Hello, and welcome to the next lecture in the course, a gratitude adjustment, you do have a choice and power to change your attitude. And so this one discusses that gratitude is a choice. If you haven't cultivated practice, you have to have a choice in the matter and so you do have the power to change your attitude in any situation. And once again, that's a difficult one sometimes to absorb. But gratitude requires a cultivated practice and courage in challenging situations. Just like gratitude is a choice in good situations, and it comes down to how we choose to see a situation.

Now gratitude has obvious benefits, and one can have a strong gratitude for genuine blessings. But like many things, I almost think there should be a separate word for gratitude in tough times, compared to gratitude for good things. For example, when you recover from an illness, get it new job and reconnect with an old friend all in one day. Now that's a good day right there. But what about the some when someone you love dies? I mean, that's, that's difficult.

What about when you're having health problems and you don't know what, when or how or if you'll recover from them? What about when you have a difficult low paying job with a bad boss or worse, no job at all. Gratitude and challenges should have its own word, much like you cannot have courage without the presence of fear within yourself. You cannot have faith without the lack of evidence of possibility that doubt can occur and that things won't work out. And so I don't think you can have the opposite in its truest form, unless the potential bad thing is there that exists as well. And so it's how we choose to look at it that makes it real.

And so some would argue that a person who experiences and feels no fear has courage, sort of but not really fortitude is a choice that requires having to deal with difficulty and pain or fear. Faith requires the possibility that you experience doubt. It requires circumstances that cannot be proven. What would you need to have faith to believe in God if he or she had irrefutably revealed himself in his full identity to humanity, a believer in a deity stands on faith that there is a God who loves us, looks over us and remains sovereign even in extremely trying difficulties. And so courage requires a person to take a leap of faith when their fists are clenched and shaking when they're scared and when their knees are buckling. And when a man or woman wants to approach someone, for example that they like, and they know they can be rejected, that is when they choose to walk up and say hello, anyway, that's courage.

And when a fireman runs into a burning building, knowing that his skin could be burned in agony, and he could die, he runs in any way because His fear instinct is at work, but because of his desire to save another human being it overrides the urge to stand outside and preserve himself first. That is courage. And gratitude takes courage if he didn't feel that fear in that situation, I would question his sanity, but it takes courage and gratitude is the same. It's a choice to look at the good, the blessings, the benefits, and even in a difficult and painful situation to do that. And so the practice of gratitude is a choice is not different than courage or faith. Gratitude is a choice made in spite of difficulties.

It doesn't turn a blind eye to them, it just finds the good in them and in spite of them, and so likewise a person in difficult trials can be thankful in spite of those trials. And so this can be a difficult concept like I say a to accept at first understandably, and so some people are not ready to be thankful in difficult situations that is perfectly understandable. So start gradually. There is always something in a situation that is good or merciful. Even in bad situations, we can often have good outcomes. And even during difficult times, there's always something else that's going on.

That's a blessing, a mercy or a relief. And so gratitude is a choice that is cultivated regardless of circumstances, you can choose to find the good in a difficult situation, and to see the good that is already in your life. Most people experience both good and bad at the same time in different areas of their lives. And so it's everyone has the power to choose how they see both, even though the experience may be difficult and emotional. This requires practice and creativity. But when one area of a person's life is a sinking ship, and another isn't that other area of one's life can be a retreat from that difficulty and that can be something to be grateful for.

Sometimes one less thing that a person has to deal with can be blessing, even acknowledging those mercies consciously can bring relief and is a form of gratitude. And so gratitude is not always lifting one's hands to heaven and rejoicing. But sometimes it's a quiet prayer of thanks, or acknowledging those little things in a difficult moment or a difficult year in some cases, and so like courage and faith, it's not our first instinct to do this in a difficult situation, not for most people. But this is when the choice needs to be made. And gratitude can be cultivated, and there are 101 ways to do it. Pick one, just be creative with it.

Find something positive that makes you remember the good in a situation there's not a right or wrong way to do it. And even if it's something else that's not directly related to the situation dwell on that your skin and bones may say no, but your choice can override that feeling. And you can acknowledge I don't feel like doing this, but I choose to do it anyway. You know, that's what makes us humans. Instead of a Animals free will, based on reason and choice. Animals can make choices though the majority of those choices are based on instinct.

Animals often display what we would consider human choices. But humans can override instincts when we know that those instincts will not serve our best interests or spiritual lives. And so that is when gratitude becomes a choice that goes against what the emotions or the flesh want. And that is usually the time when a gratitude is adjustment is needed the most and when you will benefit the most. And so, that is ironic, but when you resist it the most is when you need to do it the most. And so, that is a little bit about how gratitude is a cultivated practice.

It's a choice. And so in the next lecture, we're going to talk more about how gratitude is actually cultivated. And so I'll see you in the next lecture.