Category — Meaning Experiment of the Week

I’ve never liked watching the news on television. Growing up, the evening news (all five versions of it) began before dinnertime, went through dinner and ended after dinner. My dad simply had to watch as much of the news as he could, even if the stories were repeated or it was a slow news day. We always sat at the table together as a family, and this was the time that my brothers and I wanted to share our day with our parents and each other, but we were always silenced because my dad had to watch the news as we ate. So you could say that I developed a distaste for the news from a young age.

The first time I remember our news stations having almost 24 hour coverage of a news event was September 11, 2001. The horrifying and bewildering event was happening right in front of our eyes and had we wanted to look away there were no other options on our local stations. At the time there was also a fair amount of advice on how to shield the event from the eyes of young children since their TV shows had also been swallowed up by the news coverage.

From then on, Australia has seemed to favour more and more news coverage, disguised in various chat shows and current affairs programs. But really, how does it all serve us? What does it teach us?

As with everything, we are being given a particular perspective of the world and our societies through news coverage. And as has become more apparent recently, the world of news and media is of course the world of money. Good deed done does not sell nearly as well as victim stabbed to death. So what is the result?

I think we can see some of the negative impact of this sort of news coverage with the recent riots in London. I don’t know a great deal about the what or the why in these riots, but upon interviewing some of the people involved, it has been mentioned that to get their message across – or to make it news worthy – they needed drastic action. Had it not been broadcast on the news as it was, I wonder whether it would have lasted as long as it did, or whether there would have been so many copycat riots spreading across other cities in England. It seems unlikely.

I’ve personally become a lot more fearful of the society in which I live; little city Perth, Western Australia. My impressions from the news make me feel that if I were to walk around outside in the city or the suburbs of Perth, then I would be more likely to be viciously attacked than I would have been on this past New Years Eve in Madrid or walking the streets of Barcelona.

Rationally this doesn’t compute in my mind. Yet emotionally this is how I feel. Of course the difference is that I didn’t know much about Madrid or Barcelona before visiting, nor could I understand anything on their local news channels. I’d read the Lonely Planet guide, and they told me both cities were “relatively safe” (relative to what I don’t know) and that advice was good enough for me. Yet here, in little family friendly Perth, the nightly news focuses on stabbings, glassings, forceful robberies, child predators and all sorts of terrible stories. Watching them has made me start to believe that Perth is an unnaturally violent place to live.

Now of course, it’s imperative that we are aware of our surroundings and that we’re a bit street savvy so that we can protect our safety as much as possible. All this really requires though is a good dose of common sense.

I also tend to believe that if you think life is one way, then that’s exactly how it will be for you. Focusing on the depressing and the terrible makes life an unpleasant experience. Focusing instead on the enjoyable and the energising makes life far more pleasant.

If you take in enough information that tells you that the world outside your door is unsafe and treacherous, then it won’t be long until you believe it to be true. If the news stories give you an image that life isn’t very enjoyable or worth living, then this also will become true for you. After awhile you will choose to stay and watch whatever show is coming up next, after all it’s safer and more comfortable than living in the real world.

I’m not advocating that you stop watching the news so that you can bury your head in the sand or become uninformed about the world around you. We cannot become complacent or naïve about realistic scenarios that may arise. I am suggesting that you choose exactly where you get your news from and how much you ingest.

All we can control is our perceptions and I know I’d rather live in a world that I felt was interesting, engaging and friendly. Switching off from what the news media choose to tell you might be the first step in helping to shape a more healthy and meaningful world view.

I love being at home. Moving around my own space, configuring myself this way and that in a room or on a couch. Being with my thoughts, with my books, with my tea, with my MacBook.

This week we’ve had the first bit of sunshine here in Perth for what seemed like a long time, by Perth standards. In fact it was probably only preceded by six days of on and off rain, but when the sun came out it seemed like a new season had begun. Either that, or this new lifestyle of mine, where time has become far more abundant, has finally begun to hit home and a foreign sense of cheeriness is filling my days.

Anyway, as Thursday morning rolled around I felt like doing a good bit of pottering around the house. I began by doing a bit of tidying here and organising there. I got out in the sun (which I rarely ever do since my fluorescent skin seems to hate sun exposure), out the front of my house, and weeded. I know, can you believe it? My mum sounded surprised when I told her and I think it’s only since she’s viewed the evidence that she could believe it. My husband thought something seemed different and was amazed at how productive I had been.

He was further amazed at the delicious salad I had then made for my lunch, with plenty left over for successive lunches. All I really did was roast some pumpkin and assemble with some toasted pine nuts, spinach and goat’s cheese. I wasn’t trying to be productive though. I just felt the urge to potter around and do homely things.

I’ve often thought that I’d love to spend days baking Italian biscuits and one of these days I will. I can sometimes be found dusting something or reorganising something else and I’ll be thoroughly enjoying myself.

I’m no queen of domesticity and sometimes the thought of wiping something with a sponge or making a piece of toast just seems like too much effort. But I’ve noticed a change since I finished up working. Before, I used to lament that all my energetic hours were taken up with work and that anything needing to be done around the house was a chore, rather than enjoyable. Now, with so many more daytime hours, the thoughts of cooking a bit of this or tidying a bit of that sounds almost like an opportunity for meditation.

Being in my space and using the space to enjoy life, rather than recover from life, is what home is all about. Having the luxury to act as the mood takes me is a bit of a revelation for me. As someone who lives very much in my mind, kinaesthetically engaging with my surrounds is soothing and energising.

How about you? Do you enjoy a good pottering around the house every now and again?

I’ve been a little quiet on here lately, and as life has begun to shift rapidly for me, my mind and thoughts are getting carried away with where I’m going next.

As you may know, three weeks ago I finished up at my work. Instead of pursuing a new challenge or a new field of work straight away, I’ve decided to stand still for awhile. I’ve decided to take time to see how I feel and what and where I next feel most drawn.

My mind is a little alarmed by all of this. It wants to know what my plan is. It wants to know why I’m not being very productive. It’s also starting to stress out when it sees me simply sitting around, taking a nap or with my nose in a good book.

My thoughts keep reminding me that “other people” who’ve quit their jobs have thrown themselves, full force, into the project of getting themselves on track for making a living online, from anywhere in the world. My thoughts keep pestering me, asking me over and over about whether I should be more proactively seeking my new path. There is an urgency to these thoughts, with a great deal of worry and anxiety built in.

And yet, day after day, I still take no real action. I dabble a little here and there, I daydream about where I might go next on this path and I take it all slowly.

I’m not ready to move.

I know I need the time to create some space between my former life and the one that is to come. It’s like a break up. Often we come through a broken relationship dragging and carrying pieces of ourselves that barely made it through. Imagine you then walked up to the next potential partner, raw and exposed, without any time to heal and gather yourself together. It’s unlikely that the next relationship would be a raving success.

I’ve broken up with my old life and I feel exactly this way. I didn’t realise that I would. I thought I’d feel excited and exhilarated, pumped full of energy and champing at the bit to get started on what’s next.

Instead I feel quietly relieved that I’ve made it through without losing myself completely. I find myself standing alone, feeling raw and a little exposed, and also a little bewildered. I need this time to recuperate.

As the final day of my previous life drew closer, I knew that I would need at least one week of total inaction. Three weeks have passed, and although I’m not at all sitting around staring at the wall, I am consciously resisting every plea from my mind to hurry up and get on with it.

I’m really surprised that I feel this way. It seems, from the stories I’ve read, that when other people have broken away from their old life, they move forward full steam ahead into making their new life work. Their relationship with their old life must have been over long before the end finally came.

So I’m practicing a new concept for me, and that’s simply being where I am.

I’m not forcing and pushing myself forward, as if life is a never-ending obstacle course or to-do list.

At every turn I’m fighting the nagging feeling that if I don’t move now I’ll miss out. Or even scarier than that, the thought that if I don’t move now I never will.

I’m also resisting the urge to be somebody and to get out there and put a label on myself, loud and proud.

I’m dealing with the feelings of guilt that arise as I’m sitting around accomplishing nothing of note while others crave just a little of what I’ve got.

Yet still, here I go being right where I am.

Do you feel any of these senses of urgency, to make something of yourself, to push yourself forward? Why do we do it to ourselves?

We all need the time to gather ourselves between life transitions. We need to be gentle and allow ourselves the privilege and the wisdom to be where we are without thinking about what’s coming up next.

This week, be where you are.

If you love Zenhabits and Leo Babauta as much as I do then you’ve probably been inspired by many of the unique philosophies and habits that you’ve been reading there recently.

The one habit that has intrigued me lately is Leo’s suggestion that we awake each morning and decide what we do each day, without any goals or any real plans. Within this, Leo encourages us to have moments of doing nothing. Nothing at all. Not meditating, not reading. Just simply sitting and being.

For the past few weeks I have been craving this opportunity to do nothing with my days other than what truly feels inspiring and exciting to me. This craving had been building into excitement as the final day of work was approaching. On Friday I left my main place of employment in favour of an uncertain future full of time and freedom. While I have a couple of other small part time jobs still ongoing, I have been able to claim back most of my time. The future is full of possibilities and the adventure is exhilarating.

And yet, two and a half days in to my new life, doing nothing feels unsettling.

It takes real effort to consciously do nothing and to develop a habit of being. I constantly have a to-do list running through my mind that I feel compelled to address. To stop these thoughts I feel the need to catch up on TV shows so that I feel that I’m doing something but at the same time nothing.

Having an expanse of nothing much in front of me sparks my anxiety and a desperate feeling that I should be setting goals and planning what to do with all this time. Projects and ideas start flashing through my mind and I’m in a whirl thinking about which ones to act on.

Then there is the part of me sitting patiently to one side, waiting for all of this to subside so that I can just be and exist.

My plan this week is to have no real plans and to just go with the flow. Although I may end up making a few phone calls to make appointments here and there, my intention is to awake each day and to see where the day leads me.

I want to open a space that allows the deeper parts of me to speak up and guide me in new and more meaningful directions. I want to feel energised and relaxed at the same time.

I am gently pushing away these thoughts of urgency and anxiety. As a “should” thought pops into my mind, I gently ignore it and get back to being where I am. As the day turns into night and I feel the sensation of guilt creep in at my lack of action or progress for the day, I once again ignore all this and instead relish the joy of doing nothing and being still. It’s ongoing and relentless at first, but it does become easier.

If you have been curious about the ideas that Leo has been proposing I encourage you to give them a try, no matter how challenging they may seem. We all crave a simpler life yet rarely make the necessary changes to achieve it.

This week do nothing and love every minute of it.

I understand why it is that people want to believe in God and want to follow a religion. Humans are naturally scared of being alone, lonely and unloved. An imaginary fatherly figure who watches over you, loves you and is waiting for you to come home, is a comforting thought.

Just because some of us want it to be true, it doesn’t mean it is true.

As humans developed in complexity it was natural that they turned their thoughts from survival to the meaning of it all. It is our curiosity about how it all works that has got us this far. We haven’t yet figured it all out, but since nearly everything has an answer, we assume that the reason we are here has an answer also. And the reason has to be amazing. Some people won’t accept that the reason lies in a series of mutations in a group of apes.

I understand that people want there to be something bigger and grander than the human species. If you look at us as a whole, bumbling around with moments of extraordinary talent and intelligence contrasted with moments of such horrible meanness and violence, you kind of wish there was something more intelligent and generous natured than us.

But it’s not god.

So where does that leave us when we need the inspiration and reassurance of something bigger and more magnificent than us? Are we the end of the line?

No. There’s the universe.

Tonight, or any night this week, go outside and spend a few moments gazing up at the night sky. Really look and feel it. Ponder what it means to you.

If the weather won’t allow for it, go online to watch some videos or view some slides of pictures of our universe.

When we gaze at the universe we understand more completely that we are not the centre of it all, not even close. We understand that we are animals grappling with our amazing intelligence and abilities. Yet we are animals all the same.

We may be the most evolved life form that we know, but that doesn’t mean we need anything more or that there is anything more.

We are the product of something far more impressive and amazing than any religious imagining of the human mind. We are the product of this wondrous and incredible universe.

Sure, we don’t know how the universe came to be. Not yet at least. But it wasn’t created by some being in the image of man. For all we know, it’s not even a universe, but a multiverse.

When you need to feel the awe and wonder of something greater than you are, gaze up at our universe. Feel how amazing it all is and how you are the tiniest fragment which composes the whole.