The thing about exercise is that I just never understood it. I didn’t understand (and still don’t) why people would want to spend their lives chasing a ball or hitting and catching a ball. Sport seems so boring to me. I also didn’t know why people would ever want to get hot and sweaty. If there’s one thing that makes me extremely uncomfortable it has to be sweat and humidity.

When I think about exercise I think about that line out of Back To The Future III where Doc explains the future to people in the Wild West.

Doc: And in the future, we don’t need horses. We have motorized carriages called automobiles.
Saloon Old Timer #3 : If everybody’s got one of these auto-whatsits, does anybody walk or run anymore?
Doc : Of course we run. But for recreation. For fun.
Saloon Old Timer #3 : Run for fun? What the hell kind of fun is that?

My sentiments exactly, no kind of fun at all!

I was hoping to go my whole life being anti-exercise, or as long as practicable. I don’t buy into the notion that exercise influences weight and I know it’s probably 85% diet and only 15% exercise.

My husband talks to me about all the good endorphins he gets after a big cycle, but all I see is all the salt that has dried on his head after he has sweat buckets creating these endorphins. Better endorphins can be created in much more enjoyable ways!

But in October last year I decided the time had come for me to start exercising. This wasn’t the first time I had decided this by any means. I’ve had two gym memberships over the years. Both times I can safely say that the membership became just another card in my wallet. I didn’t know what to do at the gym, what equipment to use or how long to exercise for. My sporadic attempts didn’t build up enough momentum to allow time to see improvements and working out in a class full of people must have reminded me too much of school.

I’ve tried some at home gym equipment, including a treadmill and an elliptical trainer. One ended up on the verge I think and the other is waiting for me to get around to selling it. I’ve had a few workout dvds, including yoga and Zumba, but I quickly got bored and was frustrated at not seeing any significant improvements.

But in October I decided that my body was old for a 31 year old. My shoulders seemed too tight, my bones a bit too creaky and my limbs unforgivably flabby. So I decided I had to get serious and stop with all this “girly” exercise and instead get hard-core (for me at least). There was no point doing something just for fun. For one it wouldn’t be fun for long, and anything that fun probably wouldn’t give me decent results in a time frame I found favourable. I wanted variety, a challenge and some results.

So here I am, seven weeks into my P90X program, working out 6 days a week for about 75 minutes each day. For someone who considered themselves allergic to exercise, working out 6 days a week is an accomplishment in itself. It’s nearly a miracle. I would now consider working out a habit I’ve formed, even if some days I’d rather not do it. More amazing still is that I’m sweating buckets and not totally hating it. Perhaps my face is even showing more of a dewy freshness?

Do I now love exercise? No way. What about those endorphins? Nope, got none of those. Fresh air? Nup, I exercise inside.

So what then? Why do I keep doing it? Why do I even look forward to many of the days of the program?

The sense of accomplishment.

It’s hard for me to believe just how strong I’ve become. I can feel muscles everywhere, and the many days I’ve spent barely being able to walk or get up and down from the couch is certainly a testament to how hard I’ve been working.

Each week I can do more push-ups (normal, military, you name it), lift heavier weights, do more sit ups and go longer and harder in the cardio. My triceps are firming up so fast that I’ll never have to fear tuck-shop lady arms. My calves are rock hard and my thighs aren’t too far behind. My abs have a way to go but I know I’ll get there.

The real breakthrough was the other day when I decided to do a Zumba workout to mix it up and I realised that I barely broke a sweat nor did it even seem difficult to me. The sense of achievement was astounding.

Physical fitness is a real achievement for me because I’ve never had a natural skill nor affinity for exercise. I wouldn’t say I’m uncoordinated, because I do love to dance, but I’m the last person who does anything too out-doorsy or joins team sports.

By most reviews, the P90X program is considered quite challenging, and I did doubt whether I’d be capable. But the challenge and personal achievement possible is what has kept me going. As Tony Horton says about his AbRipper X workout, “I hate it, but I love it”. And that’s where I am now.

If you hate exercise like I do, don’t go for something fun, go for a sense of accomplishment. Whatever you dislike most, turn it around so that your focus is on achievement rather than fun and enjoyment. Push yourself to your limits and you just might find a new aspect of yourself, your personality and your capabilities that can add a new dimension to your life.

Related posts:

1. Meaning Experiment Interval Training Follow Up
2. A Sense of Accomplishment
3. Meaning Experiment of the Week Interval Training

On a daily basis we are encouraged to believe that we should be happy immediately and in all moments. There are a variety of gadgets and experiences you can buy that are advertised in such a way as to make you believe that instant happiness will result after you consume them. While you might feel happy for a time, it is rarely long lasting, and thus the cycle of buying continues.

As someone who has taught hundreds of teenagers, this misguided belief that we should be enjoying ourselves at all times in order to be happy, is rampant among our youth. As teachers we are at odds with what parents are doing at home; parents may be trying to provide their children with constant enjoyment and distraction since this is what their children demand and teachers are trying to encourage students to develop focus, discipline and thought in order to achieve goals and develop knowledge beyond their imaginings.

I certainly believe that part of our problem stems from the promise of religion. When times were different and life was a very physical struggle, the promise of an everlasting life where you had to do nothing but enjoy yourself with the people you loved must have sounded tantalising. When rest and relaxation didn’t exist for the working classes, a promise of eternal relaxation and joy might have been worth believing in.

But for me, the thought of sitting around in paradise for eternity is not at all enticing, in fact, it makes me want to scream. I mean honestly, how boring would it be? Doing nothing, all the time. Being reunited with the people you knew. What would you even have to talk about? What about the joys and challenges of meeting new people?

This belief that eternal enjoyment is desirable might have worked once upon a time to keep the dissent and unrest amongst the working class at a minimum. Now it’s become a matter of thinking we should have and deserve to have eternal enjoyment here and now.

In fact the real truth is that what we humans enjoy most of all is the feeling that comes with extending ourselves and accomplishing something worthwhile. It is a deep feeling that cannot be gained by spending a life lazing by a pool.

It usually takes me a school term to convince the majority of my students that a sense of accomplishment and the realisation of one’s potential is what life’s all about. A few will stubbornly resist, and that’s fine by me. My students don’t learn this by me telling them it is so. Under my direction, and often reluctantly, they start to turn their focus to working hard and achieving success. I set the path and guide them forward and encourage those who can to forge ahead and those who are struggling to trust me. Soon each student is focussed on their own best efforts and they never stray for long. They probably aren’t able to articulate at the end of the year why they feel the way they do. Many often mistakenly feel that it’s because of me that they enjoyed the class so much, and as flattering as that is, I know it’s because of the huge sense of accomplishment they have experienced.

There’s nothing like looking back on a year of success and knowing you achieved it through hard work and focus.

There’s nothing like seeing how much you’ve grown and how much more you now know and understand.

There’s nothing like realising that you have spent your time well and have discovered new opportunities.

There’s nothing like seeing your own potential come to fruition and realising your worth and intelligence as a human being.

Each of us has evolved to want to discover and understand. If this wasn’t our true nature we’d never walk or talk. Why would we bother to try and communicate or develop our fine and gross motor skills unless we wanted to be more fully involved in our world?

You might be like most of my students on the first day of Term 1, waiting for life to be handed to you and hoping nothing much will be asked of you, yet at the same time hoping for a feeling that you can’t describe. Instead you search for fun at every opportunity, no matter how pointless or frivolous. You might already acknowledge that fun doesn’t last beyond the moment. As a solution to this you might try to buy more and more fun into your life. Eventually you’ll realise that this isn’t sustainable and you’ll be tempted to wallow in despair and depression.

Instead, set your sights on personal accomplishments. Perhaps start with achieving greater physical strength and fitness. Turn your attentions to growing your own food. Become fluent in that language that you speak a little. Have a firm understanding of the last 100 years of our world history. Understand the mysteries behind the software that you love to use and program your own. Make your own fashion.

The list goes on forever and requires only a little imagination and a bit of intuition. Recall the last time you felt really accomplished. It might be back somewhere in your student days. Remember also how long lasting that feeling was and what it would be like to feel that way again.

Go on, accomplish something today, this week and this

Related posts:

1. Meaning Experiment of the Week – What do you need to unlearn?
2. The Intersection of Passion and Talent
3. Life, I’m just not that into you

Having said that, I think we all need some sort of over-arching purpose or goal to keep us in tune with our essential selves and what we truly want to achieve and experience.

A life without any purpose or focus is a life that stagnates. If each day goes by without you making the necessary choices to fulfil your potential, then very rapidly you will find yourself at the end of life wondering who you could have been and what you could have experienced and contributed. If you choose to delay making choices about your direction you will end up on a default path in life. Your attention will be bought by the advertising you consume and you will slowly become an archetype of the consumerist model.

All that is necessary is that you choose a theme for yourself for this year, 2012. This theme may not last the entire year, or perhaps it will extend into next year, but a theme is a useful place to start.

A theme is just an over-arching beacon to guide your focus throughout the year. It will ensure that you spend some of your time focussing on what is important to you and it will act as a personal motto, popping into your mind throughout the day, reminding you of who you are and what you want to achieve and experience.

I came across this idea from reading Tammy’s latest post on Rowdy Kittens where she explained what her theme was for 2011 and what her theme will be for 2012. In both instances Tammy has used a single word to define her theme and this struck me as a very powerful idea. This single word will serve as a mantra that you remind yourself of often. It will come to mind just when you were tempted to while away the hours in front of the TV or on the net. This word will gently coax you back, encouraging you to devote some of your time to what you hold most dear.

Here are a few suggestions of useful themes for 2012 to get you started on your brainstorming:

Health – this could mean eating better, exercising more, drinking more water, drinking less alcohol, meditating, breathing more deeply, stretching, sleeping

Unplug – this could mean watching less TV, spending less time on Facebook, or Twitter or Email, spending less time aimlessly wandering the net

Less – this could mean eating less, buying less, consuming less, doing less, working less, interacting less

Energise- this could mean eating better food, reading inspirational stories, watching motivational documentaries, engaging in energetic activities, meeting with upbeat friends

Learn- this could serve as a reminder to read more non-fiction, to educate yourself about healthier eating, to enrol in a new class, to take an online course, to learn a new form of exercise

Whatever you choose it will serve to remind you, in each moment, but especially during times of wasteful idleness, of the fact that you are always working towards being the best version of you and making the most of the time that you have. This word is your higher self calling your lower self to join in on gaining the best experiences and on creating the most personally meaningful life possible.

My theme for 2012 will be Create. Within this I will focus on: creating connections, creating and completing pieces of writing, creating ideas, creating my very best physique, creating a foundation for my financial future, creating more space and time. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and with this theme in my mind I will no doubt uncover many opportunities to create.

So how about it? Why not choose a theme for 2012 and see where this leads you and how it just might improve the quality of your life this year.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and especially what theme you have chosen for 2012.

Related posts:

1. Cultivating Gratitude
2. Make Your Yes Meaningful
3. Disempowering Rituals

Once you begin truly thinking for yourself, examining the whys and the hows, and being slightly suspicious of the truth behind everything you hear and think you know, there is no going back to the innocence and ignorance that you may have enjoyed before. No matter how much you might wish to go back to a life where you accepted the status quo, you can’t go back.

After some time, you will find that you are on the outskirts of the status quo, watching everyone participating around you, while you wonder what might be left for you. You can’t participate with those who are seemingly content with the way things are because you don’t understand how they continue to fail to awaken and they don’t understand what’s wrong with you and why you just can’t be happy. This is where I find myself now.

So what are your options? What are mine? All of us who find ourselves here on the fringe, on the edge, have to find some way to live outside of the status quo as much as possible, while we find a way to build a life and a world of our own imagining.

Eventually, more and more people will leave the status quo and will come to join the rest of us. This is how the world will change. It won’t happen in the space of a few months, or even a few years. It won’t be a sudden change in the world. Rather, individuals have been changing their lives. Now these individuals have started to gather with people similar to them and small groups are forming. Small, yet growing, movements are leading by example, sharing their ideas and knowledge, often in blog form, and more individuals feel drawn to experiment for themselves, and find a way to live true to their essence on the outskirts of the status quo.

So I’ve kept you in suspense long enough haven’t I? How am I going to live outside the system that I can no longer tolerate?

I am going to retire early and simplify my life. By early I mean at the end of 2015, at 35 years of age.

What were you expecting? Something more dramatic? Something more magical? Or perhaps you’re wondering how?

I will probably write further posts to explain some of this in more detail, especially if there’s any interest. But here are the bare bones of what I intend and what I am doing so far:

For the first 9 years of my working life I have saved hard (and then my husband joined me) and we have a house that is paid for. Thus our largest expense, the mortgage, is no longer an obstacle.

I no longer see our house as a “starter home”. I refuse to buy into the notion that I need something bigger and newer in a nicer location. The energy (time spent at work plus denying myself mental and intellectual freedom) that would be required to “upgrade” our house and lifestyle, is not something that is worthwhile nor feasible for me.

I could technically stop going to work now and rely on my husband’s income. There is no way I’m going to do that though. My financial independence is essential to me. I could not be the feminist that I am and simultaneously rely on my husband for resources. This might not sit well with some of you, and it may offend others of you, and yet this is what I am. And so, I will spend the next four years, saving and simplifying, so that I may achieve my financial freedom.

I have been reading the book and blog by Jacob, over at Early Retirement Extreme, and so much of what he says resonates deeply with me. As a numbers person myself, I enjoy his analysis and the way he has crunched the numbers for himself. To that end I have begun creating a few spreadsheets which calculate daily expenditure, average expenditure and projected savings progress. I aim to save at least 80% of my income over the next four years.

As I save I will learn more about how to simplify my life and how to become more self-subsistent. Although I wouldn’t consider myself to be a big consumer, most people know I don’t even enjoy going shopping, there is more I can do to combat my consumerism. I am reading about how to eat more simply and am making progress with this. Grocery expenses are our largest expenditure. I intend to learn how to sew and to expand our vegetable garden.

I won’t be able to be completely self-subsistent and will thus be living somewhat inside the economic system of our world. I will focus on buying only those things that are a need, with the intention of buying quality items that last almost a lifetime, rather than succumbing to the need to upgrade constantly.

Once I have a high level of savings, I intend to live off the interest earned. I don’t intent to “play the stockmarket” or to become a financial wiz. Unfortunately none of that really interests me. At this stage I intend to earn interest from my savings (either from a term deposit or a high savings account) and live off that interest. At this stage my aim is to live comfortably and happily off around $12k – $15k a year. I realise that this wouldn’t be possible without living within the economic structure we have in place and until I come up with a better strategy, this doesn’t bother me too much.

What I have presented above is put in basic terms, but it really isn’t much more difficult than that. I have always said that if only there was a job where you could get paid to be an eternal student, learning whatever you want whenever you want, then that would be my dream job. Unfortunately there is no such occupation, and unless I find a patron soon, I will have to fund my own dream.

The only thing I’ve ever truly wanted is to be free. I’ve tried to convince myself from inside our world system that I am, but since taking the red pill I know I’m not. I can’t just get on with it and be happy with the way things are now that I know better. Having had this brief hiatus from “the real world” I now know how sweet it is and that this is the life for me.

To reach my potential and to find deep fulfilment I need time, space and flexibility. To achieve this I need to exit the world of work and to do this I need to exit the world of consumerism.

I’m not the first to do this, and I know I won’t be the last. I’m joining one of the small movements.

And what will I be doing from 2016 onwards? I don’t know yet. I envision that it entails more sustained writing and a deeper contribution to moving this world in a new direction. But it is too soon to start talking about that.

I may find that I don’t meet my target or that my calculations were optimistic. I may find a need to continue with part time work for either financial reasons or otherwise. This is all ok with me. I know that either way, 2016 will be the year of my true freedom.

What will you do now that you’ve taken the red pill?

I’d love to hear what you think about this or address any questions you might have.

Related posts:

1. Do You Really Need Your Mortgage?
2. Do You Really Want to Live by the Standard Model?
3. The 99 versus the 1

Every day that you go to work is a day that you participate in the overall system set up and maintained by society. The so-called economic system is not real. It’s not like the eco-system which existed (with a lot more health) before humans had even been imagined. Economics is not a science, and although a lot of maths and complicated formulas might be involved, it is something that people have created.

Humans exist independently of this economic system. That might be hard to absorb on your first reading. You might wonder how you could survive without money. You might think it’s impossible to extract yourself from the economic system in which you are so deeply entwined.

Lately I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and reading about how exactly I can become a non-participator. How can I extract myself as much as possible from the economic system, or from what most of us have to come to know as life?

I’m not talking about stopping work to live off social benefits. Sure, I wouldn’t be participating in work, but leaching off others in the system isn’t a viable option for me.

I also don’t mean I’ll become a lady of leisure, living off my husband’s income. I want to be financially independent from him.

I once watched a current affairs report about an Aboriginal man, in his fifties, living with his wife in the far north west of Australia. They lived out of their station wagon car and roamed this vast north west region throughout the year. The reporter asked them if they needed government funding to buy themselves a house in a community. The Aboriginal man told the reporter that he liked to live outside and sleep outside. He also said that he wanted to be able to move around and to go fishing sometimes. He said his car carried everything he needed. He didn’t say much but I understood him perfectly. He didn’t want to participate in the Australian way of life. His life and the life of his ancestors meant everything to him. I can imagine that he found our way of life to be completely bewildering. He wanted the freedom to live, the freedom to be.

Looking at how we all live from his perspective makes you think. For many Aboriginal communities I’m sure that the Australian way of life still feels extremely foreign. As they observe us choosing to stay put in one house, going to the same place everyday, pushing papers this way and that, pressing buttons here and there and coming home exhausted, they may wonder what on earth we are doing it all for. Why are we spending our weekends shopping and hoarding more items in our homes? Why aren’t we out there experiencing the world?

Anyone who knows me knows that there is no way I would choose to become a nomad, especially not spending my time in the harsh sun of the Australian outdoors. No, I’m not talking about anything that radical. It’s just that the interview with this man really made an impression on me. And it struck me that the perceived Indigenous issues that politicians are always going on about might just be as simple as the fact that for hundreds of years we have been trying to force a group of people to live by our system, when they are more than content with their own. The endless government spending and opportunities might be going to waste simply because our Indigenous Australians want nothing to do with our broken and ridiculous way of life.

Perhaps some of our Indigenous Australians see things more clearly than all those protestors protesting against the 1 percent. Here they are, essentially asking, through protest, that the system change itself to accommodate them. When the simplest and perhaps best solution is if they each extract themselves from the system as far as possible.

There have been ironic comments appearing about some of the labels these protestors have been wearing; designer brand caps, t-shirts and jeans. The 99 percent participate and fund the 1 percent and then complain about it. Clearly ridiculous.

Asking for change is an inefficient means of creating change. If you don’t like the structures in our world, change your own life. Once more people do the same and a critical mass is reached, then the structures will either collapse or change to accommodate the new world.

As they say, you can’t change other people, you can only change yourself and how you interact. This applies in every situation.

I personally despise the system that most of us live under. I see it as a more clever and subtle form of slavery. It’s clever because the slaves are invested in maintaining the system. We all want nice things, nice houses, instant access, an easy life, and so we keep working to make the money that buys these things. The trick is that just when we might think we are satisfied, something new appears that we feel we need, and off we go to work again. And of course we are each the cogs that keeps this machine running. We enslave ourselves for the better part of our lives. It is a genius system that doesn’t need many people keeping the slaves in check.

Most people aren’t aware that they live in this system. You might be pondering this new perspective now. You might also think I’m talking a load of rubbish. Of course that’s entirely up to you. But you’d have to be blind to not notice the cracks that are starting to appear. Do the slaves look happy to you? Do the increasing rates of depression, binge drinking and violence sound like the making of a healthy system? The problem is, like the 99 percenters, these are all symptoms of people trying to deal with the system by staying in the system. When really the answer is to step away from it entirely.

So what do you think? Are you intrigued? Do you want to know how I plan to move out of the system as much as I can?

I’ll let you think about these ideas for a few days and then I’ll write another post with my plans. If you are intrigued by what I have to say then perhaps you’ll think about trying it too. One by one, we might just change the system for ourselves.

Related posts:

1. Are Your Self Classifications Limiting or Empowering?
2. The 99 versus the 1
3. Your World is a Construct

In our lives we enjoy an abundance of choice unlike all the generations before us. The variety of groceries, cuts of meat, vegetables and cuisines are many and varied.

There are seemingly infinitely many places where you can buy clothes and shoes, starting with the physical stores in your own town and extending to the far reaches of online shopping.

The large variety of topics to be explored and books to be read is so vast that you couldn’t cover all of them, or even most of those that interest you, in a normal lifetime.

The variety and amount of entertainment at our disposal, games to play, shows to watch, music to listen to, is also richly diverse.

And just think of all the places you can travel to; you might be able to skim the surface of many countries, cities and towns, but will you ever have the opportunity to know a place deeply?

This is exactly what humans have worked so hard to enable and what, for too many people living on this planet, is just a cruel, taunting dream. And yet the more there is to choose from, the less some of us seem able to choose anything at all.

Here I am, presently enjoying my extended hiatus from normal life, and yet I am often disgusted with myself at the end of a day because I feel I wasted an opportunity to use my time and explore something new.

I know right? What a problem to have!

And yet for me, and perhaps for many of you, the problem is real and it’s painful. There’s the sense that life is stagnating and passing me by.

I woke up this morning thinking about what I’d like to do with my day. Should I write more of my novel, should I read more of the three books I currently have going, should I learn a new song on the piano, should I watch more of The Wire, should I research more into the articles about ET contacts with ancient civilisations (that’s a story for another time)?

I feel a pull towards each of these, yet none stand out as where I want to put my focus for the day. And so there’s the possibility that I could spend the day avoiding doing anything at all. Instead, because I can’t choose, I might tend to surf the web aimlessly, watch pointless daytime TV, potter around the house or just sit daydreaming. The next thing I’ll know it will be time to start preparing dinner and moving on into the evening.

The same phenomenon occurs when eating out. I’ve come to love tapas style dining because I don’t have to choose one dish, but rather can taste and sample from a variety of smaller dishes. Growing up my favourite lunches were when my mum would prepare an antipasto style lunch of deli meats, cheeses, bread, assorted marinated vegetables, fresh cucumber and fruit. I can still taste it now!

You may not experience this to the same extent that I have been lately, but perhaps you can relate. Maybe during the evening you wonder what you could do with your time. Perhaps you have a pile of books waiting to be read. Maybe you’ve been meaning to do some more work on a creative project. Is it that you’ve been dreaming of finding out more information about a new interest or project?

Whatever thoughts and ideas spring to mind, they each likely pique your interest, but you can’t really decide on what to do and so you do what you always do. You choose nothing. You remain exactly where you are, in front of the TV, letting inertia win you over, and letting yourself feel disappointed and annoyed that you wasted another evening.

The same thing probably happens on the weekend. On Thursday and Friday you start fantasising about all the things you want to do this weekend. You want to try that new restaurant, visit that new art exhibition, try that exercise class, see a movie, catch up with friends, organise that cupboard, clean that room, finish reading that book and so on and so forth.

The thought of the possibilities excites you and energises you. But what is the reality?

Friday evening arrives and you decide you’re really too tired to make a start on anything tonight. Instead you’ll relax with a bottle of wine and a TV movie. The enthusiastic energy you felt has well and truly dissipated and your actions encourage the lethargy to settle in.

When Saturday arrives you likely sleep in and spend the morning pottering around, lazing with the papers, indulging in a long breakfast and doing a few chores and before you know it the evening has arrived once again.

The sheer number of choices you have given yourself for the weekend prove to be too many and instead of choosing just one, you choose none and allow the usual inertia to take hold.

So what’s the key here? What can you do to ensure you don’t spend your life disappointed and annoyed with yourself with a constant question of “What if?” flashing in your mind?

The solution is simple, but not necessarily easy.

You choose just one thing to focus on each day. For the weekend maybe choose two or three activities to involve yourself with.

Yes, but how do you make this choice you might be wondering? There’s probably a few ways to answer this, but here I’ll give you two.

Firstly, when considering your choices, see if you can tune into your instinct for which activity might hold the most interest for you today. Or rationally analyse which one would help you feel the best.

If you can’t rely on instinct or rationality then choose at random. Generate a random number, play eeny-meeny or pull an option out of a hat.

The most important thing is to choose something so that you end the inertia. Even if you start an activity and change your mind after 15 minutes and move onto something else, you will have ended your inability to choose.

Chances are that once you start making choices you will begin to naturally tune in to what you really want to be doing. Slowly you will realise just how many books you have read, paintings you have completed, new topics you have learnt, people you have met and activities you have enjoyed over a year.

As time passes by you will grow proud of what you have accomplished and the fabric of your life will seem amazingly rich. You will no longer go to bed disappointed and annoyed with yourself, but feel a sense of peace because you are being true to you.

So you might be wondering what I ended up doing so far today? Well I chose to write this post and once I’m done I will make another choice.

Related posts:

1. You Have Choices
2. Meaning Experiment of the Week – Say No
3. Meaning Experiment of the Week – Develop a New Interest

A second-hander is someone who has no real sense of self, but instead borrows their perception of self from those around them. Rather than being who they truly are, they instead adopt a persona according to what they think society and those around them would find pleasing and acceptable.

Sometimes these people are seen as altruistic, giving of themselves. In reality they don’t give anything as they don’t have anything of a self to give. Rather, they like to be seen to be selfless because they think they will find approval that way.

As Roark explains it:

“The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison. The man whose sole aim is to make money… Personal luxury is a limited endeavour. What they want is ostentation: to show, to stun, to entertain, to impress others. They’re second-handers.”

When you look around you how many second-handers can you see? How many young people can you see are in danger of being second-handers all their lives? How often do you think you might exhibit the tendencies of a second-hander?

Pretending to be someone you’re not so that you might gain respect or seem more likeable to your peers is amongst some of the most unhealthy behaviour that you could ever exhibit.

Adopting the lifestyles and habits of those that seem successful to you, without reflecting on whether any of it suits you, is probably setting you up for failure and disappointment.

Believing in philosophies and teachings without critical reflection may lead you too far astray and more lost and bewildered than you were to begin with.

Being you, being real, being authentic, is all that you are here for. If you forgo your sense of self in favour of blending in with the status quo, you cheat yourself out of your own greatness. Since there will never be another you, you’ve given away the one chance the world had to experience something uniquely you.

It’s easier to be like others. It’s easier to copy the lifestyles of those around you. It’s easier to adopt the thoughts, opinions, beliefs and attitudes of others than to get deeply in touch with your own.

Everyday, in almost every moment you have two choices. Be a second-hander or be you. What’s it going to be?

Related posts:

1. Common Forms of Self Sabotage
2. Meaning in the Meantime
3. Embrace Being Different

For those who don’t know much about it, it’s basically a bit of a competition to see who can write 50 000 words of a novel in the month of November. There are communities all over the world taking part and it is the challenge I’ve set for myself this month. So far I’m actually a little bit behind but I’m not worried yet. Of course 50 000 words doesn’t make a novel, but the aim is to see whether you can maintain the momentum and just get the words down. If you can, then it seems like a pretty good sign that you’d be able to go the distance and write a full novel, or the first draft at least.

This is my first attempt at fiction and I’m posting a piece here just to keep you informed of what I’m up to and hopefully to give you something to think about in the passage below. If all goes well I might be encouraging you to buy a copy some time soon! The working title is Meaning(lessness) and hence the title of today’s post.

By the way, Lilla is a GP and Emma is a patient.

Well, here goes:

Emma also wanted to hear what Lilla might think about why she was going to see Mr Georgiou. She hadn’t told anyone yet that she was going to go and see a therapist or how she had been feeling. Coming here today was supposed to help her make it all real. She decided she would give Lilla a little more information and see how far this went.

“Jonathon Georgiou deals with existential problems and provides guidance for those who are vividly aware of the existential problems they face.”

Emma could see that this information had not enlightened Lilla any further and that in fact she was not familiar with anything Emma was saying. Lilla had twisted slightly towards her computer monitor, almost like a reflex, indicating her need to google everything that Emma had just said. But Emma continued.

“I’ve been feeling inexplicably down for months, and even years now. Nothing significant has happened. There’s been no death, no traumatic experiences, no loss of any kind. In fact, it is because life hasn’t changed that much at all that I find myself feeling this way. I’m depressed and I know it. It’s not a crippling depression in the usual sense, and most people who don’t know me probably haven’t even noticed. But I know that I’m functioning on some substandard level.”

Emma couldn’t believe she was explaining it, that the words were coming out of her mouth and were making so much sense. She’d rehearsed this to herself so many times, feeling the need to convince herself that what she was going through was legitimate and that it was ok to seek help. Even so, she hadn’t really expected that she’d be able to articulate herself so clearly, so matter-of-factly, here and now.

Lilla had turned back towards Emma unconsciously and was leaning forwards now, as if to make sure she didn’t miss one word of what Emma was saying. It seemed as though Emma had reached into the gurgling pit in Lilla’s own stomach and found a way to explain what was going on there. Lilla felt paralysed to the spot and at the same time wanted to press rewind and then replay everything Emma had just shared.

“At first I thought I was just tired and needed a break. Or maybe I just needed to change things up in my life. Then I started doing some reading and I realised that essentially what had happened was that I had lost any sense of hope. I used to feel life was going somewhere and now I know that really it goes nowhere. I suppose I used to believe that life was some sort of quest, and in childhood at least, it certainly seems that way. We have so many obstacles to jump, so many tests to pass; all in the belief that we are going places. It’s as if when you reach adulthood you suddenly feel stranded, like you’ve been kicked off the movie set that you thought was real life.”

Emma paused to make sure what she was saying was striking at the heart of the matter. Lilla was now sitting back in her chair with her arms perched on the arm rests, as if ready to spring up out of the chair at any moment. Lilla suddenly felt very uncomfortable and restless. She could if she wanted to, cut this appointment short and just write the damned referral. And yet, she couldn’t stop listening.

“I guess what I’m saying is, now I know for sure that life is meaningless. There is no quest, no journey, no meaning, no purpose. We’re all here by accident, that’s all. For me, this knowledge is a burden of huge proportions. It’s like I’ve been given this boulder to carry and for the life of me I can’t figure out what to do next. I’m just sitting here in the shade of this enormous boulder like I’m within its gravitational pull or something. I know logically that I can walk away, but I don’t know how.”

Emma looked at Lilla and found it odd the way she was sort of peering at her, as if suspicious and yet intrigued all at the same time. Emma had been expecting some sort of “Hmm, that’s really interesting”, but it seemed that Lilla was unable to talk.

“So anyway, apparently what I’m struggling with is how to get over this existential angst that I’m feeling. Existential ideas are supposed to be liberating yet I just feel imprisoned. I should be delighted with the freedom of choice I have available and the knowledge that life is what you make it. Instead I feel burdened. I’m paralysed. I can’t do it.”

If you have something constructive or kind you’d like to say then I’d love to hear from you

Related posts:

1. The Existentially Depressed
2. Meaning Experiment of the Week – Take an Online Course
3. Cultivating Gratitude

I’m not certain that these gatherings represent a uniform consensus of protest, but rather a general feeling that where we now find ourselves is unsustainable, unethical, illogical and generally unfair.

This goes back to what I was talking about in my most recent post, that there is a growing sense of discontent on the rise amongst many people in western society. There’s a vague sense that things aren’t as they should be and that the way we are living our lives has some underlying fundamental flaws.

I can certainly understand and emphathise with what people around the world are doing. The fact that people are gathering together to voice their dissatisfaction with the status quo thrills me. I couldn’t be more excited about this awakening of consciousness and this growing unwillingness to accept things as they are or how the powers that be have told us things should be.

And yet there seems to be some irony in their ambition.

In Melbourne, the Occupy Melbourne group have set up a “tent city” where people have been occupying a public square for some time. Authorities are saying they cannot stay there indefinitely, and that ultimately as they continue to disrupt the lives of others, they will be told to move on. Those in the protest say they won’t be leaving until those in power start to listen. (Update: I’ve just seen that over the weekend the occupy groups in Melbourne and Sydney have been forcibly broken up and moved on by police. In Melbourne in particular, the force used by police has been reported as excessive, with many protesters suffering injuries. This is something worth pondering in and of itself.)

From my perspective, asking those in government (or even in the opposition) to take notice and effect change is utterly pointless. The 1% of those holding the wealth and the power across the world include the ruling governments. Or at least this seems to be the case from my vantage point.

What fails to be acknowledged in movements such as this, is that we all have had a part in creating the world we live in. The governments we have elected have been shaped by us, we have not been shaped by them. The insanely wealthy CEOs have become so following the direction of the 99%. The developing world exists not just because of the 1% but because of us all.

The other day I said to my husband that I’m ashamed to be a human. I said that if I get the chance to meet some intelligent aliens, I’ll volunteer to go with them and that I don’t want to be associated with the rest of the human race. It was an outburst, but it holds a lot of truth for me. My husband was puzzled and bewildered as to how I could even say such a nonsensical thing! To me though, with all of our collective intelligence, I find it unfathomable that of all the permutations of society that we could have created, this is the system we came up with.

The society we live in doesn’t work. You might say that it mostly works, but to me that means it doesn’t. There are people in power trying to fine tune this and reconfigure that, but it seems obvious to me that we need a complete overhaul and a new vision of a world and society for everyone.

As an example, The Venus Project is one idea of what this overhaul could look like. I’m not saying that this idea would work, or that it’s even the best idea. The fact there are people out there imagining a new style of existence gives me hope that the best of what we have to offer still has a chance to come to fruition. Our current set up (the 9 to 5, transport, industry, food, commerce, politics, religion, all of it) is unimaginative at best. Of all that we have available to us, the fact that we continue to bumble around in this system should be embarrassing to you too.

The 99% asking the 1% to change is nowhere near radical enough. It’s also completely ineffective. It’s like wanting your partner to be someone they’re not and asking them to change their personality, all the while not realising that it’s you that has to change and walk away.

It’s the same with our current societal structure. It’s a waste of time sitting around, waiting to get attention from a group of people we have enabled. Nothing real can be achieved this way.

So what can we do? It begins with our own behaviour and where we apply our focus.

Each day we choose to participate in the society we have created for ourselves. If we change the way we participate, we will begin to change the structure. If we don’t like the establishment of big corporations, then we should stop buying what they sell. If we live our lives as consumers then we are advocating this current society with our actions and choices. If we instead decide to strip our lives down to the essentials we could then have ample financial resources to invest in what is important. Instead of enabling large corporations, we could enable women in developing countries, or scientists, or inventors, or artists, or engineers.

We have the knowledge to develop amazing and transforming technologies. These technologies could rapidly and successfully change the structure of society as we now know it. And each of us sitting here in the 99% have more power than we realise.

Asking the 1% to change their ways makes us the victim, when truthfully we hold the power. Maybe we just don’t fully realise it yet.

In Australia voting is compulsory. Most people then vote for the least worst option available. Imagine what would happen if everyone showed up to vote and cast a blank vote. How much more clear could we make it that we no longer choose the status quo?

The awareness being created by the 99% is an essential first step. But these voices need to be giving people a direction and something tangible to hold on to. We won’t all wake up tomorrow and suddenly the world will have seen sense. But every choice you make has an impact on the society in which you live.

Think about what sort of world you want to live in. Think about what sort of world would adequately reflect the best of the human spirit and intelligence. Once you have this image clearly in your mind begin to change your actions in ways that support and reflect this vision. And remember, the 99% can be rid of the 1% anytime they choose, but it is a result of your choices.

Related posts:

1. Your World is a Construct
2. Unlearning Scarcity
3. We Live in a Community

In conversations with friends recently, and the usual philosophising that goes on in my mind, I’ve been observing a struggle between wanting more and having enough.

It wasn’t so long ago, maybe just a generation ago, that having one house, one good car, solid appliances, a few special outfits and a couple of healthy kids was considered having it all in life. Throw in a few local holidays and it seemed that the general populous of the western world were content with their lot. Perhaps this is not true at all and it only seems as though this is how things were, but have a chat with your parents and I’m sure you’ll find this is close to the truth.

Of course one main reason that consumerism was less rampant and pervasive was because there was a lot less choice in what you could consume. Advertising had its limits and social technologies barely existed. When you bought something it was generally made to last, rather than to be upgraded within 18 months.

Whatever the reasons, it seems clear that what constituted the good life not so long ago is now considered, at best, the OK life. Unless people are constantly upgrading what they already have, there is an undercurrent of discontent rumbling just below the surface of their lives. Maybe you feel it, I know that I do.

I like to consider myself a pretty self-aware individual. I like to study my motivations and feelings and analyse what’s really going on.  Personally I know that when I feel the urge to upgrade and to start looking for something better, newer, fancier, it’s to avoid the realities of my existence. Sounds deep doesn’t it? But I’ll bet there’s a little bit of this going on inside you too.

Take for example buying and having a house. These days real estate agents advertise what they call “starter homes”, houses that will be ok as a first home, but aren’t your ultimate dream home. In Perth at least, these houses are internally the size of houses that used to be perfect for an average sized family (although they don’t tend to come with the big backyards anymore). Once people start having children they deem these houses to be too small and they’re off to find or build their mini mansion. When I look at all the houses that have been left vacant by the financial crisis in the US, what strikes me most is the sheer size and scale of these homes, and it seems obvious that such lifestyles were unsustainable.

So why do people feel the need for large homes, or a new home, or a better home? Is it a real need or a perceived need? I think we can agree it’s most likely the latter. Once people have spent weekends and dollars on renovating and styling their home, they enjoy it for a brief period before they begin to feel the rumblings of discontent. It’s a discontent with life and a lack of meaning and fulfilment. Yet, because it’s such a vague and uncomfortable feeling, without a tangible means to be grasped, it gets manifested as an external need. Turning your discontent into a dissatisfaction with where you live means that you now have a tangible problem to solve. Plus, solving it often takes months and years to accomplish and so you put the rumbles at bay for a significant amount of time. But they’ll be back.

I heard Whoopi Goldberg say yesterday that in the next few days the world population will hit 7 billion. This got me thinking about all the people having large families. In the western world we have a choice about having children and we are more informed than our counterparts in some of the developing world. As someone who doesn’t want any children I of course find it difficult to understand why people want to start a family and how they decide how many they want to have. In Australia at least, there seems to be a phenomenon amongst the wealthier families to have large families of four children and more. I can’t help feeling that this is akin to wanting to upgrade your house.

From my perspective, and this may be controversial, it seems that every time you have a new child you start a new project. As your other children are progressing through the stages of childhood and growing up, the rumblings begin where you realise that the energy and effort you’ve expended on raising children will no longer have an outlet. The meaning you’ve given to your life will now need to be reassessed and reimagined and it all starts to feel uncomfortable. Having another child will postpone these rumblings until a later date. Defining the meaning of your life through your children is another problem entirely.

Instead of looking for more creative ways to establish a meaningful existence and thinking about our impact on the world as a whole, we take the far easier path of busying ourselves with accumulating more.

I want a new phone, a new car, more shoes and pretty outfits like most people do. And yet I’m also very aware that when I feel a strong need for any of these, there’s something else going on within me. The best purchases I’ve ever made were ones where I was detached from the outcome, where I didn’t feel I really had to have it, and had no emotional attachment to the outcome.

When I start to feel that I need a new house or a new phone and I start imagining what my life will be like when I have it, I recognise that I’m thirsty for meaning. The rumblings are strong and yet the thought of trying to tackle something so abstract as meaning brings great discomfort and a manic sense of urgency to create change. While I don’t know what to do just yet to stop the rumblings entirely, the awareness is enough to stop me going too far into the spiral of consumerism and wanting and needing more.

Do you notice any of this in yourself, in whatever form it might take? Can you identify that really you are experiencing a more desperate need to live a life that is personally meaningful, yet are at a loss of how to go about this? Next time you feel the desperate urge to upgrade or consume see if you can be aware of the rumblings.

Related posts:

1. Do You Really Want to Live by the Standard Model?
2. Do You Really Need Your Mortgage?
3. Is Your Life Your Own?