How to Open a Champagne Bottle With a Saber

While almost any way you bust open a bubbly bottle of champagne is exciting, it’s made even more so by using a saber for the task. The art of sabrage may date from the Napoleonic era, when military officers and perhaps The Little Corporal himself, celebrated victories by opening champagne bottles with martial style. 

The biggest misconception about using a saber, or sword, to open a bottle of champagne is that you are literally cutting the top of the bottle off. In fact, the saber strikes the glass in such a way that it cracks and the high pressure inside the bottle takes care of the rest. If you don’t have an official champagne saber, or an awesome sword, a heavy kitchen knife will do (but will look significantly less awesome).

A couple things Alton Brown suggests keeping in mind in order to make this celebratory feat both successful and safe: First, make sure the champagne bottle is chilled. It should be anyway, but it ensures the glass is more easily breakable. Second, while all true champagne is technically French, you want to make sure of its pedigree, as they tend to use thicker bottles, which also makes for a cleaner break. 

En garde! And drink up!

Like this illustrated guide? Then you’re going to love our book The Illustrated Art of Manliness! Pick up a copy on Amazon.

Illustrated by Ted Slampyak

The post How to Open a Champagne Bottle With a Saber appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

How to Open a Champagne Bottle With a Saber published first on http://ift.tt/2jYeuRS

How to Give a Toast

For each of the last four years, my wife and I (Jeremy) have hosted a Friendsgiving dinner the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It’s a chance to gather our social group together for a potluck turkey dinner and give thanks for all the good things in our lives (like friends!). Each year, I’ve been called upon to say something before we all sit down and eat, and each year, I slightly dread that short block of time in which I’m supposed to articulate something memorable. I don’t remember previous years, but this year I didn’t take any time to think about or prepare a good toast, and I fumbled through trying to recite that toast that Will Smith gives in Hitch. No joke. It was awkward. And although our friends have assuredly already forgotten (or at least forgiven) that moment, I obviously haven’t. It didn’t elevate the room or brighten people’s hearts, which is exactly what a toast is supposed to do. Rather, my toast was sort of an off note in the “music” of an otherwise wonderful evening. Wouldn’t it have been far better to have had just the right words that would have perfectly suited the occasion and enhanced everyone’s mood?

As we talked about previously, toasting has a long (and often manly history), and we really ought to revive it more in the present age. But the tradition is so rare these days, that most of us have had little instruction and practice in it. If you’d like to help bring back toasting, how exactly do you do it?

The instructions below will help you raise a glass with real confidence, style, and event-enlivening effect.

Be Prepared

“Flubbing the toast is like serving stale champagne: it flattens the mood.” –Paul Dickson, Toasts

First, you need to be prepared. While toasting is meant to be improvisational, that doesn’t mean working entirely off the cuff in the moment; as Mark Twain once said, “It usually takes three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.” Even if you plan to give your toast extemporaneously, you ought to have a repository of some famous toasts/quotes in mind, and/or have been thinking about a theme for a few weeks and can pick just the right length and specific words once the occasion comes.

If you don’t trust yourself to do even that, go ahead and write something out. As you’re doing that, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Who/what is being toasted? If it’s a best friend, it can be a little more informal. If it’s a grandparent, something sweet and sentimental is obviously far better.
2. What is the reason for the toast? Is it an anniversary? A college graduation? A wedding? A promotion? Heck, even a breakup? The specific occasion will guide much of what you say.
3. What type of event is it? The event type guides the formality of the toast more than anything else. A work party? Better keep it pretty straight-laced. Cocktail hour with college friends? You’re safer going off the cuff and/or with an inside joke or two.
4. Who is in attendance? Related to the above point, but you really want to know your audience in order to craft your toast. You don’t want to say things that only make sense to one group of people. At a family event, you’ll say something quite different than you would at a work party. At a large, diverse gathering, you want to keep statements very broad and centered on the toastee so that everyone can get what you’re saying.

Along with these specific tips, in general, brush up on your public speaking and improvisation skills. The art of toasting deftly combines both of those things, and provides a great opportunity to practice those skills which naturally transfer into numerous other areas of life. (Also, giving a toast is a requirement for the Orator Badge in The Strenuous Life!)

Decide on Your Format

“A toast is a basic form of human expression that can be used to convey virtually any emotion, from love to rage (although raging toasts tend to cross the line into the realm of curses). They can be sentimental, cynical, lyrical, comical, defiant, long, short — even just a single word.” –Paul Dickson, Toasts

You can choose to make the whole toast an original composition, or to recite a classic set toast (see the ideas we’ve gathered below).

Arguably the best kind of toast, though, is one that combines the two elements: a brief, original introduction directed at the specific occasion and attendees, followed by a classic set toast to end things on a strong note.

Keep It Short

As Dickson notes above, toasts can involve just a single word; indeed, in ancient times, it was common to simply raise a glass “To health!”

You don’t have to keep your toasts quite that pithy, but they should always be short — about 30-60 seconds, erring on the shorter side versus the longer. Get to the point, and quickly. Only at particular gatherings should a toast exceed that, such as at a wedding, anniversary party, or other event where a longer tribute is more appropriate — and even then, you don’t want to go past a couple minutes or so.

Lean Towards Sincerity Over Humor

A lot of guys try to be funny at social gatherings, believing themselves to be far more humorous than they really are. This is especially true when giving a toast. Think about how different best man speeches are from maid of honor speeches. The former almost always tries to insert some funny story or joke that inevitably falls flat. Why is this?

Humor is very hard to get right, especially with a large and diverse crowd. At weddings especially, you have folks of all ages, all different careers and life experiences, and different social circles. The best man trying to be funny is likely doing so for his own circle of friends, and that’s all who will laugh. So with the vast majority of toasts, avoid seemingly humorous topics like exes, failures, and inside jokes; while covering such territory is common, it’s overly dicey to do.

Humor can work if you’re with a smaller, perhaps all-male group of comrades. In those informal instances, inside jokes and even some “colorful” remarks are acceptable, and even expected. In general, though, aim for sincerity. That’s sometimes harder for guys to do (which is why we lean on humor in the first place), but if you’re prepared — it all comes back to being prepared! — you’ll be able pull off a sentimental salute without a hitch. Sincerity is far better remembered by a toast’s recipients than an ill attempt at humor.

Be Sure That Everyone Is Involved & Has a Drink

While it’s obviously most traditional to toast with alcohol, you can of course toast with anything, as these boxers who would soon be squaring off against each other in the ring demonstrate.

Toasts are all about inclusion. Nobody is to be left out — children, the elderly, non-drinkers, all should be able to be part of the toast. At a dinner party, be sure that everyone is seated with their food and drink. If food isn’t part of the gathering, or if the toast is happening during cocktail hour versus the dinner hour, be sure everyone has a drink to toast with (ginger ale or something else that’s bubbly makes it special for kiddos; and here’s a list of fun mocktails for the teetotalers out there). Also, as much as is possible, ensure everyone is present. As the host, keep an eye on things; if someone is off to the restroom, wait until they’ve returned. You don’t want someone to have to awkwardly walk into the middle of a toast.

Don’t Toast Before the Host

If you aren’t the host of an event, don’t give a toast before they’ve had the chance to do the honor. If it’s been mutually decided that you’ll toast first, then go for it. Otherwise, wait until the host has had their say.

Announce Your Intentions With Both Words and Behavior

At a boisterous party or gathering, it can be hard to know the right time and way to make your toast. How do you get everyone’s attention? At the start of a dinner party, it’s a little easier: as host, you should be waiting to get your food until everyone else has already done so. So when you approach the table, theoretically everyone else is already seated or in the process of doing so, and you can simply stay standing and say something like, “I’d like to propose a toast.”

If people are milling about, or you’re giving a toast in the midst of a meal, you’ll need to get the room’s attention. Don’t do so by clanging your glass with a utensil, which isn’t very tasteful, and might break the glass to boot. Instead, signal your intention by standing up and raising your glass to shoulder level, with your arm pointed towards the center of the party. If people still don’t notice your gesture and quiet down, just loudly say something to the effect of “If I can have everyone’s attention.” A loud throat clearing or “Ahem” is a bit informal and just never comes across quite right; it almost reads as sheepish and shy.  

End With a Clear Invitation

You’ve surely seen toasts that end amorphously; the audience isn’t sure if you’re finished or not. So when ending your toast, make that fact clear and demonstrate what everyone should do next. Say something like “Cheers!” or “Let’s a raise a glass to ___,” and then lead the way by finding someone near you to clink glasses with (if you’re in a small gathering) or going ahead and taking a sip from your glass (if you’re in a large gathering).

When to Give a Toast

So now you know how to give a toast, but when should you do so?

In our modern, generally toast-free society, it’s hard to know when it’s appropriate to offer a toast. Luckily, there are numerous occasions where giving one would not only bring a smile to everyone’s face, but elevate the general mood and environment — always the goal of a good toast!

Below you’ll find a sampling of times where it’s appropriate to offer a toast; the list is certainly not meant to be exhaustive, and there are many other fitting times to offer one as well.

Weddings

While weddings are generally a carefully orchestrated affair, there are a couple times during the celebratory events where a toast might be appropriate. At the reception, there is often the formal giving of toasts by the best man, maid of honor, bride and groom, and/or parents. This is not a point where you want to add your own toast (if you haven’t gotten permission from the couple first). You might instead give your own “unauthorized” toast at the rehearsal dinner before the wedding, or on the day of the wedding itself, you might do so at your individual table or with a group of friends during the cocktail hour. The happy couple should of course be the object of your toast.

Dinner Parties With Friends

While dinner parties are a dying breed of their own, they’re the perfect occasion for a toast. If hosting, it’s easy and can really be given anytime, though during a cocktail hour when everyone has a drink or at the start of dinner is ideal. Toasts here can focus on your thankfulness for the group involved, and perhaps even an inside joke (if everyone would be privy to it, of course). You can also toast even if you aren’t hosting, though, remember, you shouldn’t be the first to do so.

Holiday Gatherings

Holiday parties, whether they be filled with coworkers, friends, or family, are perfect occasions for toasting. You can toast to the good year behind you, the upcoming year ahead, your thankfulness for the holiday, and/or the reason it exists in the first place (Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Easter, etc. — those all have pretty clear meanings). A prayer is often part of religious holiday observances, but there’s certainly room for both that and a sincere toast.  

Graduation, Retirement Parties, Post-Funeral Gatherings

This really encompasses any occasion that’s been put together for a specific life transition, and also includes promotions, engagements, and anything else you can think of too. Toasts at gatherings like these should of course focus on the life transition at hand, reflection on past memories, and well wishes for the future. Note that while toasts don’t happen at funerals, or even typically at wakes, they are appropriate if you get together with a small group of friends at a bar or pub after these more formal events to pay more intimate respects to the dead.

Anniversaries and Date Nights

Toasts well suit the marking of romantic milestones, and that’s true even if you don’t throw a big anniversary party, and the only audience for the toast is your partner. You can offer a nice toast to your gal if you go out together to celebrate your anniversary, or even simply during the course of a normal date night. Either way, toasting to the woman you love is a great way to express sincere affection, wonder, and gratitude for her presence in your life.

Casual Social Events

Getting together with old friends at a bar? Having a bonfire with the neighbors? Tailgating at the big game? This is where you can really harness the spirit of our ancient manly ancestors. (Whether or not you drain your vessel is of course up to you and your good — or not so good — judgment.) Offer up an informal toast; this is where your wit, humor, and inside jokes can be unleashed, which isn’t the case with many of the events listed above.

Toast Ideas for Various Occasions

Having some classic toasts memorized is a great way to always be prepared to offer a fitting tribute when the opportunity presents itself; classic toasts are such for a reason — they encapsulate strong, pithy sentiments and enduring wit. But don’t do a general online search for toast ideas to add to your brain library, as those you’ll find are generally just about drinking or center on crass jokes. To solve this dearth, below we offer a nice treasury of classy and genuinely humorous toasts for a wide range of occasions.

Anniversary/ Date Nights

[For a 50^th wedding anniversary] “With fifty years between you and your well-kept wedding vow. The Golden Age, old friends of mine, is not a fable now.” —John Greenleaf Whittier, “The Golden Wedding at Longwood”
[For the 25^th wedding anniversary] “Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.” –Mark Twain

“Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.”
–William Butler Yeats

“Here’s to you who halves my sorrows and doubles my joys.”

“Were’t the last drop in the well,
As I gasped upon the brink,
Ere my fainting spirit fell,
’Tis to thee I would drink.”
—Lord Byron 

Baby

“A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.”

“A new life begun,
Like father, like son.”
—Irish

[Given by fathers with a son or sons] “Father of fathers, make me one, A fit example for a son.” —Douglas Malloch
[Given by grandparents] “Grandchildren are gifts of God. It is God’s way of compensating us for growing old.” —Irish

“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” —Dr. Benjamin Spock, Baby and Child Care

Birthdays

“Do not resist growing old — many are denied the privilege.”

“Another candle on your cake?
Well, that’s no cause to pout,
Be glad that you have strength enough
To blow the damn thing out.”

“Happy birthday to you
And many to be,
With friends that are true
As you are to me!”

“Many happy returns of the day of your birth:
Many blessings to brighten your pathway on earth;
Many friendships to cheer and provoke you to mirth;
Many feastings and frolics to add to your girth.”
–Robert H. Lord

“May you live to be a hundred years with one extra year to repent.” —Irish

“To wish you joy on your birthday
And all the whole year through,
For all the best that life can hold
Is none too good for you.”

Christmas 

“As fits the holy Christmas birth,
Be this, good friends, our carol still—
Be peace on earth, be peace on earth,
To men of gentle will.”
—William Makepeace Thackeray

“Then let us be merry and taste the good cheer,
And remember old Christmas comes but once a year.”
—From an old Christmas carol

“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.” —Hamilton Wright Mabie

“Heap on more wood!— the wind is chill
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.”
—Sir Walter Scott

“Here’s to the day of good will, cold weather, and warm hearts!
Here’s to the holly with its bright red berry.
Here’s to Christmas, let’s make it merry.”

“Here’s wishing you more happiness
Than all my words can tell,
Not just alone for Christmas
But for all the year as well.”

“Holly and ivy hanging up
And something wet in every cup.”
—Irish

“I have always thought of Christmas as a good time; a kind, forgiving, generous, pleasant time; a time when men and women seem by one consent to open their hearts freely; and so I say ‘God bless Christmas.’” —Charles Dickens

“I know I’ve wished you this before
But every year I wish it more,
A Merry Christmas.”

“I wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year
A pocket full of money
And a cellar full of beer!”

“May you be as contented as Christmas finds you all the year round.” —Irish

Death 

“Oh, here’s to other meetings, And merry greetings then;
And here’s to those we’ve drunk with, But never can again.”

Dinner Party

“Here’s to eternity — may we spend it in as good company as this night finds us.”

“It is around the table that friends understand best the warmth of being together.” —Old Italian saying

“To friends: as long as we are able
To lift our glasses from the table.”

“A toast to our host
And a song from the short and tall of us,
May he live to be
The guest of all of us!”

“Here’s to our hostess,
considerate and sweet;
Her wit is endless,
but when do we eat?”

Friendship 

“May the warmth of our affections survive the frosts of age.”

“Friendship: May differences of opinion cement it.”

“Here’s to a friend. He knows you well and likes you just the same.”

“May the friends of our youth be the companions of our old age.”

“To our best friends, who know the worst about us but refuse to believe it.”

Going Away Party

“Happy are we met, happy have we been,
Happy may we part, and happy meet again.”

“Here’s to good-byes—that they never be spoken!
Here’s to friendships—may they never be broken!”

“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.” —Charles Dickens

Graduation

“May you never forget what is worth remembering or remember what is best forgotten.” —Irish

“If you have an appetite for life, stay hungry.”

“May you live to learn well, and learn to live well.”

“May you live all the days of your life.” —Jonathan Swift

“’Tis not so bad a world,
As some would like to make it;
But whether good or whether bad,
Depends on how you take it.”

“May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you’re going, and the insight to know when you’re going too far.”

“As you slide down the banister of life
May the splinters never face the wrong way.”

New Year’s

“Another year is dawning! Let it be
For better or for worse, another year with thee.”

“As we start the New Year,
Let’s get down on our knees
to thank God we’re on our feet.”
—Irish

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.” —Benjamin Franklin

“Here’s to the bright New Year
And a fond farewell to the old;
Here’s to the things that are yet to come
And to the memories that we hold.”

“In the year ahead,
May we treat our friends with kindness and our enemies with generosity.”

“May all your troubles during the coming year be as short as your New Year’s resolutions.”

“May it be the best year yet for you, and everything prosper you may do.”

“May the best of this year be the worst of next.”

“May the face of every good news and the back of every bad news be toward us in the New Year.” —Irish

“Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells across the snow;
The year is going, let him go.” —Alfred, Lord Tennyson

“Here’s to the present — and to hell with the past! A health to the future and joy to the last!” 

Thanksgiving

“Here’s to the good old turkey
The bird that comes each fall
And with his sweet persuasive meat
Makes gobblers of us all.”

“To our national birds — The American eagle, The Thanksgiving turkey: May one give us peace in all our States — And the other a piece for all our plates.”

“When turkey’s on the table laid,
And good things I may scan,
I’m thankful that I wasn’t made
A vegetarian.”
—Edgar A. Guest

Weddings

“Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” —Franklin P. Jones

“A toast to love and laughter and happily ever after.”

[Given by a parent] “It is written: ‘When children find true love, parents find true joy.’ Here’s to your joy and ours, from this day forward.” 

“May their joys be as deep as the ocean
And their misfortunes as light as the foam.”

“May we all live to be present at their golden wedding.”

“May you grow old on one pillow.” —Armenian

“May you have enough happiness to keep you sweet; enough trials to keep you strong; enough sorrow to keep you human; enough hope to keep you happy; enough failure to keep you humble; enough success to keep you eager; enough friends to give you comfort; enough faith and courage in yourself, your business, and your country to banish depression; enough wealth to meet your needs; enough determination to make each day a better day than yesterday.”

“There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.” —Homer, Odyssey

“To the newlyweds: May ‘for better or worse’ be far better than worse.”

Miscellaneous/Multi-Occasion

“Cheerfulness, content, and competency. Cheerfulness in our cups, Content in our minds, Competency in our pockets.”

“May the works of our nights never fear the day-light.”

“The three H’s: health, honor, and happiness. Health to all the world, Honor to those who seek for it, Happiness in our homes.”

“Love, life, and liberty. Love pure, Life long, Liberty boundless.”

“I wish thee health, I wish thee wealth, I wish thee gold in store, I wish thee heaven upon earth—What could I wish thee more?”

“It is best to rise from life as from the banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.”

“Make the most of life while you may,
Life is short and wears away!”
—William Oldys

“May our faults be written on the seashore, and every good action prove a wave to wash them out.”

“May we be happy and our enemies know it.”

“May we live respected and die regretted.”

“So live that when you come to die, even the undertaker will feel sorry for you.” –Mark Twain

“To the riotous enjoyment of a quiet conscience.”

“While we live, let us live.”

________________________

Source of the information and the specific toasts above: Toasts: Over 1,500 of the Best Toasts, Sentiments, Blessings, and Graces by Paul Dickson. Consult the book for more insight on the history and art of toasting, as well as hundreds of more toast ideas.

The post How to Give a Toast appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

How to Give a Toast published first on http://ift.tt/2jYeuRS

Podcast #366: Teach Yourself Like George Washington

http://ift.tt/2kVeYIb

George Washington has become an archetype of the great American leader. Subsequent generals and presidents all have been compared to Washington, and in the American mythos, they all fall short of this founder’s military and political genius. What many people don’t know about Washington, however, is that his formal schooling abruptly ended at age 11 with the death of his father and that he was largely self-taught. My guest today wrote an intellectual biography of Washington and how this autodidact rose to American apotheosis despite lacking the classical education of his Revolutionary contemporaries. 

Her name is Dr. Adrienne Harrison and her book is A Powerful Mind: The Self-Education of George Washington. Today on the show, Adrienne discusses how her time as a combat officer in Iraq led her to researching and writing her doctoral dissertation about Washington’s intellectual journey. We then discuss why Washington’s education was deficient compared to other Founding Fathers like Jefferson and Adams, how this lack made Washington extremely self-conscious, and what he did to mitigate ever revealing it. Dr. Harrison then takes us through how Washington charted his own education throughout the different stages of his life and career to help him become a wealthy landowner, successful general, and first executive of the United States. Adrienne also takes us on a tour of Washington’s personal study and library and what is says about his learning style. We end our discussion on lessons we can take from Washington on maintaining a passion for lifelong learning. 

Show Highlights

• Dr. Harrison’s lifelong interest in George Washington
• What makes her biography of Washington different from the hundreds of ones to come before 
• Why didn’t Washington get a traditional classical education? 
• When do we start to see Washington’s auto-didactic nature 
• Washington’s practical reading habits 
• How Washington started the Seven Years’ War
• How Washington responded to that failure 
• Why Washington implored his troops to read 
• His approach to reading 
• How his reading and self-education made him American 
• The way Washington’s reading changed during the war, and how it impacted his leadership 
• How Washington’s reading informed his governing 
• Highlights from Washington’s personal library 
• Why his study was off limits 
• Why Adrienne learned about self-teaching from writing about Washington

Resources/People/Articles Mentioned in Podcast

• My podcast with Susan Wise Bauer about the classical education you never had
• Why Every Man Should Study Classical Culture
• The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior
• How and Why to Become a Lifelong Learner
• Libraries of Famous Men (AoM series) 
• Seven Years’ War
• The Battle of Fort Necessity
• Podcast: Washington and Benedict Arnold
• AoM’s series on honor

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Podcast Sponsors

Proper Cloth. Stop wearing shirts that don’t fit. Start looking your best with a custom fitted shirt. Go to http://ift.tt/2uXKGLn and enter gift code MANLINESS to save $20 on your first shirt.

Grasshopper. The entrepreneur’s phone system. Have a separate number that you can call and text from by going to http://ift.tt/2hJyXbr and get $20 off your first month.

Click here to see a full list of our podcast sponsors.

Recorded with ClearCast.io.

Read the Transcript

Coming soon!

The post Podcast #366: Teach Yourself Like George Washington appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

Podcast #366: Teach Yourself Like George Washington published first on http://ift.tt/2jYeuRS

The (Often Manly) History of Toasting, and Why We Should Bring It Back

In the modern day, it’s conceivable that a man might never find occasion, outside a wedding, to propose a toast. And even when called upon to give one in the role of best man, he is very likely, despite being given plenty of lead time to practice, to bumble through a largely forgettable tribute.

Yet throughout history, and amongst cultures around the world, the picture couldn’t have been more different. From the banquets of ancient Greece to the business luncheons of the early 20th century, a man could hardly attend any meal or gathering without witnessing, and initiating, countless toasts.

For thousands of years, toasting was in fact a central and exclusive part of men’s classical honor culture. It was a ritual that, if often taken to excess, was animated by the ethos of competition, tested the masculine quality of improvisation, required the risk inherent to performance, and built bonds of brotherly camaraderie.

In more modern times, giving a good toast became a mark of a real gentleman — someone who was adept at oratory, agile with improvising rhetoric, and knew just what to say to enhance any holiday or social occasion.

Toasting not only has a long, storied history, but remains a useful ritual, providing a singular way to express sincere and affectionate sentiments, show off a bit of your personality, bring people together, and make special events even more special.

So here at AoM we say it’s high time to bring back the toast in all its glory. Today we’ll dive more into why, beginning with a brief look at the tradition’s fascinating (and often manly) history.

A Brief History of Toasting

The act of toasting may very well date to prehistoric times, and we know with certainty that it existed amongst many early peoples, including the Hebrews, Egyptians, Persians, Saxons, and Huns.

Toasting’s origins in the West most directly trace to ancient Greece. It likely began with the Homeric age ritual of showing obeisance to the gods; the supplicant would take a vessel of wine in the right hand, pour out a portion of the drink in sacrifice, lift both hands above the head in prayer, and then drink of the cup himself. This ritual of raising a toast to Hermes, the Graces, and Zeus, naturally evolved to raising a drink to one’s fellow man.

Ancient toasters might choose a classic, set toast that had been passed down for ages or decide to improvise one on the spot. The Greeks proposed short toasts to fallen comrades, to war, to peace, to leaders, to beautiful women, and most common of all, to their companions’ health — as Odysseus does to Achilles in the Odyssey. This practice continued in ancient Rome, and was even perpetuated via legislation; the Senate issued a decree that all citizens were to toast to the health of Emperor Augustus during every meal. But it was largely an act designed to honor one’s personal comrades or to assess the intentions and “gameness” of one’s guests.

Indeed, amongst both the Greeks and Romans, toasting could not only serve as a declaration of well wishes (and an excuse for copious drinking!), but also a provocation — a challenge. Being able to hold one’s liquor was considered a form of toughness and discipline, and a night of toasting surely tested a man’s capaciousness. Just as the Greeks who pledged their drinks to the gods expected blessings in return for their sacrifice, toasts made to one’s fellow mortals were expected to be reciprocated. One toast would beget another, and back and forth the tributes went. With each, the vessel would have to be entirely drained of its intoxicating contents; as we’ll see, merely sipping one’s drink after a toast is a modern refinement. Thus, offering a toast was sometimes a way of throwing down the gauntlet — an invitation to competition and a kind of duel; could the others match you cup for cup? Unsurprisingly, a night of toasting frequently found participants passed out in a stupor by its end.

The popularity of toasting continued through the Middle Ages and beyond, becoming so ubiquitous by the 1600s that, according to one Englishman, “To drink at a table without drinking to the health of some one special, would be considered drinking on the sly, and as an act of incivility.”

Formerly, and during this time, toasting was largely considered an activity for men only; after a meal, the sexes would separate, and the men would begin their endless rounds of toasts. Getting thoroughly sotted was considered unbecoming for a lady, as was overhearing the salty language with which men typically surrounded the ritual. Toasts were also used to solidify the bonds of male honor groups, not only through the competitive element of drinking, but by way of the pledges of loyalty that often accompanied them. For example, bands of early warriors took to not only wishing for their comrades’ good health, but promising to protect that health themselves. When various European peoples clashed during the Middle Ages, raiders would often storm their foes’ dining halls, cutting their enemies’ throats as they feasted. For this reason, the Anglo-Saxons began swearing protection to a brother while he engaged in the vulnerable act of drinking.

The tradition of toasting remained widespread for several centuries more — again, particularly among men and when ladies weren’t present. In fact, the first temperance societies (established in the 16th century) were formed by groups of women who wanted to abolish toasting since it was the cause of so much excessive imbibing. Yet, although anti-toasting crusades gathered steam and some laws and decrees were issued to abolish the practice, toasting’s popularity continued unabashed; for example, during a dinner in America in 1770 that brought together 45 male friends, no less than 45 toasts were given (presumably one for each man in attendance). In fact, it was during the 18th century that the role of toastmaster was created to function as a sober referee who ensured everyone who wanted to toast got the chance.

Even among those who recognized toasting’s excesses, there were some who saw its potential for good. For example, in his toast anthology published in 1791, The Royal Toast Master: Containing Many Thousands of the Best Toasts Old and New, to Give Brilliancy to Mirth and Make the Joys of the Glass Supremely Agreeable, J. Roach argued:

“A Toast or Sentiment very frequently excites good humor, and revives languid conversation; often does it, when properly applied, cool the heat of resentment, and blunt the edge of animosity. A well-applied Toast is acknowledged, universally, to sooth the flame of acrimony, when season and reason oft used their efforts to no purpose.”

Roach called for toasts to be made to virtuous sentiments, like “Confusion to the minions of vice!” and “May reason be the pilot when passion blows the gale!”

Toasts did indeed take a turn during this time to the more high-minded — though they could still be as cheeky as ever. During the Revolutionary War, Americans’ toasts often took the form of vexes on the British: “To the enemies of our country! May they have cobweb breeches, a porcupine saddle, a hard-trotting horse, and an eternal journey!” After the war, Fourth of July celebrations were always accompanied by toasts to the signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as thirteen toasts in honor of each of the thirteen states.

With the overall revival of the art of oratory in the 18th century, toasts could become masterful pieces of rhetoric (if sometimes morphing into long-winded speeches) and studded with sharp political commentary and wit. When Benjamin Franklin was acting as the American emissary to France and attending a government dinner there, he listened as the British ambassador introduced a toast to “George III, who, like the sun in its meridian, spreads a luster throughout and enlightens the world.” Then a French diplomat offered his own toast to “The illustrious Louis XVI, who, like the moon, sheds his mild and benevolent rays on and influences the globe.” At last it was Franklin’s turn to pay tribute to his boss. Raising his glass, he proposed a toast to “George Washington, commander of the American armies, who, like Joshua of old, commanded the sun and the moon to stand still, and both obeyed.”

During the Victorian age, an ascendant honor culture that focused on character virtues and good manners curbed the excesses of toasting and further refined the ritual. It became more common in mixed company, and simply sipping the drink after a toast replaced the tradition of draining one’s vessel dry. A kind of competitive element to toasting remained, but came to center on the quality of one’s toast, rather than on how much alcohol one could imbibe.

This ushered in a “golden age” in the rhetoric of toasting which lasted from about 1875 to 1920. During this time, men worked hard to compose toasts that deftly combined the right mix of wisdom, wit, and solemnity, according to whatever the occasion called for. Newspapers printed columns of toasts, book anthologies offered readers thousands of ideas for them, and comic writers made their reputations on a knack for penning humorous tributes. As Paul Dickson notes in Toasts, almost nothing and nobody could escape this particular kind of commemoration:

“Toasts were written for every imaginable institution, situation, and type of person— cities, colleges, states, holidays, baseball teams, fools, failures, short people, and fat people. A British collection contained a toast, several pages in length, written for ‘The Opening of an Electric Generating Station.’ Occupational toasts were very popular, and some clubs and fraternal organizations opened their dinners with a toast to each of the professions represented at the table.”

Of course, in the United States, Prohibition put a severe damper on the tradition of toasting. For over a decade, booze was hard to come by, and though toasting was naturally still engaged in, its popularity declined when it could only be done in dark, secret gatherings (or with a glass of root beer in public).

While there was a short resurgence of toasting after Prohibition was repealed in 1933, it remained in a general decline for the rest of the 20th century. Toasting’s expressive, sincere nature clashed with the age’s more closed-off, circumspect, cynical tone, and it seemed like just another stuffy tradition that took up too much time and detracted from having an “efficient” meal.

Nowadays, the tradition of toasting has largely disappeared (at least in the States; it continues on more strongly in some other countries) and become something we primarily only see at weddings . Which, frankly, is a real shame.

Why We Should Bring Back Toasting

“[Toasting’s] use is well-known to all ranks, as a stimulative to hilarity, and an incentive to innocent mirth, to loyal truth, to pure morality and to mutual affection.” –J. Roach, The Royal Toastmaster, 1791

While we certainly aren’t advocating a return to the overflowing competitive drinking and toasting of centuries past, nor of trotting out long-winded toasts for every event, toasting really should be engaged in a bit more often than it is. Here are a bunch of reasons why:

Requires risk and courage. While toasting doesn’t have much of the competitive element these days (if you give a toast, you’ll likely be the only one who does, and thus won’t be compared to anyone else), it still does require a dose of courage to attempt. It’s a mini performance, one that requires facing the chance of achieving great success, or stumbling over what you say. Your toast may bomb or soar — that’s the wonderful, heart-enlivening risk of it!

Requires practicing the art of oratory. A toast is nothing more than a very short speech. As such, you’ve got to be adept in how to arrange and convey rhetoric for maximum effect. We get too little practice in public speaking as a whole these days; toasting gives you a chance to exercise your chops.

Involves the manly art of improvisation. While you may prepare a toast beforehand, part of it should always be improvisational — you tweak the toast according to the mood and needs of the particular event and crowd at hand. And you may find yourself in a spot where you didn’t realize you’d be making a toast, but are asked to do so, or just unexpectedly stumble into what seems like a fitting moment to volunteer one. Toasting thus requires you to be able to think fast on your feet.

Injects a bit of dramatic anticipation into an event. When you give a toast, not only will you be feeling some nerves, but your audience will experience a bit of compelling tension as well. They’ll be interested in hearing what you’ll say and how you’ll say it — whether you’ll flounder or succeed. There’s a little anticipation and suspense — a bit of drama in the best sense — that adds to the interest of the occasion.

Prompts you to share sincere feelings you might otherwise not. We often think of nice things we’d like to say to others, but have a hard time finding an appropriate moment to express them — one in which it won’t sound awkward or out of place. The established ritual of toasting facilitates the sharing of these hard-to-express feelings. As Dickson puts it, “toasts are so useful. They are a medium through which deep feelings of love, hope, high spirits, and admiration can be quickly, conveniently, and sincerely expressed.” Since people are already expecting something a little more sentimental with a toast, it gives you an excuse to be so.

Plus, not only does the structure of toasting allow you to get away with expressing things you might otherwise have a hard time articulating, it also ensures you actually follow through with getting them out; once you rise to your feet and raise your glass, there’s no turning back!

Enhances the mood of an occasion. At a going-away party, a toast that wistfully recalls wonderful memories of the soon-to-be-leaving can stir up poignant feelings of nostalgia. At a birthday party, a witty toast can put the attendees in stitches. At a holiday feast, a sentimental toast can evoke a warm sense of gratitude amongst the company present. Toasting can provoke, heighten, and even change the mood of an event; it adds a special something to a special occasion.

Dickson perfectly describes toasts as a “verbal souvenir” of a time together well spent.

Inspires feelings of togetherness and camaraderie. If you combine the toaster’s performative risk and the audience’s sympathy for it, the shared feelings of anticipation and mood, and the common witness to publicly shared sentiments, you’ve got a recipe for building closer bonds. There’s something about all that, and especially about a communal, embodied ritual, that really brings people together. In mixed company, such togetherness evokes feelings of warm affection; in groups of all men, it takes on that particular tinge of masculine camaraderie.

All in all, giving a toast is an excellent challenge for the individual who initiates one, and makes for a more memorable occasion for all those who witness and receive it. Toasting is an excellent platform for eliciting laughter, dispensing well wishes, and offering sincere veneration for worthy people and events. Doesn’t the world need much more of all of these things? Indeed it does. So let’s bring toasting back.

Next time, we’ll talk about how.

___________________________________

Sources:

Toasts by Paul Dickson.

The Rituals of Dinner by Margaret Visser

The post The (Often Manly) History of Toasting, and Why We Should Bring It Back appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

The (Often Manly) History of Toasting, and Why We Should Bring It Back published first on http://ift.tt/2jYeuRS

The Simplicity Cycle: Returning to Paring Down to Find Your True Needs

By Leo Babauta

Simplifying your life isn’t a single project that you can finish and be done with — it’s actually a cycle.

At least, that’s what I’ve found in my decade plus of simple living … I’ve downsized numerous times, in all areas of my life, and I keep finding myself coming back to the process of simplifying.

The Simplicity Cycle goes something like this (it’s a little different each time):

1. Inspiration phase: You find something that sparks an interest, and you start exploring it (reading about a new topic, diving into learning a new subject, exploring a new activity or hobby, creating a new project or venture, etc.). This is the inspiration phase.
2. Addition phase: This leads you to more complexity, as you explore, buy things, read more and more, find new inspirations and ideas. This is the addition phase.
3. Contemplation phase: At some point, you might pause to consider the bigger picture of what you’re doing. Is this the best way? Is this really important? If it is, what’s the most essential part of it? Can you pare down? Many people skip this phase (and the next) and just keep doing the first two phases.
4. Paring Down phase: If you decided that you want to pare down, this is where you start to let go of things. You figure out what’s essential to what you have been doing and learning, and if you don’t scrap the entire thing completely (which can happen), you might just keep a few key things. For example, if you start learning about chess, you might buy a set (or two) and a bunch of books and apps and go on a bunch of websites. But in the paring down phase, you might decide that chess isn’t important enough to keep in your life, or if it is, you only need one chess set, two really key books, and one website or app. The rest you let go of. Again, many people skip this step.

If you’re into simplifying and figuring out what’s essential, you’ll do the last two steps. If you’re like most people, you’ll just keep doing one and two, which leads to a growing amount of clutter and complexity.

What I’ve Learned from the Cycle

As you might guess, I find the last two phases really important. But I also think the first two are important, because they’re about continual learning, curiosity, growth, exploration, creativity and more. I haven’t been able to stop myself from doing the first two phases, at least a few times each year. So I continue to repeat this Simplicity Cycle, several times a year.

The first two phases are where you get excited about something, where you get motivated and you’re moved to find out as much as you can. This is an essential human drive, and I would never want to suppress it.

But here’s what I’ve learned:

• I have to hold myself back from acquiring in the Addition phase. I do this by reminding myself of how much I wasted in the last few Addition phases, when I bought too many things. It’s really hard to hold back when you’re excited. But it’s important to remember that following your every urge isn’t necessarily a helpful thing.
• The Inspiration phase can be a wonderful thing, but sometimes it’s just a fantasy that grips hold of us (like wanting to become a black belt at something) when we see a photo or read an inspiring story of someone doing something cool. There’s nothing wrong with these photos or inspiring stories. There’s nothing wrong with the fantasy that forms in our heads. But when it grips us, and brings us to the Addition phase, then it can lead us to spend too much time or money or effort on something that’s not really that important — it’s just a fantasy that’s taken hold. The reality will be quite different once we dive into it — becoming a black belt will take years of hard work, and the payoff won’t be exactly what you dream it will be. That’s not to say we shouldn’t go after it, but we should realize it will be very different than how we picture, and probably not as exciting.
• Often the Inspiration phase is started when we think we really want something, even need it. But it’s not a true need. We rarely explore how to get our true needs met without the Addition phase, and it’s something worth considering as we think about the big picture of our lives. What are true needs? More on that in the next section.
• The Contemplation phase can come at any time — maybe even before you start the Addition phase! Maybe right after you start it and you pause to think about whether this is something you should be doing. Basically, you take a step back and look at the big picture — why are you bothering to do this? Is it just a fantasy or is it meaningful to you? Is the reality going to be anywhere close to the fantasy? Is there a more purposeful way you might be living? What are your true needs here? What can you get rid of, and what’s truly essential?
• The Paring Down phase can be very liberating! Once you’ve had a realization that you want to simplify, it can be a huge burden to let go of things that you’ve been holding onto. At the same time, it can be difficult to let go if you’re still holding on to hope. And there’s the regret of buying too much or acquiring too much, the regret of being wasteful. But it’s not wasteful if you got something out of it, if you learned something from it. So give thanks to whatever gave you something, learn from the experience, and let go.

In this whole process, I find the real learning is about true needs. It’s hard to understand true needs until you’ve gone through this process a few times. Let’s take a look.

Finding Your True Needs

Going through this cycle helps you see that you can let go of things you don’t really need. They might actually be giving you a burden you don’t want, and letting go is liberating. You free yourself of it, and you’re even happier — you didn’t need it in the first place!

Going through the cycle a second time, and then a third, is just more learning about figuring out what you don’t need. And learning to let go of what you don’t really need.

If you go through the cycle a bunch of times, with consciousness, you can start to figure out the kinds of things you crave for and that excite you that aren’t really true needs. They seem cool, they’re shiny, but they don’t really satisfy anything deep within you.

I’ll give you a few examples of things that didn’t satisfy a real need for me:

• Chess: I really enjoyed learning about chess, but the competitive aspect of chess, and the hundreds and thousands of hours you need to spend on practice to get anywhere near good were not anything I really cared about. And honestly, getting really good at chess didn’t hold real meaning to me. The true need was learning, and I can do that for free in many areas of life.
• Gourmet food: When I moved to San Francisco, I discovered some amazing restaurants, from neighborhood gems to Michelin-starred world-class gourmet spots. I went crazy for about a year, going to as many as I could afford. It caused me to gain weight, lose a lot of money, and get tired of that kind of rich food. I did the same kind of deep dive with pizza, coffee, wine and beer at different times. To be honest, it was all a waste, and I’m glad I’m over it! The true need was exploration, and I can do that without needing to get broke or overweight.
• Lots of books: At different points in the last 10-15 years, I’ve gone overboard in buying books. I love books, to be honest. I love the hope that each one contains, but I can go overboard with that optimism, and buy more than I can possibly read. The true need was, again, learning. I am not against books, but I am now more honest with myself (not always) about how much I can actually read.
• Survival gear, travel gear, tech gear, hiking gear: Every now and then, I really get into a topic and decide I want the best gear in that area. I bought cool survival and travel gear, and too much ultralight backpacking gear. I don’t go overboard with tech gear, but sometimes I get a craving and cave in to that craving. None of it has really mattered to me in the long term — it’s all short-term lusts. The true need is really to get outdoors and explore.

None of those areas met my true needs — they were all extraneous, even though I thought they were important at the time.

In the end, going through the process helped me to realize what I really needed. And to let go of the things I thought were needs.

Some things I now think are true needs:

1. Food, water, clothing, heat, shelter, and basic safety, of course.
2. Love and connection.
3. Learning, exploration.
4. Play, inspiration & creative outlets.
5. Getting outdoors, being active, being present with nature.
6. Stillness & peace.

There might be more. Beyond the basic needs of the items at the top of the list, the others are about love and nourishment in some way.

And when I remember these needs, I can remember that these needs can be met in a variety of ways. Not only in the way I’m fantasizing about. I can meet my needs by simply going outside and going for a walk. Talking with a loved one or an interesting stranger. Reading something online. Meditating and finding stillness.

Simple things, that cost nothing. Simple things, that nourish me, and require no additions to what I already have. Simple things, that allow me to let go of the rest.

Simple things, that are available all around us in beautiful abundance.

New Book: Soulful Simplicity

I’d like to recommend a book by a good friend, Courtney Carver of Be More with Less … her book Soulful Simplicity comes out next week, and you will love it.

It’s about the power of simplicity to improve our health, build more meaningful relationships, and relieve stress in our professional and personal lives.

Check out the first chapter here, and pre-order the book now to get a bonus.

The Simplicity Cycle: Returning to Paring Down to Find Your True Needs published first on http://ift.tt/2jYeuRS

Podcast #365: Why Are 7 Million Men Missing From the Workforce?

http://ift.tt/2yYZ0BO

For the past few decades, there’s been an intense focus on getting more women in the workplace and helping them thrive and succeed. At the same time, however, a silent problem has emerged that could have serious repercussions on our economy and society: more and more men have been dropping out of the workforce.

My guest today is an economist with the American Enterprise Institute who has written a book highlighting what he calls an “invisible crisis.” His name is Nicholas Eberstadt and his book is Men Without Work. Today on the show, Nicholas delves into the research that shows that while unemployment is down, the number of men actually working or looking for work is lower than a generation ago. We then delve into some of the possible causes of the disappearance of men from the workforce, what these non-working men are doing while they’re not working, and how they’re supporting themselves without a job. Nicholas then discusses the possible economic and societal problems that this growing number of non-working men create, and what we can do on a micro and macro level to encourage men to be self-reliant and industrious. 

Show Highlights

• Why the topic of men in the workplace is what Nick calls “an invisible crisis” 
• The difference between employed, unemployed, and out of the labor force
• Where unemployment statistics come from, and their reporting history 
• How many men of prime working wage aren’t working?
• Is this problem unique to America? 
• What is going on in America that’s taking men out of the workforce?
• How convicted felons who are no longer in prison impact the workforce 
• What are non-working men doing with their time?
• The economic and social ramifications of a disengaged population of men
• The education level of men not in the labor force 
• How are these men supporting themselves? What does their living situation look like?
• Is this a solvable problem?
• Why Nick decided not to include many solution ideas in his book (and the few that he did)
• The role of faith and family in helping out these men who aren’t in the workforce 
• Is there anything the individual listener can do? 

Resources/People/Articles Mentioned in Podcast

• Bureau of Labor Statistics “Not in Labor Force” charts
• American Time Use Surveys
• Millions of people are neither working nor learning
• Americans taking prescription pain relievers  
• Mortality and morbidity in the 21st century 
• Is College for Everyone?
• Reviving Blue Collar Work 
• Podcast with Mike Rowe about the trades
• The Decline of Empathy

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Podcast Sponsors

Saxx Underwear. Everything you didn’t know you needed in a pair of underwear. Get 20% off your first purchase by visiting http://ift.tt/2t0soss.

Proper Cloth. Stop wearing shirts that don’t fit. Start looking your best with a custom fitted shirt. Go to http://ift.tt/2uXKGLn and enter gift code MANLINESS to save $20 on your first shirt.

Grasshopper. The entrepreneur’s phone system. Have a separate number that you can call and text from by going to http://ift.tt/2hJyXbr and get $20 off your first month.

Click here to see a full list of our podcast sponsors.

Recorded with ClearCast.io.

Read the Transcript

Coming soon!

The post Podcast #365: Why Are 7 Million Men Missing From the Workforce? appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

Podcast #365: Why Are 7 Million Men Missing From the Workforce? published first on http://ift.tt/2jYeuRS

The Spiritual Disciplines: Gratitude

Welcome back to our series on the spiritual disciplines, which explores exercises that can be used to train the soul. The purposes and practices of these disciplines are approached in such a way that they can be adapted across belief systems.

“[Gratitude] is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” –Cicero

Gratitude is arguably the spiritual discipline we think we understand best.

It’s been the most scientifically studied. It’s been the fodder for plenty of books and articles, presented as a feel-good tool for personal development and happiness, a method for achieving your best life now. It’s often trotted out around Thanksgiving as a seasonal interest, and then put away for another year.

As a result of this familiarity, gratitude lacks the mysterious allure of a discipline like solitude, or even the inner adventure-evoking asceticism of fasting.

But what if gratitude has been cheapened into something commonplace – what’s been called “gratitude lite” – that obscures its true nature?

What if gratitude was really a discipline rather than a feeling, a moral virtue rather a mood enhancer?

What if it was made not of the soft sentimentality of greeting cards, but the sterner stuff of Stoicism, the rawness of marrow sucking, the severity of even death itself?

In this final installment of our series on the spiritual disciplines, we’d like to introduce you to this forgotten side of gratitude. Read on – you’ll be thankful you did.

What Is the Definition and Purpose of the Spiritual Discipline of Gratitude?

The leading scientific expert on gratitude, Dr. Robert A. Emmons, defines gratitude as having two parts: “(1) affirming goodness in one’s life and (2) recognizing that the sources of this goodness lie at least partially outside the self.”

At this most basic, gratitude is something nearly everyone experiences (particularly in the first stage), and this experience can be practically involuntary. That is, most people will recognize and feel warmed by good things that happen in their lives, even without intentionally trying to do so.

Indeed, basic gratitude is more automatic and “feel-good” than the basic states of all the other practices we’ve talked about in this series. Even when you’re not studying or trying to get some alone time for spiritual purposes, or are only fasting for health reasons, these exercises still take a good deal of effort to initiate and often remain difficult and uncomfortable throughout. On the other hand, everyone experiences tinges of gratitude without really thinking about it, and enjoys the squeeze of uplift it lends the heart.

Yet, when elevated and practiced as a spiritual discipline, gratitude can in fact be just as strenuous and demanding as the others we’ve discussed.

While basic gratitude is passively evoked by external events, of the exclusively positive variety, the spiritual discipline of gratitude is intentionally chosen, deliberately trained, and exercised in all circumstances. It is not dependent on changing conditions, but on mindset. It is not waited for, but pursued.

While basic gratitude is a set of fleeting and fluctuating feelings, the spiritual discipline of gratitude is an action. It is not just experienced, but expressed. The spiritual discipline of gratitude is practiced not just because it feels good, but because it’s the right thing to do — not just for one’s own good, but for the good of one’s family, community, and society. The discipline of gratitude is in fact not a feeling at all, but a moral virtue.

In short, the spiritual discipline of gratitude leaves behind the realm of simple emotion and instead becomes an attitude, a stance, a way. One that necessitates great effort to develop and maintain – the offering of a sacrifice of thanksgiving on the altar of life.

What Is the Purpose of the Spiritual Discipline of Gratitude?

“Epicurus says, ‘gratitude is a virtue that commonly has profit annexed to it.’ And where is the virtue that has not? But still the virtue is to be valued for itself, and not for the profit that attends it.” –Seneca

The practice of gratitude begets myriad number of very practical, tangible benefits to body and mind. Research has shown that practicing gratitude boosts the immune system, bolsters resilience to stress, lowers depression, increases feelings of energy, determination, and strength, and even helps you sleep better at night. In fact, few things have been more repeatedly and empirically vetted than the connection between gratitude and overall happiness and well-being.

As with fasting, it’s impossible to untangle the mental and physical benefits of gratitude from its spiritual effects; what is good for the body and mind, is good for the soul, and vice versa. At the same time, the reasons to intentionally practice the spiritual discipline of gratitude radiate beyond these more corporeal effects, to those that more centrally touch one’s inner life, moral character, and even the larger community.

Opens Your Eyes

“One of the most important—and most neglected—elements in the beginnings of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendor that is all around us.” –Thomas Merton

A primary purpose of all spiritual practices is to gain a fresh perspective on life — to discover new dimensions that can’t be accessed when one’s mind is consumed by material distractions and simple busyness.

In this, gratitude serves as a singularly effective portal.

Becoming more grateful does not involve a denial of the reality of life’s hard edges and sharp sorrows. Rather, while gratitude recognizes the dark corners of existence which readily attract our attention, it also notices all the Beauty, Joy, Goodness, and Truth that is typically overlooked. In this, gratitude in fact opens one’s eyes to a more expansive view of reality. It is like putting on a pair of long-needed glasses for the first time: “Oh, wow, here’s what I’ve been missing.” Through the lens of gratitude, you come to better recognize the good, to see the many gifts, benefits, and mercies that are present in your life that might otherwise remain hidden and ignored.

The discipline of gratitude is one which seeks for greater mindfulness and awareness, that calls you to be more present in the moment, to sharpen your powers of observation, to notice what others miss, and thus to discover more layers in “ordinary” life. It is an invitation to not only gnaw on the bone of existence, but to suck out its marrow. It is a gateway to greater wonder, awe, and magic, and to living life more fully alive.

Develops Character and the Virtuous Life

“He who receives a benefit with gratitude repays the first installment on his debt.” –Seneca

“a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow.” –Henry Ward Beecher

Gratitude is arguably the foundation of good character, or as Cicero puts it, gratitude is the “parent” of all the other virtues. Conversely, ingratitude is the root of all vice; St. Ignatius called ingratitude the “most abominable of sins” as it is “the cause, the beginning and origin of all sins and misfortunes.”

Why do the two sides of thankfulness function as the respective fonts of both good and evil?

First, because the presence of gratitude counteracts the negative vices — envy, resentment, and greed — that its absence begets. When you are grateful for what you have, you spend less time comparing yourself to others, and less time making poor, fruitless decisions based on those comparisons.

Second, recognizing that the good in one’s life comes at least partially from outside the self develops a vital sense of humility, as well as the motivation to reciprocate these gifts and return goodness for goodness by practicing the positive virtues. Striving to do the right thing out of simple duty can be laudable, but duty is at best a mere back-up motivation to a superior and more spontaneous source: joy and thankfulness. You can grind out living the virtues, but such service will feel dry and unsatisfying to you, and dry, if not embittered, to others. Gratitude is the grease in the gears of well-doing; a fuel that sparks and animates one’s courage, generosity, industry, and honor.

Puts Us in Right Relationship With Others

Gratitude turns our gaze outward instead of inward, helping us recognize realities outside ourselves. We recognize that we are not completely self-sufficient and independent and instead exist in a web of interconnected relationships. We recognize the help (human and divine) that’s gotten us to where we are today, and the help we continue to rely on to sustain our lives. In this, gratitude allows us to appreciate and affirm the worth and value of the people, structures, and supernatural powers around us rather than taking them for granted.

Conversely, it’s worth pointing out again that the flip side is equally true; ingratitude leads to bitterness, envy, and negativity – vices that absolutely destroy our bonds with others.

Unsurprisingly then, research has found that gratitude has a huge effect on improving relationships. Studies show that grateful people experience greater feelings of connection and closeness with others and with God, and are more compassionate, forgiving, generous, and supportive than the ungrateful.

While researching her book on gratitude, Dr. Brent Atkinson, a professor of marriage and family therapy, told Janice Kaplan that “When people share positive emotions [like gratitude] with each other, scans show their brains sync up and show similar activity. You increase your natural capacity for love.” Sounds kind of groovy, but again, gratitude acts as the grease in the gears of goodness, so that serving each other becomes more natural and spontaneous and less of a grind. Studies show that when you thank someone for doing something for you, they’re more likely to help you again; rather than cajoling and demanding friends, loved ones, and co-workers do what you want, thankfulness makes the things you appreciate naturally keep happening. That’s good for you, obviously, but also good for your relationships.

Leads to Service and a Chain of Goodness

As already stated, when you realize what you’ve been given, you’re motivated to give back: the more you recognize what others have done for you, the more you want to do for them; the more you appreciate the world, the more you want to make it better. But the virtuous effect of gratitude ripples out further still.

Research shows that when you thank someone for what they’ve done for you, they not only are more likely to help you again, they are more likely to help other people, period. Cultivating and then expressing gratitude thus starts a web of virtue; it spreads goodness like a very positive contagion that can literally transform families, workplaces, communities, and the world at large. That’s an idea based not on a woo-woo hippie platitude, but a concrete, empirically proven effect.

The potential of “paying it forward” is real, and it starts with a simple “Thank you.”

What Are the Obstacles to Practicing Gratitude?

“Gratitude is a virtue most deified and yet most deserted: it is the ornament of rhetoric and the libel of practical life.” –J.W Forney

Given the very real benefits and positive effects of practicing gratitude both generally and as a spiritual discipline, why do we so often struggle to develop and express this virtue? To wit: in a survey done by Kaplan, she found that while “more than 90% of people think gratitude makes you happier and gives you a more fulfilled life … less than half regularly express gratitude.” What then accounts for this gap between what we know is good for us (and the world), and how we actually behave?

There are several obstacles to getting in a gratitude-driven mindset; while they can perhaps be inferred from the purposes outlined above, it’s instructive to call them out for more explicit examination.

The first obstacle to greater gratitude is simple busyness and distraction. We may feel a sense of thankfulness for someone or something, but it quickly evaporates as our phone pings, our kid cries, or another thought simply intrudes on the moment. We may feel the impulse to say thank you, but it gets buried under a bunch of other to-dos.

The second obstacle to gratitude is an ingrained penchant for noticing the negative over the positive. This phenomenon is likely the result of an evolutionary adaption; in primitive times, people had to pay attention to any potential threats in the environment in order to survive. In modern times, it means that if ten things go very right in your day, but one thing goes wrong, you’ll forget all the positive stuff and spend all your time ruminating on it.

A third obstacle is the phenomenon of adaptation. While novel pleasures give us a rush of satisfaction and gratitude, we soon become habituated to them. After a while, your once new love/car/home/job stops making your heart spontaneously swell with thankfulness; you stop registering all the ways the things already in your life add to it, and stop noticing all the qualities you admire and cherish in your family and friends.  

The fourth obstacle is envy. It’s hard to be happy with what you have, when it seems like other people have better things. Envy destroys gratitude, and it’s harder than ever to avoid when everyone can show off the highlight reel of their lives on social media.

While all these obstacles can be significant stumbling blocks to the discipline of gratitude, if this virtue is predicated on humility, then the very biggest barrier to its practice should be obvious: pride.

Such pride is rooted in the inability to admit dependency on anything or anyone. To do so hurts, well, our pride. Even the word “dependency” itself makes us viscerally cringe, while our hearts swell to words like “autonomy,” “independence,” and “self-reliance.” And indeed, these are all good things that should be striven for … to the extent possible. But self-sufficiency has its limits. You didn’t create yourself or raise yourself, you didn’t pave the roads you drive on, grow the food you eat, or make the clothes you wear, and, even if you’re the most extreme of introverts, you’d probably go crazy if forced to live forever alone. Even the world’s last true hermit had to steal from other people to live. The truth is, we all rely on others to meet our physical and emotional needs.

Humans are interdependent; sometimes we give and sometimes we receive. You can’t desire to fully know yourself and yet concentrate on one role to the exclusion of the other; a man should strive to be autonomous … and a frank realist. Being less grateful doesn’t make you less dependent, it just makes you more delusional — while robbing you of the benefits gratitude brings.

Of the different “flavors” the pride that blocks gratitude takes, a sense of entitlement is undeniably the most significant. This sense of entitlement says: “Whatever I’ve got, I’ve earned. I deserve this. I had it coming.”

Just as we’d all like to believe we’re 100% self-sufficient, we’d all like to think we got where we are today entirely on our own steam — that we earned everything we have by ourselves. Yet we didn’t earn the technology and myriad inventions we use on a day-to-day basis, didn’t earn the democracy we live under, didn’t earn a shot at existence in the first place.

While we assuredly should take a healthy satisfaction in the things we have largely earned on our own, we should also recognize that the very possibility of achieving those things at all was foundationally premised on a whole lot of factors outside ourselves and our control.

The fact that your life exists at all is because your ancestors sailed over here from the Old World, and started farms, and ranches, and businesses, and fought in the Big One, and worked, and raised families, and kept themselves alive so you could take a breath in the 21^st century. We all stand upon an edifice built by those who came before.

So much of what we have was placed in our laps by sheer dint of happening to be born in a certain time and place. So much of what we have is due to simple luck and serendipity. We didn’t, couldn’t, do anything to deserve it.  

Research shows that surprise is a key ingredient in experiencing gratitude, and you can’t be surprised, if you perennially expect, nigh near demand, good things to happen to you. This accounts for the fact that while our standard of living is higher than ever, we are seemingly more discontented and depressed; our expectations have simply risen in line with our conveniences. We have more, but feel entitled to a life that’s even better still, and thus see more negative than positive in the world and complain more than we appreciate. 

Expectations aren’t bad in and of themselves (if you keep them modest and reasonable). It’s not wrong to expect that a spouse or a friend treat you in a certain way; by virtue of the fact you have a mutually invested-in relationship, you rightly should expect certain things from each other. Nor is it wrong to expect that when you pay for a good or service, you will receive something commensurate in exchange. But having these expectations, doesn’t mean you’re entitled to their fulfillment, nor does it preclude you from being tickled with delight when they’re gratified.

Certainly, one is under no obligation to say thank you for acts and services that fall below what would normally be expected. But even when an expectation is fulfilled in a basic, average way – even when it does not go above and beyond — we ought to still feel gratitude for the act, and in fact, experience it as a gift.

Let’s say you and your wife share household chores, and you each do an equal number of tasks. Must you still thank her for making dinner, even though it happens routinely every night, and is just part of the responsibilities of running a household you both mutually agreed to take on? The answer is yes: the virtue of gratitude obliges you to do so.

No matter how routine and expected her effort is, it’s still a gift: not only could your wife have potentially thrown out the idea of pitching in as soon as you got hitched, she receives no direct reward in return for her service. You may have previously done the same number of chores and offered ample emotional/financial support, but there are simply no direct exchanges, no strict tit-for-tat in relationships; e.g., is mowing the lawn exactly equal to making X number of meals? Every effort made in a marriage is a gift to one’s partner that cannot be precisely enumerated nor reciprocated.

Further, the dinner is a gift in that it is made with the hands of a woman who you don’t wholly deserve. Sure, you wooed her, won her love, continue to treat her right. But you had nothing to do with the forces that brought a boy from Tallahassee and a girl from Oakland to go to the same college, to take the same English class, to sit in the same row. You didn’t create her. She is a reality to which you are not entirely entitled. Not to mention that even since you two were married, she could have died in a tragic accident or been laid low by a terrible disease. And yet here she is in the kitchen, chopping carrots.

When you say, “Thank you for dinner,” the simple phrase encapsulates all those meanings and dimensions of gratitude — all the ways your wife’s act can simultaneously be routinely expected and a wondrous, surprising, unearned gift.

The same dynamic runs through every relationship and exchange, no matter how shallow or financially premised. When the check-out guy at the grocery store swipes and bags your groceries with even an average level of efficacy and friendliness, you say “Thanks”: “Thanks for not confronting me with dead-eyed rudeness when you could have; thanks for not working at a snail’s pace; thanks for doing your job up to standard when so many don’t. Thanks to our ancestors who cleared this land, and set up general stores, that became giant stores where you work and I shop, and where I can get Pumpkin Spice Oreos, and run them down this little conveyer belt, and pay with this handy chip reader machine. Thanks to the forces of the universe that brought us together in this moment for this small exchange in which we both get something we need. Thanks for giving up your time, and perhaps even a bit of your soul, to work this job that helps make the world go round.”

Once you start practicing the spiritual discipline of gratitude, you come to see that while you can expect things of people with whom you enter into a relationship or exchange, you’re never wholly entitled to the material and emotional goods they produce; each interaction represents an opportunity that you can never entirely earn or deserve.

Once you realize life doesn’t owe you anything, everything in it becomes a gift.

How Do You Practice the Spiritual Discipline of Gratitude?

For some people, added to the universal obstacles to greater gratitude outlined above, is yet another set: it seems that a grateful disposition is partly genetic, that some people are just naturally more or less thankful than others. At the same time, how you were raised plays a role as well; if you were reared by one or more parents who are complaint-centric, glass-half-empty types, that’ll dampen your own orientation towards gratitude as well.

That there are many obstacles both universal and particular pitted against practicing gratitude is the bad news. The good news, fortunately, is that despite these barriers, anyone can intentionally cultivate gratitude as a spiritual discipline. Even if you’re someone who doesn’t often feel spontaneously thankful, it’s an ability that can be trained; you can deliberately become, as Emmons puts it, “good at gratitude.”

The exercises below are broken into ways to experience more gratitude yourself, and ways to express more gratitude to others, and both sets can help you overcome the common obstacles to practicing this virtue. The exercises are both research-backed and age-old; practices first recommended by philosophers thousands of years ago, and refined for maximum efficacy in the modern day. By regularly training your gratitude “muscle” with them, you can make gratitude a matter of steady discipline rather than fluctuating mood and changing circumstances.

As you embark on this gratitude training program, here’s another bit of good news: while becoming more grateful takes significant intentional effort at first, over time it will become easier; what begins as consciously chosen behavior will eventually become an ingrained attitude — your default response to the world. A wonderfully positive cycle will in fact develop: the more good in your life you recognize to be thankful for, the more your mood, health, work, and relationships will change for the better, and the more good things will happen to you to be thankful for!

How to Experience Greater Gratitude

“There is no neutrality between gratitude and ingratitude. Those who are not grateful soon begin to complain of everything. Those who do not love, hate. In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate. That is why tepidity (which seems to be indifferent) is so detestable. It is hate disguised as love.” –Thomas Merton

“In noble hearts the feeling of gratitude has all the ardor of a passion.” –Achilles Poincelot

“Gratitude is the memory of the heart.” –French proverb

A grateful heart is the epicenter of virtue, and you can keep its fire stoked by engaging in practices that enhance your powers of awareness and observation – your ability to see the same old things in a fresh way, and to recognize the abundance you have, rather than always focusing on what you lack.

A thread that runs through all of these practices is memory. Ingratitude is a matter of forgetfulness – we forget what others have done for us days, weeks, years, and centuries ago; we forget the moment of joy we experienced just one minute back; we forget all the good we have in our lives, and how we’re not entitled to it. We forget that memory is moral.

“Do you want to be a grateful person?” Emmons thus asks, “Then remember to remember.”

Savor the Good

“Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them.” –Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Psychologist Rick Hanson compares humanity’s universal penchant for concentrating on the negative over the positive (which can be even more acute for those born with gloomy genes) to Velcro and Teflon: the bad sticks with us, while the good just glides right on by our consciousness. But if we can’t fully recognize and appreciate the good in our lives, we can’t be fully grateful for it.

To keep the good things that happen in your day-to-day life from slipping through your mind, you’ve got to put a kind of net in place to catch them. You do that by intentionally savoring and relishing positive moments. When something good happens to you, whether big or small – a hug from your child, a tasty meal, a beautiful sunset – instead of letting it quickly flit in and out of your awareness, take ten seconds or so to really soak in the pleasure/beauty/joy of it.

As you let the good penetrate more deeply, your feelings of gratitude will increase, and your brain will literally be rewired – creating sticky grooves that latch on to the positive things that are happening to you every single day.

Reframe

“You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.” –Viktor Frankl

“Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the views they take of them.” –Epictetus

Another way to deal with our natural focus on the negative is to try to examine a less-than-ideal situation from another perspective — to reframe it in a better light.

Reframing doesn’t mean completely ignoring the downsides of situations or being naively Pollyanna-ish in looking for silver linings that don’t exist; it doesn’t require a denial of reality. Instead, it’s an acknowledgement that reality is, in fact, somewhat subjective. Things really do objectively happen, but the meaning of those things is open to interpretation, and this interpretation changes how you experience them, which changes your reality.

You can be devastated when you’re laid off from work, or grateful for the chance at a fresh start in your career. You can be bitter that your girlfriend cheated on you, or grateful you don’t have to waste any more time believing she’s someone she’s not. You can be frustrated that your flight was canceled, or grateful you get to spend one more day with old friends. You can be annoyed to be attending a boring meeting, or grateful for the chance to recalibrate your attention span and let your mind wander.

Either side of these coins is just as “real” as the other. Which side you choose to focus on is up to you. You can concentrate on what’s gone wrong, or put your attention on what’s still right. You can see only the obstacle, or look for how the obstacle is in fact the way.

Even in times of acute hardship, while it is unlikely that you will feel grateful for the suffering, you can still feel grateful in the suffering. That is, you can still find small mercies and points of light even in your darkest hour. If you’re going to be walking through hell anyway, why do it without gratitude, and make the trial even harder than it has to be?

Later, from the distant vantage point provided by the passage of time, you may in fact grow to become grateful for the suffering; for the way it refined you, or changed the path of your life, or brought you to closer to friends. Research shows that writing about a hard experience from the frame of gratefulness can in fact help you see the good that came from it, and find a greater sense of meaning, hope, and purpose in past pain.

Gratitude ultimately depends not on circumstances you can’t control, but on the perspective and attitude you decide to take; you can’t always choose what happens to you, but you can always choose how to respond.

Keep a Gratitude Journal

“If one should give me a dish of sand, and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with my clumsy fingers, and be unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and sweep through it, and how would it draw to itself the almost invisible particles by the mere power of attraction.—The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.” –Henry Ward Beecher 

Keeping a gratitude journal is the most famous of gratitude practices, and with good reason. It’s very simple, and it’s highly effective. It’s been shown to produce the benefits to body and mind mentioned above, and all you’ve got to do is regularly write down a few things for which you’re thankful.  

There are several ways to especially enhance the efficacy and meaningfulness of this practice:

Write in the journal just twice a week, instead of every day. While you might think that the more often you wrote in a gratitude journal, the better the effect would be, research has shown the practice actually has a point of diminishing returns. Journaling just twice a week can in fact be more effective than doing it every day. Why? Because making daily entries seems to induce what Emmons calls “gratitude fatigue” — it becomes too routine, and thus doesn’t elicit as stimulating a response.

Good news for us: who doesn’t have time to write in a journal just twice a week?

Be as specific and detailed as possible. Gratitude journaling works because writing down the amorphous thoughts that flit through your mind makes them more concrete and real. It naturally follows then, that the more detailed you make your entries, the more this effect is amplified. So instead of writing, “I’m grateful for 1) my wife, 2) my kids, 3) dinner tonight,” write “I’m grateful for the way my wife’s eyes twinkle when she laughs, 2) the softness of my daughter’s cheek when I give her a kiss goodnight, 3) tonight’s burger — the juiciness and savoriness of the meat, the crispness of the lettuce, and the tang of the sauce.” Really relive the things you’re thankful for in your imagination; the more you bring them to life, the deeper your visceral reaction will be, and the more profoundly you’ll experience gratitude.

Think not just of big and obvious things, but small and surprising things. Sticking just to big/obvious things – family/job/house/health – will quickly induce gratitude fatigue and make it hard to keep your entries as fresh as possible (while it’s fine to duplicate things, the more diversity you can being to your entries, the better).

So think about anything and everything that brings you pleasure, adds something to your life in even the smallest of ways, and ought not to be taken for granted: technology (the internet, your phone, capabilities like FaceTime, apps like Uber); food (the existence of Oreos, that you can get strawberries in the middle of winter, that there are restaurants serving the native cuisine of 30 different countries in your city); modern conveniences/aids/tools (bars of soap, contacts, barbells); anything that tickles your senses (the smell after rain, the softness of your sheets, the sound of your favorite music).

“Don’t only journal about people who helped you but also about those who have helped people whom you love.” This is a great piece of advice from Emmons, who notes that “We may overlook these sources of gratitude.” Be grateful for your child’s teacher, the nurse who tends your ailing parent, your girlfriend’s ever loyal and loving stepdad.

“Get started wherever you are.” Another recommendation from Emmons, who says you can still begin a gratitude journal even if you’re in a negative place in life, and “even if the only item on your list is ‘nothing bad happened today.’”

Harness the George Bailey Effect

“It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It’s gratefulness that makes us happy.” –Brother David Steindl-Rast, Benedictine monk

Even though the power of gratitude journals has gotten a lot of attention, they don’t in fact work for everyone. Part of the problem is that even when you recognize and record the good things in your life, you’ve probably gotten used to these “everyday” things, so that the act fails to evoke the element of uncertainty and surprise so central to experiencing gratitude on a deeper, more emotionally transformative level.

To inject a little more “surprise” into your gratitude journal, try harnessing your inner George Bailey. In It’s a Wonderful Life, Bailey has to experience a world in which he’d never been born to really understand how rich and blessed his life really was. You can benefit from similarly conjuring up an alternative universe, no guardian angel required: rather than writing about something you’re thankful for, write how that thing might not have happened. How might you and your wife have never met? How might you have never landed the great job you’re currently in? What would your life be like if you and your best friend had never crossed paths?

Research shows that this exercise, by challenging your secure, complacent sense that something good in your life was always bound to happen, heightens your feeling of gratitude beyond simply writing about that blessing. When you reflect on how something might never have occurred after all, you stop taking it for granted, and your once-dulled sense of thankfulness returns. 

Practice the Examen

We discussed the Examen – a daily five-part prayer developed by St. Ignatius Loyola — in our exploration of the spiritual discipline of self-examination. But it’s also a practice that can provide tremendous support to the discipline of gratitude, as the first step of the prayer is to reflect on things that happened that day for which you are grateful, and to then express thanks for them.

Fast

If gratitude is sabotaged by the fact that we adapt to the good things that are consistently in our lives so that they become yawn-inducingly routine, then a natural way to counteract this effect is to temporarily remove that good thing, i.e., to fast from it.

Spend a day without eating food, or using technology, and you’ll be less likely to take these benefits for granted. The scales of “blessing blindness” fall away from your eyes, and you realize how fortunate you are to have a full fridge, and how downright magical your phone really is.

Scarcity sharpens gratitude, and in a time in which we are glutted with every pleasure and convenience, sometimes we must create this scarcity ourselves.

Memento Mori

“What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?” –Seneca

Research shows that when people are reminded that an experience will soon come to an end, they feel more grateful for the time they have left, and take more action to make the most of it.

When it comes to situations that have a definite expiration date – college, vacations, deployments – reminding yourself that they won’t last can spur you to engage the experience more fully – to stay present and really savor, and feel thankful for, each moment you have left. For example, Kate and I will often say to each other in regards to our kids: “They’ll never be as young/small as they are right now.” It’s a reminder that they’re in a special phase of life that will pass away sooner than we can fathom – that though they may drive us crazy sometimes, one day their tiny footfalls will disappear and leave our house empty and quiet. It helps us savor and cherish our truly precious time with them.

While this technique works when applied to specific “limited-time” situations, it can also be applied to life in general, which, though its expiration date is uncertain, will definitely come to an end one day. That end could be fifty years from now, or it could be tomorrow. The practice of memento mori – of remembering that you will die, of reflecting, as Marcus Aurelius did, that “You could leave life right now” – can make you more grateful for each additional day, and moment, you get.

How to Express Greater Gratitude

“Gratitude is a duty none can be excused from, because it is always at our own disposal.” –Pierre Charron

Engaging in practices like journaling and reflection is great. But gratitude isn’t primarily an individual exercise, but a relational one. It’s not just a private feeling, but a public action. Thus, at the heart of gratitude is not the experience of thankfulness, but its expression; once we’ve cultivated gratitude in our hearts, we must share it with others.

Outwardly acknowledging the gifts we receive checks our pride, humbles our souls, and forges a link that will expand beyond ourselves to become an ever-widening chain of service and virtue.

Say Thank You to Just About Everyone, for Just About Everything 

“You sanctify whatever you are grateful for.” –Anthony de Mello           

Expressing gratitude is as simple as saying “Thank you.”

Even though those two words are so easy to say, most people don’t express them often enough. In Kaplan’s survey on gratitude, for example, she found that in the workplace, only “7 percent of people regularly said thanks to their bosses and 10 percent to colleagues.” We get in that mode where we don’t feel like we should be grateful for people just doing what’s expected of them – just doing their job. We forget that life doesn’t ultimately owe us anything, that nothing is guaranteed, that we’re not wholly entitled to the good things we get. We forget that everything is a gift.

But it is.

So say thank you to everyone, for just about everything. Not just when someone went above and beyond, but when someone simply did what they were “supposed” to – heaven knows that even when something “should” happen a certain way it often doesn’t! Be grateful to anyone who holds up even the basic end of the bargain, who doesn’t follow the path of least resistance. Be grateful that someone was willing to meet your needs, just as they are hopefully grateful for the opportunity to meet those needs.

If it isn’t already, start making a simple “thank you” a frequent, fundamental part of your daily language. Thank your wife, cashier, doctor, pharmacist, car mechanic, mailman, waiter — everyone who makes an effort on your behalf. Don’t forget to thank the people who serve those you love, too.

And while you’re at it, thank the pilot and flight attendants when you get off the plane. No matter how routine aerial flight has become, there’s nothing truly routine about shepherding a hunk of metal through the sky and bringing it safely down to earth. It’s really a stunning, gratifying accomplishment.

There are lots of wondrous gifts like that “hidden” in ordinary life. Let “thank you” serve as a magical incantation that materializes their reality right before your eyes.

Write Thank You Notes Early and Often

“He who acknowledges a kindness has it still, and he who has a grateful sense of it has requited it.” –Cicero

Saying thank you is a worthy gesture, but sometimes when someone does go above and beyond for you (and when you have modest, humble expectations, this happens quite a lot!), a verbal acknowledgment of your gratitude is simply not enough. You ought to put your gratitude in writing.

Penning thank you notes enhances the power of gratitude for both the writer and the recipient; the former benefits from the effect of putting nebulous thoughts to paper, while the latter enjoys a gesture of appreciation, which, because it requires more effort than an oral “Thanks!”, carries more meaning. Indeed, thank you notes are incredibly impactful, because they are so relatively rare.

A quarter-century ago, a middle-aged pastor and writer named William Stidger was reflecting on his gratitude for a teacher he had in his youth who’d introduced him to great literature and sparked a love for the written word that had helped prepare him for his future vocations. Realizing he had never thanked her for the way she had touched his life, he decided to “atone” for this omission, and that very night penned her a handwritten letter of thanks.

Just a few days later, he received a reply; written in shaky scrawl, it read:

“My Dear Willie,

I am now an old lady in my 80’s, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely and seemingly like the last leaf of fall left behind. You will be interested to know, Willie, that I taught school for 50 years and, in all that time, yours is the first note of appreciation I ever received. It came on a blue, cold morning, and it cheered my lonely old heart as nothing has cheered me in many years.”

Thank you notes ought to be written whenever someone does something that especially warms your heart. They can be penned to recognize kindnesses both big and small. They can be written in response to someone’s specific, significant act, or upon reaching a realization of how an accumulation of their little gestures has influenced your life for good. Write them to your family members and friends, to both supervisors and subordinates, to service people who will be surprised you even recognize their work. Write them to people you know well, and to strangers – authors, musicians, athletes, politicians, pastors – who you don’t know personally, but have impacted your life. Write them to anyone and everyone who has ever made your life easier, safer, healthier, more interesting, more joyful.

So too, write thank you notes not only in the form of an immediate response to a service or gift, but as a follow-up months or years later; e.g., “I was thinking today of how amazing our trip was last summer, and wanted to thank you again for showing me such a good time.” “Three years after you gave me that piece of advice, I want you to know the impact it’s continued to have on my life.”

Remember to remember.

Serve

“The service we render to others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth. It is obvious that man is himself a traveler; that the purpose of this world is not ‘to have and to hold’ but ‘to give and serve.’ There can be no other meaning.” –Sir Wilfred Grenfell

“We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.” –Seneca

One of the greatest ways to express gratitude is to not just thank others for what they’ve given to you, but to try to pay it forward by striving to give back to the world. Service is in fact a spiritual discipline in and of itself, and springs from the conviction that in light of all you’ve been blessed with, how else could you respond? You’ve taken from the pot of the universe, and thus feel moved to put something back in.

Service is the attempt to meet the physical, emotional, relational, and/or financial needs of others. Or as Adele A. Calhoun puts it: “Service is a way of offering resources, time, treasure, influence, and expertise for the care, protection, justice, and nurture of others.”

Service can take bigger and more structured forms: volunteering to be a Big Brother, or to staff a soup kitchen, or to build houses, but it’s also needed in smaller, more sporadic doses: providing someone with rides to church or doctors’ appointments, cleaning up an elderly woman’s yard, shoveling snow for a disabled neighbor, fixing someone’s faucet.

Service can take more obvious forms, as well as manifest in acts we may not think of as acts of service, but decidedly are. In Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster lists several examples in this vein:

“Guarding the reputation of others is a deep and lasting service.”

“There is the service of being served.”

“There is the service of common courtesy.”

“There is the service of hospitality.”

“There is the service of listening.”

To find the service you were called to do, seek to match your personal gifts with the world’s needs; in fact, you can best show gratitude for the gifts you’ve been bestowed, by using them not only to benefit your own life but the lives of others. Everyone’s talents are needed in some way; as Paul says in the New Testament, communities are like physical bodies, and each part has a role to play. If you have a more “showy” gift for, say, singing, or teaching, or speaking, that’s great. But if you’re adept as administration, or budgeting, or organizing — at working behind the scenes — your service is just as valuable. Everyone has an important personal ministry to fulfill.

If you’re not sure what that ministry is, just jump in anywhere and experiment with offering your help in different areas. As Donald S. Whitney notes, “the best way to discover and confirm which spiritual gift is yours is through serving.”

Keep in mind that even when your service is aligned with your gifts, it won’t always be easy and will quite often be difficult. It’s called a discipline for a reason.

Ironically enough, one of the hardest parts of engaging in gratitude-driven service, is not feeling appreciated for your efforts! Even though you may seek to lead a life of thankfulness, doesn’t mean that everyone will return the favor. The ego naturally cries out against laboring in the absence of affirmation, recognition, status. You have to have the courage to face ingratitude, and to serve not for any credit, but simply because it’s the right thing to do. As Seneca says, “It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give.”

One way to stay motivated to perform unheralded acts of service is to remember that, as Foster observes, your act isn’t “only for the sake of the person served”:

“Hidden, anonymous ministries affect even people who know nothing of them. They sense a deeper love and compassion among people though they cannot account for the feeling. If a secret service is done on their behalf, they are inspired to deeper devotion, for they know that the well of service is far deeper than they can see. It is a ministry that can be engaged in frequently by all people. It sends ripples of joy and celebration through any community of people.”

Service is also difficult because it can be so dull, so lowly; it insults our sense of ourselves as made for only interesting, important work. As Foster observes:

“In some ways we would prefer to hear Jesus’ call to deny father and mother, houses and land for the sake of the gospel than his word to wash feet. Radical self-denial gives the feel of adventure… . But in service we must experience the many little deaths of going beyond ourselves. Service banishes us to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial.”

Despite these obstacles to living the spiritual discipline of service, its pursuit is incredibly worthwhile. While the other disciplines can turn our gaze inward, service defeats our “morbid self-consciousness,” and moves us to look beyond ourselves. Nothing else “matures” the soul in the same way. As Foster argues:

“Of all the classical Spiritual Disciplines, service is the most conducive to the growth of humility. When we set out on a consciously chosen course of action that accents the good of others and is, for the most part, a hidden work, a deep change occurs in our spirits.”

In losing your life in the service of others, you truly do find it.

Series Conclusion

“It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence. In days of peace the solider performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil. If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.” –Seneca

“It is only since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment that the Christian West made ‘belief’—the acceptance of certain creedal propositions—‘the first postulate’ of religious life. In the West, we have developed a culture that is rational, scientific, and pragmatic; we feel obliged to satisfy ourselves that a proposition is true before we base our lives upon it, and to establish a principle to our satisfaction before we apply it. In the premodern period, however, in all the major world faiths, the main emphasis was not on belief but on behavior. First, you changed your lifestyle and only then could you experience God, Nirvana, Brahman, or the Dao as a living reality.” –Patrick Leigh Fermor

We began this series by exploring the way that training the soul is very similar to training the body. Just like the physical body, spiritual muscles will atrophy if they aren’t regularly, purposely exercised, and such exercise requires effort, pain, discipline. Just like building physical strength improves your day-to-day life, while also preparing you for emergencies, developing spiritual strength expands the possibilities of ordinary existence, while also ensuring you’re ready to grapple with serious moral issues and temptations.

Just like physical training too, with its libraries of different exercises, and the commitment required to perform them, you may be intimidated by the idea of starting a spiritual training program. We’ve covered eight disciplines in this series, and that’s only a portion of all those that exist. Even just incorporating these eight alone into your daily life may seem like a daunting prospect.

But there’s plenty of good news on this score to put your mind at ease.

First, several disciplines act as a “containers” for others, and several can be done at the same time. For example, while you experience a space of solitude and silence, you can also be fasting, and you can use the time to study or practice self-examination (which includes gratitude) as well; in other words, in only 10-20 minutes a day, you can legitimately practice 4 or 5 spiritual disciplines at the same time. The disciplines can also often be practiced without changing your schedule at all; turn off your car stereo, and your commute to work becomes a time of solitude and silence, in which you can reflect on what you’re grateful for, or work your way through the examen. Training the soul is as simple and accessible as utilizing the many possibilities in spare moments.  

Keep in mind as well, that disciplines like gratitude and simplicity do not always need to be trained in specially set-aside sessions, but rather can be exercised in the small decisions you make throughout the day.

Additionally, while each spiritual discipline should be included in your life in some form, they don’t all have to be given the same time and attention. There are likely some that come more naturally to you, and some that are more of a struggle and which need more work. Maybe you’re a naturally grateful person, who loves to serve others, but you struggle with making time to be alone. Maybe you’re diligent about studying the scriptures, but never turn that lens on yourself. Maybe you’re good at working towards almost all the disciplines at once – but struggle with simplicity!

Pay attention not only to what disciplines you feel a lack of in your life, but those you feel magnetically drawn to. These desires can be important signposts. Engaging in these disciplines more deeply may unlock something vital about your gifts and potential, and help crystallize your life’s purpose.

Know that it’s better not to get crazy excited about a discipline, plunge into it hardcore for a week, and then abandon it all together, then it is to aim for slow and steady progress. While it’s good to approach the disciplines with passion and excitement, realize that the excitement you feel will fade, and ebb and flow. Just like there are days you are more or less enthused about hitting the gym, sometimes you’ll be more and or less eager to practice the spiritual disciplines. Just like there are physical workouts that feel harder and easier to get through, expect to find that some sessions with the spiritual disciplines are deeply engrossing and nourishing, while others feel dry and unfruitful. Rather than feeling that resistance means you’re on the wrong track, or are just an undisciplined person who isn’t cut out for these practices, remember that friction is both natural and healthy; whether you’re lifting tangible or metaphorical weights, it’s during the “grind” that you get stronger. Make your commitment to the practice of the spiritual disciplines something that’s clear in both head and heart, and based more on regular habit than mood.

Finally, when your motivation flags, remind yourself that liberation comes through discipline. There are two kinds of freedom in this world: freedom from, and freedom to. When you do hard things – and living strenuously applies to physical, mental, and spiritual pursuits alike – you lose the freedom to follow the status quo, blindly follow your desires, and live an easy, mindless life; but you gain the freedom to master your lower impulses, reach for higher ideals, agilely navigate challenges, and access dimensions of existence that are hidden from the average man’s view.

Train for strength: Strength in body. Strength in mind, Strength in soul.

Series’ Selected Sources and Further Reading

Read the Other Articles in the Series

An Introduction 
Study & Self-Examination 
Solitude & Silence
Simplicity 
Fasting
Gratitude

General Overview of the Spiritual Disciplines

Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster

Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney

Spiritual Disciplines Handbook by Adele A. Calhoun

Study and Self-Examination

The Jesuits Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life by James Martin, SJ

Silence and Solitude

Solitude: A Philosophical Encounter by Philip Koch

A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton

Simplicity

The Simple Life by Charles Wagner

Fasting

Fasting: Spiritual Freedom Beyond Our Appetites by Lynne M. Baab

The Sacred Art of Fasting by Thomas Ryan, CSP

Gratitude

Gratitude Works! By Robert A. Emmons

The post The Spiritual Disciplines: Gratitude appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

The Spiritual Disciplines: Gratitude published first on http://ift.tt/2jYeuRS

The Importance of Good Manners

Editor’s note: The following essay — “The Fine Art of Living Together” by Bentley Bates — comes from The Boy’s Own Book of Leadership, published in 1933.  

A heap of fellows think manners don’t amount to much. They have an idea it is sort of sissy to be polite. They’re not using their heads. Just as oil makes an engine run more quietly and easily and efficiently, so do manners make your life and the lives of the folks with whom you come in contact run more quietly and pleasantly and efficiently. Good manners are a mighty valuable asset that anybody can have cheaply.

“There is something which you owe to everybody and which has no exact date when it must be paid, because it is due every minute and second of your life. You owe courtesy to the strangest people. Actually, you owe it to your brother and sister. It doesn’t seem possible, but you do. And you owe it to your father and mother. You owe it the ash man and to washwoman. You owe it to the President of the United States and to the blind man who tries to sell you a lead pencil on the street corner. When you were born you gave the whole world a promissory note payable in courtesy, and you have to make it good every second of your life until you die. Do you know why people loved Abraham Lincoln so much? It was because he never forgot that he was paying his courtesy note,” says The American Boy.

A certain Harvard professor, in instructing a class in good writing, said to them: “To write well you must first think of your subject; second, think of the people you are writing to; and last, think of yourself.” These same simple rules may easily be made effective rules for a boy’s manners also. First, think of the demands of true sympathy and kindness; second, think of the person you are addressing; and last, think of what is owing to yourself, for the real secret of good manners is a kind heart.

The story is told of a certain office boy who kept a whole, big, busy office happy and agreeable and kindly disposed toward one another by his habits of courtesy and good will. One day the boss wheeled suddenly in his big chair and said: “Bennie, who on earth taught you to be so polite? You often make me ashamed of myself.”

Bennie smiled, grinned from ear to ear, stood on one foot a bit abashed, and then with a sudden inspiration replied:

“Well, sir, Mother is polite, Dad is polite, and — and oh, I guess I just caught it from them.”

Nothing in the world is so “catching” as good manners.

One of the surest of all tests of character is one’s manners. You do not need to know a boy intimately to judge him accurately. All you need to do is to watch him a bit in action; such as playing a game. If he is kind and sympathetic, if he is manly and honest and considerate, he will show these very qualities all over and over again in every game. Every boy at play is a walking advertisement of what he really is inside, and nothing is so difficult to successfully camouflage as bad manners, for they will show themselves at the most unexpected times and places. Manners, after all, are but the outside expression of what you are inside, and what you are inside will get out like the proverbial cat that is always coming forth just at the moment you want him kept out of sight.

The value of good manners can scarcely be overestimated. Roosevelt once wrote to his son, “My boy, study to be courteous.” There is a pleasant and an unpleasant way to perform all the little duties of life. There is a fortunate and an unfortunate way of meeting folks, of rendering countless little services, of speaking, acting, thinking; therefore, study to be courteous in them all.

A young lawyer once asked an old and successful judge how he might improve his individuality and power.

The old judge replied like a shot – “Constantly examine your manners.”

“Gentle manners bring to their possessor an influence which, though quietly exerted, is a power for usefulness in the world. In business, all transactions are helped by politeness; many men fail in life because their manner does not make a good impression, because their curtness and lack of good breeding repel others,” some one has well said, and Dr. Weir Mitchell adds: “Good manners, tact, patience – these characteristics often assist men to win who are really inferior to some who, for want of these very qualities, miss the place they would otherwise attain.”

The post The Importance of Good Manners appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

The Importance of Good Manners published first on http://ift.tt/2jYeuRS

How to Build a Cozy Fireplace Fire (That Won’t Get Smoky)

As the holidays draw near and the coldest days of the year start trickling in, the idea of warming up by the crackling flames of a picture-perfect fire is too alluring to ignore. But without the right preparation, that ideal fire can turn into a room full of smoke accompanied by nothing more than a few wispy flames. A fireplace fire operates differently than your typical campfire, so it makes sense that building one should require a few tweaks to your standard procedure.

With indoor fires, it’s especially important to start with well-seasoned wood that won’t smoke you out of your living room. Along with good wood, you can help reduce smoke by using an upside down fire-building technique. With kindling on top and large logs on the bottom, the flames won’t pass through cold wood, which only increases smoke production. The right technique and a few preparation tricks can go a long way to making your next cozy fire worthy of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Like this illustrated guide? Then you’re going to love our book The Illustrated Art of Manliness! Pick up a copy on Amazon.

Illustrated by Ted Slampyak

The post How to Build a Cozy Fireplace Fire (That Won’t Get Smoky) appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

How to Build a Cozy Fireplace Fire (That Won’t Get Smoky) published first on http://ift.tt/2jYeuRS

A Training Program for Single-Tasking & Focus

By Leo Babauta

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I heartily believe in giving your full focus to one task at a time. Single-tasking and focus are at the heart of my productivity method.

Pick one important task, and give it your entire focus. Finish that (or at least a chunk that you choose to work on right now), and then do the same with the next task. There’s simply no better way to get things done, one important task at a time. Even small tasks benefit from single-tasking with focus.

But knowing this and actually doing it are two different things. There are lots of things we know we should do, but putting them into practice, and being consistent about it, are simply much harder.

I think the answer is in intentional training.

We aren’t good at doing things we know we should do. That’s obvious. But how do we get better? By not trying? By trying, failing, and then not learning from the failure but instead being critical of ourselves about failing? Most of us just keep repeating the same mistakes, don’t get better, and don’t understand why we can’t get better.

So what if we trained ourselves to get better?

There are a number of important ideas in training that we can use to get better at single-tasking and focusing:

1. Train in small doses to start with.
2. Train at the easy level, and only progress with mastery.
3. Train repeatedly, as perfectly as you can.
4. Use the failure as feedback, and adjust.
5. Vary the training.
6. Practice regularly, instead of allowing yourself to forget.
7. Focus on micro skills — instead of training your entire baseball swing, focus on one part at a time.

With those ideas, we’re going to train ourselves to get better at single-tasking with full focus.

The Focus Training Method

First, ask yourself whether this is important enough to train yourself in. Do you really care about finding focus, or is everything fine as it is? If it’s not fine, what difficulty does it cause you? Is it worth it to train yourself to relieve that difficulty? Do you care deeply about this? Remember that as you practice and feel like skipping the training.

Now here’s the training method I recommend:

1. Set yourself to train in 5-10 minute bursts, 2-5 times a day, every day. There is a temptation to train for an hour, or 30 minutes, because 5-10 minutes seems silly. But we’re not attempting a marathon just yet — we want to train ourselves before we attempt a marathon. So set your practice for 5-10 minute intervals of full focus, then 5 minutes of break, then another interval, and so on. Let two of these short sessions a day be your minimum, even on weekends or when you’re traveling.
2. Train at the easy level, don’t start with hard tasks. If writing your book is such a hard task that you really dread doing it, don’t start with that. Or maybe it’s doing your taxes/finances, or writing a difficult report or letter. Instead, start with easier tasks that won’t cause you to panic or totally dread doing it. You can work your way up to the hard tasks after a week or two, and when you do, just start in small doses (5-10 minutes).
3. Use any failures as really important feedback for adjustment. If you get distracted or pulled away from the task, that’s completely OK — the only failure is the failure to learn from your mistakes. Failure is actually super important for training — if you’re not failing, you’re probably not pushing yourself into new learning. Failure is how we get better in training — notice what went wrong, and figure out how to adjust. Every time you mess up, think of this as a big golden opportunity, and relish the idea of reviewing what happened, and seeing how you can adjust and improve. Distracted by Facebook? Block it. Disconnect from the Internet. Give your spouse the wireless router. Tell people on Facebook you won’t be on Facebook until 5pm each day. Figure out what you need to do, and adjust.
4. Mix up the training. There’s value in repeated training, but studies have shown that we learn best when we vary the training. Try to focus for 5 minutes one session, then 10 minutes the next. Try to focus on writing in one session, then reading in another, then writing an important email in a third session. Keep the difficulty level about the same, but mix up the tasks and even the micro skills you practice.
5. Focus on 2-3 micro skills at a time (see below). Each practice session, just focus on a couple micro skills. Then mix it up in the next practice session. Eventually you’ll get so good at certain micro skills that you don’t need to think about them, they’ll just be easy. Then you can move on to others.

You can lengthen the training sessions (but no need to alter the number of sesions for awhile) as you get better at the training, and start to master the micro skills below. Don’t be in a rush to lengthen the training, but when you do, just add 5 minutes to the session.

So you might start with 5-10 minute sessions, then after a couple weeks, try 10-15 minute sessions, an so on. I wouldn’t recommend going longer than 30 minutes unless you do work that requires you to keep everything in your head (a complex mental model) and taking breaks is actually detrimental to the task.

The Micro Skills

There are lots of micro skills you can practice, and you’ll find some of your own as you adjust your practice based on mistakes and continued learning (blocking Facebook when needed, for example).

But here are some that I recommend practicing:

1. Pick several important tasks to work on today. Each morning, or maybe even better the night before, you can pick three important tasks to focus on for the day (or the next day). What tasks will move the needle on your important projects, or important areas in your life? You might have a million to do, but just pick three. You can always pick three more if you finish those early.
2. Pick one of those important tasks. In the morning, pick on of your three important tasks to focus on first. Yes, they’re all important. But you’ll get to the others later — for now, you can only do one. Pick one and focus on that. Btw, after you finish your three important tasks, you can decide to focus on smaller tasks (like answering email, paying bills, replying to messages, etc.) for half an hour or whatever you need. They’re valid things to use for your focus training sessions.
3. Set yourself to do that task with focus. That means decide that you’re going to do nothing but focus on this task. You’re going to use it as a practice session. You might set a timer. You’re going to practice the micro skills in this section with this task, consciously, and not switch.
4. Clear a space and make this feel important. That means clear a physical space (however clear you can get it in a minute or so) and clear your computer of whatever you don’t need. Turn off your phone. See this as a really important training session, worth using up some of your life instead of just a mindless task to get through.
5. Set an intention. As you get started, set an intention for how you want to practice. Examples: “I want to be fully present as I read this article,” or “I want to practice focus deliberately as I write for 10 minutes,” or “I am going to do this task with love in my heart for the people I’m serving.” The intention is a way to remind yourself of the way you want to show up for this focus session.
6. Have only the tools you need open. That means closing all apps. Turning off your phone. You don’t need a million things open to do this task. There’s just you and your yoga mat. Just you and your writing app. Just you and your book.
7. Notice your urge to put it off. When you choose a task to focus on, you will often have an urge to put off starting. Notice this urge, and pay close attention to how it feels. It’s an urge, a moment of uncertainty and discomfort, and temptation to do something easier or more certain. It’s nothing you can’t handle, and not a reason to run. Stay with your task instead of switching to something else, and stay with how the urge feels in your body.
8. Stay with it for just 5 minutes. Focus with complete devotion to this task for 5 minutes. You can lengthen to 10 or 15 minutes after mastering the 5-minute session.
9. Watch your urge to switch. As you do your focus session, at different times you’ll often feel an urge to switch. You don’t need to switch just because you have the urge. Sit with the uge, meditating on how it feels, staying with it as you did with the urge to put off the task (No. 7 above). Let the urge get really strong, and realize that it’s nothing to be afraid of, nothing you need to run away from.
10. *Take a short break, and then mindfully come back. Try setting a timer for your focus session, then when it goes off, set another 5-minute timer and take a break. Then come back to the task and do another focus session. You don’t have to do this every time, but it is a micro skill to practice.
11. Mindfully immerse yourself in the task. As you do the task, try to be fully immersed in it, having your mind fully in the task, and/or the physcial sensations you feel as you do the task. This means noticing when your mind is wandering, and coming back. There’s nothing but you, your body, and this task.
12. Find gratitude when you finish (as well as during). As you’re doing the task, you can feel gratitude that you’re able to do it. Gratitude for being alive, for being able to serve someone you care about by doing this task, for your growth as you practice focus. And as you finish your session, you can feel gratitude that you were able to focus (even if only for a little while), and that you furthered along your task (or finished it). Amazing!

These are some of the micro skills that I’ve found important to practice. After years of working on these skills, I can confidently say that I’m much better at them, though there are times when I need to remind myself to practice, of course.

Is focus and single-tasking something you want to get better at? Is it important to you? Will it serve you and the people you serve? Then set yourself to a training plan today!

Invites to My Habit Zen Web App

I’m opening my Habit Zen web app, designed to help you track and create new habits, to 2,000 new users in the next week or two. It’s free, just fill out this form:

Habit Zen Invite Form

We’ve been working hard to make the app better, and more improvements are coming soon!

A Training Program for Single-Tasking & Focus published first on http://ift.tt/2jYeuRS