Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure...and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. - Marianne Williamson
Today I turn 35 years old. When I woke up this morning the first thing I thought about was gratitude. I’ve been trying to do this as much as possible when I wake up. Perhaps for the last few weeks or so, I’ve been focusing on gratitude during my meditations. Then, in the last ten days or so I began reflecting on the fact that I’ll have been alive for 35 years. It seems like it should be significant, but it’s not. Well, at least not to me. But over this last week and a half I kept waking up with the thought of gratitude in my mind, and I began to experiment with a mantra. I finally whittled it down to these five sentences, said silently with each of the first five deep breaths I take when I get to my mat in the morning:
I am grateful for this life
I am grateful for this day
I am grateful for this moment
I am grateful for this breath
I am grateful
Though it may be simple, I can’t quantify how much more I’ve paid attention to the present moment because of those few words. I feel more grateful with every breath because I’m really beginning to realize how much every day matters, just like my mother’s wooden sign says. The most trivial happenings make me smile like a fool sometimes. Yesterday when Erin and I were on our way to our anniversary lunch, I was thrilled to see that the goats were out on a particular street. It doesn’t take much, believe me. So that’s what I keep thinking about—gratitude for the here and now.
This past spring, I showed my students several clips from an introductory philosophy documentary, Examined Life. Listening to the words of Cornel West, a seed must have been planted within me. In his final segment, Dr. West illustrates how our need for completeness and wholeness in the Romantic sense makes us view the passage of time with dissatisfaction. Focusing on the regrets and missed opportunities enslaves us to a past we can no longer correct. He goes on to state that perhaps that’s the wrong idea, the wrong perspective. Maybe, West says, we should focus our gratitude on the time that we have been allotted. In his words, “time is a gift…time is a giver.” I think he’s right on both accounts. It’s not just our birthday that should be celebrated, but every day. Each time we wake we have another chance to take control of our lives and try to better ourselves just a little bit more.
The one thing I am most grateful for today, however, is Erin. She has made my life so wonderful that those words or any others I type from here on out could never possibly express what she has meant or means to me. I tell everyone that I meet that I would not be the person I am today if it were not for her. She has such a good heart and has taught me the true meaning of love. And not only is she the best gift, but she gave me the second best gift for my birthday this year. As cheesy as this is going to sound, I’ve really wanted to get one of those family doodle stickers on the back of the car for the longest time. Probably for close to a year. She told me this morning that she had been hoping for the last six months that I wouldn’t order one for myself. Well, now I have the coolest 2006 Scion Xa in town—reppin’ the fam:
I really like the sticker for two reasons: Erin and I are busting some yoga; Cleo, Britty, and Richard Parker are not only distinct, but accurately scaled. Seriously, the cat’s a monster. But then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. This is Erin who designed it. Among her diversified talents, artistic ability is certainly one.
I know that today is supposed to be a special day—and it is—but I also realize it is just another day. Another present moment, which is the real gift. The more that I focus on gratitude in my life, the easier it becomes to stay in the moment. It’s not always easy, though. Certainly there are times reserved for reflection and distraction, but they’re getting fewer in frequency. If anything, the routine of my everyday life contributes to this new sense of well being because I am grateful for every aspect of it. It may be simple, but it suits me just fine.
Before you go, I’d like you to reflect on a few things in your life for which you’re most grateful. I’m sure some people will be at the top of your list. Tell them. More importantly, tell them the reason for your gratitude. I’m sure it will mean a lot to the both of you. Now go enjoy your present moment…I have a whole lot left in this one, that’s for sure.
About 10 years ago, I read Voltaire’s Candide for the first time. I distinctly remember disliking the end of the story because of what the protagonist, Candide, says. He tells his trusted friend and advisor, Pangloss, that “we must cultivate our garden.” I thought this ending made no sense, and I questioned my professor on it. Our discussion was lively and energetic, and neither of us was willing to back down from our respective interpretations of this line. For my professor, he claimed that Candide was making the best out of a bad situation, whereas I thought that it was an admission of defeat. What I realize now, however, is that our difference of opinion was really based on our individual perspectives. My professor viewed the world—and by extension, Candide’s statement--in a way that I couldn’t understand a decade ago, but I do now. And it all comes down to perspective…
The power of perspective cannot be understated. Through our choices we have the ability to mold our perspective over time, whether positive or negative. During my more cynical days, I focused so much on the negative aspects of life that I became blinded by them. I was so concentrated on the negative, in fact, that I often couldn’t (or wouldn’t, in reality) allow myself to think otherwise. I was literally trapped within my paradigm, which is why I consider myself so fortunate to have turned my life around. Ultimately, with patience, persistence, and devoting strict attention to the choices you make, it is more than possible to conscientiously cultivate your personal perspective and become that better person you have always wanted to be.
I read a really great book lately that explicates this very topic. It is called Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher. Essentially, her argument is similar to mine (namely that we can create the lives we want to lead) but revolves less around the importance of choice and more on the aspect of attention. For Gallagher, what we consistently pay attention to dictates who we become as persons. Unfortunately for many of us—myself included until about 2 years ago—we don’t pay attention to our own focus and simply accept our lot in life as “matter of fact.” The biggest hurdle to overcoming this, according to Gallagher, is learning how to focus. Now, I know that last statement may sound trite, but in reality the overwhelming majority of human beings have lost this critical ability—especially in our technocratic, consumption-based society. According to Gallagher’s research (she has backgrounds in behaviorist psychology and sociology), she posits that the overwhelming amount of mental stimuli that are constantly begging for our attention erodes our ability to focus. While many big pharma companies see this as yet another opportunity to market a new pill for ADD/ADHD/anti-anxiety medication or whatever, Gallagher’s book illustrates how we can overcome this challenge by simply exercising our minds.
I won’t go into too much detail about her argument or the book, but I do want to mention a few points that I thought were incredible. The first is that the brain actually has two “selves.” We have an “experiencing self,” which is the mind that literally experiences the world; usually this comes in the form of sensory stimulation, whether it be seen, tasted, touched, etc. The other one is called the “reflecting self,” which is what we would often perceive as the “thinking” part of our brain. That little internal voice that we all have. Where many people get into trouble and start to “lose focus,” though, is by paying attention too much to the “reflecting self.” This is the part of the mind that is often untamed, wild, and willing to drag your thoughts wherever it wants to. This is the “self” that must be controlled.
Another detail that I thought was fascinating was the “top-down” attention/focus we use selectively, versus the “bottom-up” attention that is almost always being used. The difference between the two is simple: the “top-down” approach is used by the reflective self and engages a specific mental task; the “bottom-up” attention is part of our evolutionary make-up and is what engages the experiencing self. Simple bottom up attention cues would be automatic in nature. If a bear is running full speed at you and is anticipating lunch, you’d run. You wouldn’t think about it, just run. These types of interactions are processed among neural networks so quickly that your reflecting self often doesn’t get the message until later. Only then does the reflecting self go to work and qualify the experience. Gallagher goes on to illustrate how many of the worries, fears, and anxieties that we feel are “bottom up” attention signals that have piled up for so long that they become engrained in the reflecting self; so much so that by paying attention to these negative emotions creates the negative focus/perspective. For instance, Gallagher uses a common example: being overweight. A subconscious message by our experiencing self would send a bottom up signal to the reflecting self telling it, “hey, there’s some extra weight here.” In the prehistoric period of humanity, this signal would have then been processed by the reflecting self as a cue to do something about it, much like the flight from the bear. But in our contemporary society—one that prescribes silly cultural norms like “the-ideal-human-body-should-look-like-this” on billboards, magazine ads, television commercials, and internet sites—the reflecting self gets not only mixed messages, but a deluge of them. Eventually the mind is swept up in the torrent and no longer knows what or how to think, instead producing a streamlined negative perspective on the world.
The final notion that I wanted to mention was how she suggests we exercise and strengthen our focus—meditation. As I mentioned in my second letter, I’ve been meditating daily now for nearly a year. I cannot even begin to explain the kind of impact that it has had. What I particularly liked about Gallagher’s book is her basic explanation of meditation and its benefits. I think most people hear the word meditation and associate it with religious belief. While its roots are undeniably spiritual in origin, meditation can also have a distinctly secular dimension. My daily meditation is simple in that I spend most of my time focusing on my breath. It may sound simple, but the simultaneous goal is to not get distracted by anything else. Not by sounds, not by smells, not by sensations, and most of all, not by thoughts. The only thing that matters is the breath. Gallagher notes that while meditation is the most effective way to sharpen your mental muscle, it’s not the only way. As long as it’s an activity that demands your complete focus for an extended period of time, it’s productive.
The benefits of increasing my ability to focus in my life have been self-evident. I feel more open and alive right now than I ever have before. I have moments of what Gallagher calls “rapt attention,” and subsequently have found a lot more joy in the present moment. Gallagher speaks of focus; I often refer to choice. We may use different words, but we’re speaking the same language. I think we’d concur on this point: if you align your efforts with your ideals, your life will blossom. Choice and Focus are in somewhat symbiotic in that what you choose to pay attention to becomes your focus. Over time as you continue to make good choices, your focus sharpens, and your perspective becomes more positive. And according to the research, you’ll be more productive too. If you get a chance, you should read Rapt. While much of what I read I found myself nodding to because I had already discovered it over the past couple of years, it was still worth reading. Plus, the validation that I’m not crazy was nice too.
Like many 18th and 19th century pieces of literature, Candide has a subtitle, Optimism. Considering that it’s a biting satire—and my own cynical perspective at the time—I never saw how “we must cultivate our garden” could be uttered with anything but defeat. At that point, just about every imaginable suffering had been inflicted upon Candide, and now he was to end his days on a small farm performing what appears to be menial labor. What I couldn’t appreciate back then was what Voltaire was saying. Candide travels all over the world searching for something he could never find externally, facing hardship and pain with every step. At the end of the novella, however, he rejects Pangloss’ famous aphorism for “we must cultivate our garden” because—as my professor claimed back then—he’s wiser now. He’s learned that life is what you make it. He knows that if he focuses on the small gifts and daily blessings rather than the trivialities human beings turn into travesties, life can be really, really good. He knows that by cultivating his garden—both (metaphorically) mentally and (literally) physically—he’ll grow as a person.
It took me 33 years to believe in myself. If you don’t believe in yourself as much as you should, I can let you in on my secret. It’s just a simple choice. Our lives in sum are, in many ways, the total of all the choices we make or have made, whether consciously or not. I think the change came for me when I decided to take my life back. At the height of my cynicism, I convinced myself that there were simply elements that were beyond my control and in some ways I would always be a victim of circumstance—or so it would seem. The importance of choice is often understated; we let it play such a minor role in our daily lives because we dismiss how much we can actually accomplish through our own autonomy. As I became more mindful of the choices I was making, my life turned around rather quickly. My happiness and personal satisfaction increased because I was making choices that worked toward those aims. Anyone can do this, all it takes is the realization that no matter what the situation, what the circumstance, you always have a choice.
That statement may sound familiar because it is number 4 on my list of “Top Ten Secrets.” More often than not, however, many of us forget this. Through the choices we make, we sculpt our lives. The more we focus on positive choices that build and reinforce our integrity and sense of self-worth, the more our sense of autonomy starts to flourish. The first 32 years of my life this was extremely difficult because I was subconsciously defeated. Much like I mentioned in “Strive,” the subconscious mind cannot discern fact from fiction. As you learn to discipline your own mind, the use of choice can help you accept what is useful while rejecting that for which you have no need. We often take criticism with a knee-jerk reaction, allowing our emotions to have the first say in the matter. Upon stepping back and examining any such situation, however, it is easy to see how choice can deflect or lessen these reactions. If someone were to say something that in the past may have gotten me riled, I now try to pause before letting emotion take control. In time, you’ll find that you can literally choose your emotional state. Why get upset over something that is not worth wasting the emotional energy? No one’s perfect, either. Sometimes there may be a situation that arises that you feel so overwhelmed that you can’t help responding emotionally. Even if that’s so, make a choice to allow yourself only a certain amount of time to be upset. Once that hour, afternoon, or day has passed, move on. If you still feel that emotional energy, make another choice to channel it into something productive. Remember, there is always another option—you always have a choice.
This isn’t to say that making these types of choices will come easily. It takes practice and patience to develop one’s autonomy through choice, but in the most basic sense we are all burgeoning existentialists. We all choose what has meaning and value in our lives, and more often than not these ideals are borne through our choices/actions. Moreover, this is a constant work-in-progress. I have to assiduously reexamine what’s important to my life and jettison the frivolous distractions that do not have a direct positive impact. The more you do this, the more you’ll hone your awareness and discipline your mind. This in turn will allow your autonomy to grow in massive strides. I should offer a caveat, though, because always having a choice can be a double-edged sword.
When we’re not careful, bad choices can wreak havoc in our lives…and the lives of others. For the longest time, I—like many people—would externalize the effects of the bad choices I had made. I didn’t see an immediate causal link to my choice, and I would often perceive these seemingly random injustices as part of a world that was “out-to-get-me.” We’ve all played the victim card at one time or another in our lives. I’d like to think that I didn’t play it too much, but I’m sure I did my share. If you want to take control of your life, to reclaim any sense of power and personal autonomy, it begins with the realization that you create your own destiny. Obviously, this is done through the choices we make. I’m sure there will be some naysayers out there, but here’s how I see the world at this point in my life.
Though I wouldn’t call myself a Buddhist in a religious sense, I think the core of my worldview is overwhelmingly Buddhist. Buddhism believes in a concept known as pratityasamutpada, which is often translated as “codependent origination.” This means that X (event, object, whatever) cannot arise into existence without Y (some contingent condition) being present. We may or may not know what this is, but it’s rather basic causality. Therefore, everything in the world is interdependent and needs something else for its existence. We need oxygen. Plants need carbon dioxide. I won’t drag this out forever. But let’s extrapolate this to our lives. It’s easy to see how the choices we make are X, and the choices of others essentially make up Y. I don’t believe in fate in the sense that every action is preordained, but I do believe in a fate that is the culmination of permutations of reality through our collective choices. Take a chance meeting with someone as an example. Wherever you bumped into one another, each of you had made a choice to go to that place at that time. There doesn’t have to be any weird or mysterious meaning to it—it’s simply a product of our choices. And, yes, I’m sure you may want to object and say that there are things out of our control—which is absolutely true—but even how we address those situations when they arise can be handled judiciously and graciously through choice if we allow ourselves.
Once I began to realize that my life was a product of my choices, I paid much more attention to them. I didn’t feel like a victim anymore because I had the power to accept or deny what had bearing on my life through my choices. This shift in my autonomy helped me feel better about who I was as a person and what my purpose in life should be. The victim who once let himself be abused by social standing, cultural convention, or peer pressure disappeared. In time I learned not only to accept myself for who I am and what I could give this world, but actually that I could get even better. That I could push myself. That I could define myself through my actions, and those actions began with the choices I made at nearly every single moment. While the self-confidence I’ve gained in the last two years has a lot to do with the physical changes I’ve challenged myself to make, it has much more so to do with winning the mental battle. Before I could change for the better, I had to make that choice. I had to choose between being a victim and letting life happen to me, or taking my life back and letting me happen to life.
What I want you to realize is that you are more powerful than you imagine. Having the ability to make sound choices that will productively build our lives for the better is what makes the human condition so wonderful. We really can fashion the world as we see fit, but many of us choose not to do so. Many of us get so wrapped up in the prefabricated notions of what constitutes “life” that we aren’t mindful of the choices we make. Sometimes choices can seem minor and insignificant but ultimately have a huge role later on in our lives—whether positive or negative. By taking back my autonomy, I discovered that I am the only person who has any say over the quality of life I lead/enjoy. I refuse to be anything other than the product of my choices. By making mindful choices that promote positivity in my own life, I find that I can impact the welfare others for the better as well. We all have this ability. All it takes is practice and vigilance. The more you make good choices for yourself, the quicker you’ll come to realize that life is what you make it. Whether it is the deciding the food you eat or the disposition you cultivate, it all begins with a single choice.
While taking care of your physical health should always be a priority, I’d like to dedicate a few words to discuss where the real battle takes place—the mind. Physical changes--whether reducing the amount of processed foods or increasing your activity levels—can be accomplished in a shorter amount of time if you push yourself hard enough. This is not the same for mental changes. Our perceptions of the world, ourselves, and the relationship shared between the two are learned over time. Through the process of socialization, we construct our mental foundation. The real difficulty with this, however, is that our subconscious has no idea of what is “real” and what is “perceived.” After hearing enough negative comments, we have the tendency to believe them—or at least I did.
It took me a long time to realize that what I was telling myself mentally affected me in ways far greater than I had ever imagined. I can’t speak for everyone, but it seems rather universal when I do bring it up—especially among younger people such as my students. As I mentioned in the earlier letter, “It’s All in Your Head,” we must learn to disregard that little negative voice that generates self-doubt. If we don’t, it affects every aspect of our being as social creatures. We feel and (far too often) capitulate to peer pressure. We allow ourselves to be shaped by and for our culture and all that it entails (shared language, religion(s), various ethnicities, etc). But is this necessary? Do we really need these cultural archetypes, or is it possible to transcend them and cut to the heart of the human condition and/or experience? I don’t know if I have any answers to these questions, but I can tell you who did—Nietzsche.
I like philosophy in general because it exposes humanity to questions of concern for all of us. It’s a learning exercise to read philosophy because you have to engage the text in a critical and responsible way if it is to have any meaning or bearing on your own life. While I wouldn’t consider myself the most widely read person when it comes to philosophy, I’ve done my fair share—and no one has ever puzzled me more than one of the earliest existentialists, Friedrich Nietzsche. If you’ve never read him, his aphoristic style is difficult to interpret at times and at face value many of his statements may seem blasphemous, ridiculous, or outlandish. I wouldn’t recommend sustained reading of his works, either; several years ago I read half of his works in a two month period and I was starting to question my own sanity. As I’ve gotten older, however, I’ve found that I continually gravitate back to his worldview, particularly that of the “übermensch.”
The übermensch is often translated as “superman,” but I prefer Walter Kaufman’s translations of Nietzsche who uses the term “overman” instead. Without getting into too much detail, a basic description of the “overman” is someone who is capable of letting go of cultural convention and archetypes. For Nietzsche, there was no such person. He felt that if humanity were to progress, we’d have to jettison a lot (if not all) of our preconceptions about life that culture is bound to create. Essentially, in order to be our most fully human, we must transcend. One of my favorite quotes about this is from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Zarathustra is a prophet who is preaching the coming of the übermensch, a person who would have the ability to live as authentically as possible. Here’s the quote:
But my fervent will to create impels me ever again toward man; thus is the hammer impelled toward the stone. O men, in the stone there sleeps an image, the image of my images. Alas, that is must sleep in the hardest, the ugliest stone! Now my hammer rages cruelly against its prison. Pieces of rock rain from the stone: what is it to me? I want to perfect it; for a shadow came to me—the stillest and lightest of all things once came to me. The beauty of the overman came to me as a shadow. O my brothers, what are the gods to me now?
I’d like to put this quote into context by sharing my interpretation of it. Nietzsche thought that a person was capable of great things through the exercise of will. In past letters I’ve already mentioned how important the will is if you’re ever going to succeed at anything, whether your aim be personal development or otherwise. What this quote means to me is that we can literally create who we are, or more importantly, who we are trying to become. We all know that that better person we want to become—physically, mentally, or spiritually—is already inside of each of us. All it takes is the will and the perseverance to see the transformation through. That “image” of who we want to become is what is trapped within the stone; the stone itself being societal trappings. We are so enmeshed within our own cultural context that it can be difficult to see outside of it. I am in no means advocating that you give up or destroy culture, either. I think that you must give culture the respect that it’s due, but not to the point that you are bound and defined by it (and we are much more than we think we are). Metaphorically speaking then, Zarathustra—and by extension anyone who wants to make real, lasting change for the better to his/her personal life—must escape from this prison, must break away the stone to unleash the true potential that lies within. In my estimation, the last line sums it up perfectly. Though “gods” can be taken in the literal sense, I see it again as a metaphor for the forces of society that give us a prescribed life, or at least a prescribed meaning for that life. Or perhaps “gods” could be the parameters that we use to restrict ourselves and our development as human beings. Either way, I’ve had my hammer in hand for almost two years now. There may still be a lot of stone that needs to be cleared away, but I have the will to see it through.
I’d like to return to the allusion of “becoming” that I made in the preceding paragraph. Nietzsche was originally a philologist, which was a forerunner to the field of modern linguistics. His specialty was languages from antiquity with a focus on ancient Greek in particular. Being a Classics minor myself, I can see why I gravitated toward Nietzsche because of my own admiration for ancient Greek society. At any rate, in several of his works Nietzsche paraphrases the poet Pindar by stating “Become who you are.” To me, that might be the most loaded and interesting four word phrase I’ve ever read. It’s not the same as recommending to someone “be who you are,” which would imply stasis. Nothing in this universe is in stasis; all we have is in the midst of change. “Become who you are” is so much more powerful because it is imbued with a sense of destiny and urgency. Almost as if there is something inside of us that is dormant waiting to be awakened and released. That better person that we want to become. More importantly, it is equally fascinating because it is impossible to “become.” In doing so, we are always required to push ourselves, to keep chipping away, to know there’s always room for improvement. Each day is a gift. We’ll never know how many we are going to receive, so why wait? Why not begin “becoming who you are”? If you are well on your way and have begun to realize some of these changes in your life—that’s spectacular! But you probably have figured out that it will take more work because we are never going to perfect ourselves. All we can do is strive. To keep reaching for that goal, whether it’s to lose weight, improve our patience, help more people, it doesn’t matter. It’s in the constant struggle to improve that we truly come alive.
One of the last letters I wrote during the school year was to my graduating seniors. In it I discussed the importance of this concept, of becoming who they are. They are about to begin a new leg of this journey we call life as they head off to college, and I couldn’t let them leave without one final word about what it means to strive. At the closing of the letter, I quoted the last line of Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” as it summarizes a great deal of what I’ve said in this letter. Below you will find final five lines of the last stanza:
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are—
I hope you are well and have begun eliminating those three nasty processed food ingredients. If you have, you’re well on your way to the land of milk and honey. I’m not sure if why I chose that title had to do with keeping the Biblical allusions going, or the fact that I put all-natural peanut butter with honey in my organic skim milk for a protein shake this morning. Either way, life is delicious. Though I spoke at length about those three food ingredients in the last letter, I didn’t dedicate enough to the topic of organic versus industrial food or some of the other physical changes I had to make in order to get where I am currently.
Would you like to know the biggest reason I try to eat organic food? The taste. While some products do taste roughly the same, there are others (fruits are a great example) that have much more intense flavors. Granted, this may be in my head (literally) because now that I don’t get a lot of refined/processed sugars my taste buds are experiencing a renaissance. Taste buds do get overstimulated. Too much of anything will deaden flavors; even smoking cigarettes greatly reduces the effectiveness of the taste buds. I believe what deters a lot of people from switching to organic foods is the price, which can be a genuine issue for families who are on a specific food budget. This is one reason why obesity is more prevalent among the lower socio-economic demographic. Without having a large enough budget to eat well (I’m just talking basic fruits and veggies, even industrial produced ones), these people are forced to get the most for their money. If you watch those films or read the books I mentioned, you’ll see how the subsidization and commodification of corn then skews the true cost of processed foods. How can these people spend $3 on a few pieces of fruit when they can get a cornucopia of processed junk for the same price? The junk keeps the family belly full , doesn’t it?
But at what cost?
I won’t get into the reasons why we overproduce food in America, but we do. Again, read those books or watch those films—especially if you have a family. The primary reason that we got into this mess (industrialized food) has to do with World War II. Back during the war, large chemical corporations (Dow, DuPont, etc) were working on chemical agents for biological weapons to be employed in the war effort. With the advent of the H-bomb and the close of the Pacific theater, these companies now had to find a new use for these bio-weapons. Hence, they were re-engineered to be used as pesticides and fertilizers. The world’s first “Green Revolution” took place here in our own backyard in the late 1940s—and with it, the demise of traditional agriculture. Over the years, we’ve used more and more of these chemicals, some of which are known neurotoxins. Additionally, our food scientists also started creating GMOs, which stands for Genetically Modified Organism. Sounds ambiguous, huh? It is. Essentially, the biggest problem with GMOs is that we have no idea how they affect our health (nor the pesticides and fertilizers that are sprayed all over the food). GMOs would make Gregor Mendel proud. They are the result of modifying DNA in an effort to make the plant or animal grow faster, produce more, be more resistant to increasingly potent pesticides/ fertilizers/antibiotics, or whatever else needs to be accomplished. And yet we willingly eat it all.
Ever wonder why people in Europe eat food that is seemingly so unhealthful yet have no problems with obesity? 1) They eat normal sized portions (ideally each meal you eat should NEVER go over 800 calories, 600 is an even better number—some of the basic combo meals at fast food restaurants easily contain 1,200 calories); 2) they don’t have industrial produced food. Europe flat out banned GMO production on the continent and all products containing GMOs that are imported—namely from the United States—must be clearly labeled for the consumer. I know that agribusiness giants here in America would never let this happen, which is why it is all the more necessary for Americans to educate themselves about this issue.
The real question then becomes this: if you know that there are chemicals covering or mixed into your food—chemicals that are potentially hazardous to your health (let alone brain function)—why would you not eat organic food? It’s as if I were to say, you have two doors in front of you: one will have nothing behind it; the other will have the potential to dramatically affect your health adversely. Would really chose the second door? Of course not. Now, I know life is not a thought-experiment. But if you have the means financially to eat organically, you should do so. If you don’t, then you can still make the best choices with what means you have. Try to avoid the three amigos, HFCS, Hydrogenated Oils, and Enriched Flour. I think eliminating those from your diet alone can have massive ramifications for your overall health, fitness, and well-being. Eating organic foods are a bonus. Erin and I simply have made a conscious choice to put our food budget all in one basket. By limiting how much we go out to eat (it’s rare at this point) to restaurants, we have that much more money for our grocery cart. Moreover, it’s not like you have to go to Whole Foods and spend extra money just because it’s the fancy Wal-Mart of organic foods. There are issues with our organic food production that make it no more sustainable than our industrial food chain. Ideally, support local farmers if you can. Even if you were to get your fruits and veggies from a local farmer who uses pesticides and fertilizers, studies have shown they use far less quantities in their application and are subsequently a more healthful alternative to what you’d get in the local supermarket.
Though eating healthful foods certainly helped usher me into the land of milk and honey, there were equally responsible life decisions I made during my exodus that helped get me to where I am today—not the least of which was quitting smoking. If you’re reading this and you’re one of my students, past, present, or future, please don’t smoke. Every other non-smoking adult in this world will tell you the same, which is probably why you’ll want to experiment with cigarettes at some point.
But smoking is no joke. Nicotine is addictive stuff. Luckily for me, I was never a tremendously heavy smoker. On average, I smoked about half a pack a day. On my days off when I drove around a lot, perhaps a whole pack. This lasted from age 18 until I was about 21. That was the first serious attempt at quitting. I told myself that I would go cold turkey and only smoke on special occasions. My friend Grant also made this promise—he’s the one who brought me into the fold, ironically. About a week into it, the both of us along with some other friends went out to dinner. Before we had sat down at our booth, my friend went into the bar and lit up a cigarette. I was dying for one and I asked him, “what’s the occasion?” He smiled as he took a drag through crinkled eyes and smoke and said, “It’s gotta be somebody’s birthday.” I gave in.
The next earnest attempt that I made was the day I bought my bike and began this entire journey. But I learned the first time that going cold turkey was too difficult for me. So I did the next best thing. Baby steps. Instead of trying to quit smoking, I first quit buying them. This alone was a good exercise in will power because it was relatively easy. I would try my best to abstain from them as well, even when offered to me. Sometimes I could, and sometimes I couldn’t. That was probably the most difficult step: going from social smoker to non-smoker. That phase of my life, in fact, lasted much longer than I wanted. But I was also young and still learning about life and coming to terms with it. For the better part of the last decade, I’ve been tobacco/nicotine free. My one relapse, however, was on 12/22/2003. I only had one that I bummed off someone in my excitement. The next morning I was upset because up to that point it had been a little more than a year. And so the counting began again. As of today, it’s been 2377 consecutive days since I’ve had a cigarette.
Alcohol was an entirely different matter. I’m 34 years old. I’ve done my share of drinking, but I would never consider myself “a drinker” by any standard. Especially since turning 30, I’ve noticed that my body doesn’t handle alcohol well, regardless of the quantity. Though I never drank a lot in any one sitting, once I began teaching I noticed that the frequency with which I imbibed spirits increased. It became regular for me to have a beer or glass of wine with dinner, perhaps another afterward too. Sometimes it was a cocktail. It never went beyond two on any given night, but I began to feel that it was affecting my health.
Two summers ago—just before this new/current phase of my life emerged—I was speaking with my uncle who, like myself, was never a big drinker. He had told me that he quit drinking because it was affecting his sleep and it made his body too achy the next day. Curious to see if this would do the same for me, I decided to stop drinking. Within a few days, I was waking up more refreshed than ever before. There are manifold reasons why I think drinking should be eliminated from your diet if you want to make the best of the vehicle for your consciousness, but here are the most important two: 1) alcohol is poison, literally. When you drink, your brain prioritizes getting rid of the poison from your system. Therefore, the calories that will be burned immediately for energy will be the ones in alcohol. Alcohol is no slouch, either. It takes 7 calories to burn off one gram of alcohol, whereas protein and carbohydrates only need 4 calories to process (fat takes 9 per gr). Meanwhile, any food that you eat will be automatically converted to sugar and stored as fat because the body is working off the alcohol; 2) alcohol severely reduces the quality of your sleep. I know there will always be people who tell you “I can have several drinks and fall right asleep” (sometimes you hear the same thing about caffeinated beverages), but while they may fall asleep they are not getting quality rest. And rest, like any other piece of the puzzle, must be in place in order to maximize the potential we can harness from our bodies.
I know this sounds like a lot. It is. This has been a beautiful, amazing last couple of years for me, but it took 11 years of trial and error to get here. I’m only putting all of this out there so that you, Nobody in Particular, can do something with your life if you want to. There is no reason to not be satisfied with the life you have. If you don’t like something about it, change it! I think too many times people get caught up in that culture of victimhood. It’s always something beyond your control, always someone else’s fault. Been there, done that. Not doing it any more. Whether it is eating more healthful foods, quitting smoking, or giving up alcohol—take your time. It’s just like I mentioned in “Top Ten Secrets,” all you have to do is keep chipping away. Every day is a new day and every single one matters. Use it to your advantage to take that extra little step. Have one less cigarette, drink one less Mountain Dew. In time you’ll find that your will power becomes honed and ready to buttress you in situations you never before dared to assert yourself. As your will grows stronger, you’ll be surprised how the once insurmountable obstacles seem so insignificant in light of your newfound strength. Keep nourishing it and soon you’ll feel as if you’ve reached your own personal land of milk and honey too.
