Experiments for a more meaningful life.

Before I begin I have to give you a bit of an idea about how much I detest exercise. I’m not one for discomfort, not at all. You’ll never find me volunteering to rough it and in the harsh Australian sun you’ll find me hiding inside worshipping my air conditioner. I love holidaying in winter where I can walk around all day and never work up a sweat. I like to confine my body to what it was naturally born to do, namely walking. I’ll also include dancing there as I’ve been known to dance all night long at weddings and parties since the age of 3.

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.

We live in a world where clearly it seems that the majority of us have lost our way. This is in no small part attributed to how we think we should go about being happy.

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

I’m not much of a fan of New Year’s resolutions, or monthly goals or any goals for that matter. Too much planning and proclaiming doesn’t leave much room for flow and freedom, and for someone like me who is constantly thirsty for peace, freedom and insight, making a commitment to a goal is a significant turn-off.

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.

I can’t trace back to an exact date when I started taking the red pill, but I know that I’ve been taking it in small doses all my life, and for the past sixteen years regularly. In case you’re not sure what I’m referring to, it is a reference taken from The Matrix trilogy, now used popularly to refer to waking up to reality and truth.

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.

There are too many aspects to life that we participate in because we think we have to and because we think it is what life is all about.

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.