"We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other. "
-- Ernest Hemingway. A Moveable Feast.
Eating well, drinking well, sleeping well and loving -- throw in "reading" and you've got the formula for the perfectly simple life.
And yet, we spend our precious time chasing after Hummers (of both kinds), Mc Mansions, ginoromous flat screen TVs, cell phones that can play music, take pictures, shoot and run videos, text, surf the web, IM, and trim your toenails, all simultaneously -- thinking that we need all this crap to enhance the quality of our lives!
Want a mantra that's rooted in reality? Repeat after me: Slow down and simplify. Do the basics of life well, cheaply and joyfully, and the rest of life will take care of itself.
Why complicate things?
There's not much more to say. Try it and see.
Showing posts with label quality of life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quality of life. Show all posts
Fun!
"Fun is my revenge against mortality."
-- Dustin Hoffman
You can't control the length of your life, but you have a lot of influence over the quality of it. You, yes you, can choose to have fun!
What a concept! I'm amazed at how many people have seemingly never thought of it. They pass through life like drones on autopilot, rarely doing anything that's really fun. They mope along, complain about the weather, engage in soulless work, act like other people are invisible, and wonder why there life is so boring and drab.
What's fun? Well, it's different for each one. Make a list "10 Fun Things That I Really Like to Do." On my list is tennis, swimming, reading, talking with friends, browsing used book stores, sex... you get the picture. Then do at least one of those things each day. And on the best days -- do nothing but those things!
Keep the list handy and add to it. I'm sure there are a lot more than 10 things you find fun, so why not keep a running tally? Then when life seems like it's attempting to crowd out fun with a bunch of unfun crap, you can do a quick perusal of your list and get on with having fun, post haste.
Think you're already a pretty fun dude or dudette? Then here's the curriculum for the graduate level fun seminar -- find a way to make everything that you have to do fun! You know things like work, visit your mother-in-law, go to the dentist, have a colonoscopy, die, etc., etc.
Don't worry, you won't become shallow simply by living a life of fun. Life will still throw you some challenges, and you will meet them, and they won't all be fun. But on your average day, on most days, you, like Dustin, can have your revenge against life's silly shortness by filling whatever minutes, months, and years you are given with fun, fun, fun! Even when that big, metaphorical, daddy-in-the-sky takes the T-bird away.
-- Dustin Hoffman
You can't control the length of your life, but you have a lot of influence over the quality of it. You, yes you, can choose to have fun!
What a concept! I'm amazed at how many people have seemingly never thought of it. They pass through life like drones on autopilot, rarely doing anything that's really fun. They mope along, complain about the weather, engage in soulless work, act like other people are invisible, and wonder why there life is so boring and drab.
What's fun? Well, it's different for each one. Make a list "10 Fun Things That I Really Like to Do." On my list is tennis, swimming, reading, talking with friends, browsing used book stores, sex... you get the picture. Then do at least one of those things each day. And on the best days -- do nothing but those things!
Keep the list handy and add to it. I'm sure there are a lot more than 10 things you find fun, so why not keep a running tally? Then when life seems like it's attempting to crowd out fun with a bunch of unfun crap, you can do a quick perusal of your list and get on with having fun, post haste.
Think you're already a pretty fun dude or dudette? Then here's the curriculum for the graduate level fun seminar -- find a way to make everything that you have to do fun! You know things like work, visit your mother-in-law, go to the dentist, have a colonoscopy, die, etc., etc.
Don't worry, you won't become shallow simply by living a life of fun. Life will still throw you some challenges, and you will meet them, and they won't all be fun. But on your average day, on most days, you, like Dustin, can have your revenge against life's silly shortness by filling whatever minutes, months, and years you are given with fun, fun, fun! Even when that big, metaphorical, daddy-in-the-sky takes the T-bird away.
A Meaningless Life
"My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?"
-- Charles Schulz
Why do we think we need goals or meaning or purpose in order to be happy? Why do we believe that we must always be aiming for some target, striving for some vision, or attempting some heroic act in order to achieve happiness?
To answer Mr. Schulz question, I believe that what he is doing right is that he is living in the moment and not being sucked into the prevailing assumption that life must have meaning in order to be enjoyable. Joy is always and already present. Happiness requires no prerequisites.
All meaning is made up, anyway. You don't discover meaning, you create it. And to what avail? To convince yourself that your life somehow holds some intrinsic importance? To bolster the ego's claim of having a unique mission worth pursuing? Do those creative fictions really help you live a better life, or do they merely mollify your discontent with the life you have?
This is it, folks. Reality 101 -- right here, right now. You can play any game or any role that you want -- just don't forget that you're merely playing. Don't mistake the game, or your role in it, for reality.
Being is where happiness lives. Not becoming, not striving, not even arriving -- being. That's why it's called "being happy." It's not called "doing happy" or "becoming happy." Happiness does not lie on some far off shore. It does not even reside in the striving to reach that far off shore. It is inherent each moment, each second, each breath.
Goal -less happiness, strive-free joy. Here and now.
-- Charles Schulz
Why do we think we need goals or meaning or purpose in order to be happy? Why do we believe that we must always be aiming for some target, striving for some vision, or attempting some heroic act in order to achieve happiness?
To answer Mr. Schulz question, I believe that what he is doing right is that he is living in the moment and not being sucked into the prevailing assumption that life must have meaning in order to be enjoyable. Joy is always and already present. Happiness requires no prerequisites.
All meaning is made up, anyway. You don't discover meaning, you create it. And to what avail? To convince yourself that your life somehow holds some intrinsic importance? To bolster the ego's claim of having a unique mission worth pursuing? Do those creative fictions really help you live a better life, or do they merely mollify your discontent with the life you have?
This is it, folks. Reality 101 -- right here, right now. You can play any game or any role that you want -- just don't forget that you're merely playing. Don't mistake the game, or your role in it, for reality.
Being is where happiness lives. Not becoming, not striving, not even arriving -- being. That's why it's called "being happy." It's not called "doing happy" or "becoming happy." Happiness does not lie on some far off shore. It does not even reside in the striving to reach that far off shore. It is inherent each moment, each second, each breath.
Goal -less happiness, strive-free joy. Here and now.
Delicious Ambiguity
"Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity."
-- Gild Radner
Nobody knows what's going to happen next. We can guess, we can predict, we can prognosticate, but we cant' know. That is so freeing! Nothing is pre-ordained, nothing is written, it's all a beautiful, ever-changing crap shoot.
Every student should have to take a required class called Introduction to Ambiguity. That class, more than algebra, more than chemistry, would help students learn how to deal with the real world of ever-shifting scenarios and free flowing possibility.
Instead, we try and teach analysis, prediction and control, all to no avail. You can waste your time analyzing the world if you want, but you can predict very little and control even less, so why bother?
Perception is where it's at. Being present, wide awake and aware. Living in the moment and enjoying life as it is, right here, right now.
That alone will help you build your ambiguity muscle. That alone will insure that your life is fully experienced and well lived. It's like a prize drawing at a charity raffle -- you must be present to win! Present without resistance. Wide open. Letting ambiguity be. Letting the world be what it is, even though a little voice (or a loud voice) inside of you doesn't like it.
In ever-changing times, your levels of success, joy and comfort are all directly dependent upon your ability to tolerate ambiguity. But why merely tolerate it when you can thrive upon it? Delicious ambiguity -- the true breakfast of champions!
-- Gild Radner
Nobody knows what's going to happen next. We can guess, we can predict, we can prognosticate, but we cant' know. That is so freeing! Nothing is pre-ordained, nothing is written, it's all a beautiful, ever-changing crap shoot.
Every student should have to take a required class called Introduction to Ambiguity. That class, more than algebra, more than chemistry, would help students learn how to deal with the real world of ever-shifting scenarios and free flowing possibility.
Instead, we try and teach analysis, prediction and control, all to no avail. You can waste your time analyzing the world if you want, but you can predict very little and control even less, so why bother?
Perception is where it's at. Being present, wide awake and aware. Living in the moment and enjoying life as it is, right here, right now.
That alone will help you build your ambiguity muscle. That alone will insure that your life is fully experienced and well lived. It's like a prize drawing at a charity raffle -- you must be present to win! Present without resistance. Wide open. Letting ambiguity be. Letting the world be what it is, even though a little voice (or a loud voice) inside of you doesn't like it.
In ever-changing times, your levels of success, joy and comfort are all directly dependent upon your ability to tolerate ambiguity. But why merely tolerate it when you can thrive upon it? Delicious ambiguity -- the true breakfast of champions!
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