Overcoming Apathy With Eyes of Adventure

Description

A technique that has helped students to overcome apathy, lack of motivation, or feelings of laziness. This is a method to recondition our perception of the world so that it once again looks amazing, mysterious, and full of adventure.

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Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods,adventure

Video Transcription

young man wrote in to me a couple of months ago and he was talking about something that I think all of us experience once in a while in our lives and I'm gonna use the word apathy even though that's a strong word and I think you'll find that this video will apply to you even if you sometimes just suffer from a little bit of a lack of motivation he was explaining a situation where he he was watching some of the videos that I put out and he was excited about you wanted to get in better shape get outside practice some of these skills but he was feeling stuck in his basement you playing video games and just couldn't get himself out of that situation it can be described as as just being lazy and not being able to overcome that not being motivated for some of us we'd use that word apathy to me this is something to take seriously apathy is the gateway into depression sometimes and it's robbing us of this rich rich world that we could be experiencing this feeling isn't friendly we know we want to move we know we want to explore our adventure we just can't like seem to pull ourselves up out of that pit and what I'm going to share today is a technique that's worked for a lot of students and hopefully you'll find some value in it too the first thing to realize is that you can get out of this state it's a temporary state and by making a switch in our mind we can get ourselves out of it but here's the danger of it is that it starts to make us believe that this world is boring is grey lustreless and not worth experiencing so why leave the house why not just stay home and watch movies that give us that that quick hi instead of going out into this gray boring world here's the key thing to remember it's not the world that's become boring it's the way we're thinking about the world so if we can switch the way that we think about the world then this world can start to look amazing again so here's how this technique works you start to go outside and you can do this if you're in the city during the suburbs you know when I take you around here I have I'm really blessed to have all kinds of cool things around me that can inspire this technique what you do too they might be just a little bit more difficult to find but I'll help you out with that so what we do is we look around at the world and we see places where there is adventure and I like to think in any moment in my environment there is there's an easy path that I can walk along the comfortable path and you're probably understanding i'm not just talking about a physical path i can walk from my house to my car and if i'm going to work drive straight to work what I'm talking about mental paths that we tread as well where I try not to deviate from looking if the things are really comfortable for me so I look out around me and I see that there's well-worn paths and for me on the farm here there's a path that I take down to the yard there's a path that I take up to my neighbors there's a path that I go down further to the farm or up to the teepees but right off of those paths adventure is waiting for me come along and I'll show you what I mean here's this awesome tree I look out at this tree a lot because it makes me want to be a squirrel and I see all these branches like I could go up and go treat a tree but because I'm a little iffy about Heights I don't do it right okay so here is an adventure that's right outside my door and it's just waiting for me so every time I look outside my window I can see this tree and I see Wow there is an adventure that I haven't taken on yet here are bird feeders right outside my door again and at other times in my life I've put in the time to get these birds to feed out of my hands but right now these ones that are a little bit too shy of me but I know that if I put in that time I could be sitting out here with these birds and have them landing on my head on my shoulders in my hands and that would be completely amazing this trampoline is right outside my door backflip no problem backflip onto the ground i'm too chicken you would think i could do the human flat right but i'm still working on it I don't have it here's a physical challenge again waiting just a few steps off my normal path and it's a challenge that I haven't yet conquered see this pond behind me I could swim across a pond the ice the cold all the weeds the muck I'm just feeling a little resistance to that at the moment again there's an adventure waiting for me a little too intense for what I want right now over here this is on the neighbor's land I don't know what's at the top of that hill I've heard rumors legends about caves and other interesting things but it would be trespassing and I haven't yet asked the owner so there's another adventure right off my path this is my neighbor's house I am certainly not going to climb up to the top of her rough and walk across the top Ridge no way one danger of this exercise is that if you don't do it correctly get you a little depressed thinking wow there's all this stuff out here and still I'm just sitting on my couch so here's the thing if you notice when I went around and I started observing the world with eyes of adventure I chose some things that were like that last one walking across the top of that house no thanks one slip bien others swimming across that pond yeah I can I could maybe do that one right if I psych myself up for it the backflip onto the ground I pretty much know that I can do probably a standing backflip right here but of a mental block to write the human flag I just need to keep conditioning myself and building muscle and technique until I can get that down so it chosen some things that are attainable others that are no way and what that does is it gives me a view of the world that realizes that there's adventure everywhere it is waiting right off the beaten path of my usual routes through life and if I'm stuck on the couch I do need an initial willpower burst right I need to get myself up go outside but then if I start using this technique put a smile on your face if you have to force it it at first just try it put a smile on your face and try to pick one thing and look at it with curiosity a tree could you climb that tree urine you live in the city that that strange restaurant down the way that you can see from your apartment what would happen if you went and you tried it out there's some adventure you don't necessarily have to do it you just have to look around you and see with the world is full of adventure and the more we do this and condition ourselves to see this world full of adventure the more difficult it becomes to just stay inside and watch a movie or do the standard thing I know this answer is not for everybody apathy is not an easy place to get out of so this is not to say that it's all in our heads when I say that what I mean is that there's two ways we can say it's all in our heads we can say it like belittling you saying it's all in your head come on get out of it no I know it can be really really tough but it is all in our heads in a different sense and that is the sense that we have the power if we can find it to break ourselves out of that cycle of apathy or lack of motivation I promise you there's an amazing world waiting for all of us out there it's just outside the beaten paths physical and mental that we usually walk and you have the power inside of yourself to break that cycle to get out and just start doing some things you're really passionate about go for it I know you can do it this technique has a lot of power if you use it correctly well see the adventurous world around you and let me know in the comments if you give it a try your experiences with it anything else you'd like to share about your experiences with lack of motivation apathy how you got out of it thank you for sharing as always