Daily Gratitude Habit Is Easier Than You Think

I’m grateful for the amazing bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables this year!

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A study by Dr. Michael McCollough, of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and Dr. Robert Emmons, of the University of California at Davis, in which several hundred people kept a daily log of things they were grateful for, concluded that “daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy.”

At first, listing what you’re grateful for daily could appear to be yet another task you won’t get to. Tim Ferriss points out that “gratitude training” is the way to go, to make counting your blessings as routine as doing sit ups (or perhaps more routine for some!)

So here is a real-world example of how, if you break it down to the tiny things, you really can find things to be grateful for:

• I’m grateful for the nice evening light that caused me to open the curtains.
• I’m grateful my food is taking so long to cook, we settled on the couch to watch the DNC on tv.
• I’m grateful for my sense of humor that made me point out a man standing across the street, jokingly saying he was looking into the house.
• I’m grateful my friend had the presence of mind to shout out “I think he’s giving me a ticket!”
• I’m grateful that the parking person kindly let us off the hook. (It was a bizarre unobvious red zone in front of a stairway.)

In the September 2008 O Magazine, Oprah gives some good examples from her own gratitude journal:
“I am grateful for my breath and the recognition that I am here alive. Breathing. I am grateful for life. And for this time alone.”

OK a little deeper than my examples. But see how easy it is to find things to be grateful for?

Getting in the Gratitude Habit

What better use of Twitter, or status messages on your social networks, than to blast what you’re feeling grateful for? I know I know…there are better uses but it’s a good one!

A bunch of people have goals on SuperViva to feel more grateful or to start a gratitude journal.

The idea of seeing thousands of things I’m grateful for compiled does seem amazing. For now, I will at least continue counting my blessings to fall asleep. Sheep are so last millennium.

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La Tomatina Tomato Fight - World’s Biggest Food Fight

Joining into the seedy, slithery, tomatoey fun at La Tomatina in Spain was on my life list after I discovered the event last year.

At some point during the year I’d moved this goal to my “backburner.”

But only again after seeing this YouTube video did I come to terms with the fact that going to La Tomatina is really one of my TOP experience goals. I mean, as a tomato loving, Spanish speaking Europhile, how could it not be?

And THAT is why a “backburner” is good, rather than completely deleting goals from your list. It’s a place to stash away the “someday, maybes” as David Allen calls them. I’m glad to have realized that La Tomatina is a “someday soon, definitely!”

In fact at one time, Lisa Peake of Davidco also noted the backburner as being a neato aspect of SuperViva.

Do you want to go in 2009?

Perhaps we can get together a SuperViva tomato extravaganza!

Better yet if you’re clever enough to find a great last minute fare, well….

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Dreaming of Being a Blue Man ?

If you’re watched one too many Arrested Development episodes where Tobias dresses up in Blue Man paint, perhaps you’re wondering how and if you too can become a Blue Man!

Well NPR recently featured a story on how to audition for the Blue Man Group.

Be the first to add this goal to your life list and apply on the Blue Man Group Casting website!

According to their site: “The dream of being a Blue Man may be no further than your willingness and desire to take a chance.”

Please send pics.

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A Goal to be a Movie Extra Achieved! Completely Randomly.

The phone rings at 3pm on Tuesday. “Want to be an extra in a Danny Glover movie?” my friend asks. “Can you be at the African American Art and Culture Complex in San Francisco by 5:30?”

Considering I had a goal to be an extra in a movie on my life list, I didn’t have to think twice.

While filming for the Harimaya Bridge is near completion, on this day they were filming a scene which will appear near the beginning of the film. It’s fascinating how the film team can track every little scene, filmed out of sequence. Our job as extras was to be a concert audience. The Berkeley Youth Orchestra did a lovely job playing the original piece composed for the movie. Having sat in many a concert, I knew all the right moves for acting like an audience member, no matter how much I wanted to pull a Kramer-like move (ha ha).

Anyhoo, it turned out this day was Danny Glover’s birthday. The entire event was quite special for other reasons: Glover started acting at this very center as a teen as a good friend of co-star Ben Guillory. Now his daughter works at the center. The Director Aaron Woolfolk grew up in Oakland and I had the pleasure of sitting next to one of his relatives.

Peter Coyote also appears in this movie. As an old fan, I enjoyed seeing him live if only for a few lines.

It will be fun to see if I end up on the cutting room floor (or the digital trashcan). But I’m happy they allowed us to take pictures and videos as a great memoire.

The Most Glamorous Careers Require Tedious Work

As we sat around waiting for scenes which required participation by the extras, I commented to Chris that most jobs that seem glamorous often requires such painstaking detail to piece it together that, in reality, it is drudgery.

Namely advertising, online experiences, and movie making. All of these fields have producers who tend to the minutiae of every detail. The work needs to be done, and re-done repeatedly. You manage the creative process often in pieces with painstaking attention to detail.

Recently I achieved my goal of writing a screenplay and I learned about planning for props, thinking about all the film locations, and even what sound effects would be required. Phew!

These are truly productions in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

You Too Can Be an Extra in a Movie

Of course you need to add a goal to your life list to be an extra. Just by writing it down you’re more likely to make it happen. See all the various ideas on SuperViva.

Find Auditions - Sign up for free with Explore Talent

Not that I have all the secrets. But a few things you can do are:
1) Of course, be somewhere where movies are frequently made.
2) Subscribe to INFOLIST to learn about events and all kinds of movie industry related opportunities.
2) Check Craigslist under Gigs/Talent. You’ll often find film students needing extras. Then there’s events like the 48 Hour Film Project where you could be needed.
3) Stay tuned on SuperViva to receive an invitation to be an extra in my movie

I’m sure there are many Hollywood sites and publications that call for extras. Now go for it!

About Chris and My Fellow Extras

My friend Chris who invited me and most of the extras are members of the award-winning drum and bugle corp, The Renegades. I mention this because if you haven’t seen a drum and bugle corp made up of “grown ups” who participate in the band as a hobby (or maybe their work is the hobby, this is their life), give their videos a look.

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