to be angry or frustrated about. Yes, in the past week Monkey lost his wallet on the bus, and Monkey + Seal got news of not being juried into Spectrum and not getting into the SF Renegade Craft Fair. Also, some of our student loans' grace periods are ending, so we'll have large loan payments to start paying off.

However, Monkey had his wallet returned, there's always next year for Spectrum and Renegade, and Paper Hat Productions (which is basically Monkey + Seal) is working on their next art riot extravaganza. Additionally, Seal just finished some freelance work, we got to go to our good friends' wedding this weekend and take a small mini-vacation, and we somehow managed to run into a friend when we went shopping for Indonesian snacks! Additionally, we have jobs and a cozy apartment in one of the most awesome cities in the world, and we're pretty healthy, and get to follow our dream of becoming professional artists. We could go on and on, but we're sure you get the picture.

Anyway, it's a proven fact (although don't ask us for citations, sorry) that negative events affect us about 10 times as a positive event. No wonder its so easy to get bogged down in the negative. But we find the trick is thinking about all the other good things in your life (that we often take for granted) to say "hey, although xy and z sucks, we've still got a,b,c,d,e,f,g,etc. going for us."

So, to wrap things up, don't wait for Thanksgiving to be grateful for all the little things in your life. Make it a daily habit and your life will be way more fun and meaningful!