One question I absolutely want you to ask yourself is this:

Is Faster Better?

Carl Honore, author of the international bestseller In Praise of SLOW; How a Worldwide movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed ascertains,

“If we are ever going to slow down, we must understand why we accelerated in the first place.”

Historically speaking, each new wave revolution of technology has come with one promise:  this will make your work faster, so you can have more time off. From past presidents to TV commercials, speed offers the payoff of more pleasure and increased leisure time.  But, for most of us, the addiction to speed has not paid off. Instead of achieving more pleasure, we are simply feeling more pressure.  We feel pressure to produce, to keep up, to achieve at a super-human rate, and regardless of the latest trends in technology, we are not seeing the payoff.

Life In The Fast Lane

In fact, Americans are working harder than ever.  In recent surveys, the average Western Worker has dramatically increased their hours over the last thirty years.

The double edged sword of technology is this: while new technology is becoming faster and more affordable, we are becoming more accessible, and the ability to work all hours of the day is increasingly easier.  Where most folks used to go and clock in and out of the office, now we are carrying the office around with us in our PDA’s and laptops.  Scarily, the line between work time and play time is fading fast.

Fast as a Lifestyle Choice

When we move at record breaking speeds, someone else is always in our way.  People become an irritating nuisance and are simply just slowing us down.  Busy people are always preoccupied with “What’s Next” and rarely have time to sit and focus, or have a relaxed conversation.  They might be there in person, but they are forever checking off their mental To Do list in their head and fidgeting with their PDA or cell phone.  As I was reading Honore’s book on becoming slow, two profound phrases popped into my head:

1. Fast people aren’t happy.
2. Busy people are tired.

With priding ourselves on getting everything done at warp speed, and busying ourselves from a.m. to p.m., we have become a society of unhappy and tired people.  Oh. My. God.  This brings me back to Honore’s original question… Why the accelerated pace, in the first place?

Quality of Life

The original idea, in and of itself, makes sense.  If we speed up processes (products, goods, technology, convenience items), we will have more time to ultimately improve our quality of life and have more time to enjoy them.  But here’s where we went Horribly Wrong:  We didn’t just speed up the processes, we sped up our WHOLE  LIVES. And, with anything, when a process is accelerated, the quality drops.  Not convinced?  Here are some examples to get your thinker thinking:

Food: processed food might be fast, but it is pumped full of salt, fat, and sugar to give it any flavor at all.  In essence, the sacrifice is less nutrition, and more calories, which lead to health issues and an early grave.

Sleep: Nowadays, people are getting less sleep.  With continued stress to perform more, and increased anxiety about work and deadlines, many people actually Cannot Sleep.  Insomnia issues are clearly related to stress, and the less we get, the more burnt out we will actually become.

Sex: Sorry folks, but if any of us are being realistic, a quickie doesn’t cut it.  Many relationships are failing simply because there is not enough time or energy left in the day to be intimate, or get it on.  Viagra?  Need I say more?

Safety: Yes, everything is moving faster, with that, more fatalities are happening.  When we don’t pay attention to what we are doing, we have accidents.

Vacations: If people are even taking them (most aren’t) it is the “let’s cram everything we can see in one or two weeks overseas”.  This leads to what I would like to call Museum-ittus.  You become a walking tour zombie, haunted by images of paintings in the night, and loathing the next ticket line or form of public transport.  Don’t even get me started on cobblestone and strollers.

Relationships: A fast and furious rush through the milestones of life isn’t what I call romantic.  And navigating through stranger’s photos or getting “Hello Sexy” IM’s on facebook is creepy.  What ever happened to good old fashioned romance?

Personal Development: We want overnight enlightenment, and will pay buckets to get it.  The bestselling books aren’t the ones that walk us through slowly, they are the “Tell me how to do everything quickly NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!”  And, yes, they sell–but, no, they don’t work; because change is a slow and deliberate process.

The Slow Movement

We are not stupid.  We are starting to realize that this way of life isn’t cutting it.  This Mayhem Madness is not the Path to Enlightenment, and surely isn’t making us happy at the end of the day.  For this reason, many people are simply opting out. They are not putting on tie-dyed shirts and starting communes, and they are not sluggishly lying about in a fantasy world; they are simply redefining what is important to them, taking the time to slow down, and doing more of it.  My philosophy, exactly.

This book was a real eye-opener for me.  Not just finding out that people are sick of the game, but realizing that there is an Actual Movement of people that have sprung up all over the world that are collectively making a difference in their area of choice.  I’ll be sharing some of those links below for you to check out, but my main takeaway from the book is this:

The  idea of Time Management is not to go faster so you can cram more stuff in your day.  It is to be smart about your processes so you can increase the time you spend in meaningful activities, thereby improving the overall quality of your life.

Slow Resources:

More info on Slow:  The Slow Movement wiki-style

I loved this one, “The International Institute of Not Doing Much“

A gizillion Slow Resource Links from SlowPlanet.com:

http://www.slowplanet.com/blog/slow-links/

and, click here to buy In Praise of Slow.  It’s about $1.50 for a used copy and WELL worth your while.

Questions??  Comments??  What could you do more slowly?

Resenting work

One major personal realization I’ve made lately is around my attitude of work.  My whole life, I’ve repelled the idea of work.  This started at an early age for me.  Growing up with a father as a business owner, I was working full time at age 14.  This was during he summers while everyone else was sitting at the pool talking about boys.  I worked to support myself through high school, and worked and did sports teams in college. 

It seemed like there was always work to be done, and never any time for me! While my dad had all kinds of reasons why this was a good thing for me, I resented it.

I’m sure it was valuable experience, and did get me further, faster, but it also left me feeling quite strange.  Why were all these other kids getting to enjoy life, and have time off, and I was having to work so hard (as a child) to just live???

Looking at it now, I think this left me feeling unloved and like something was wrong with me.  Winning approval from my father was like trying to impress a statue.  No matter what I did or how hard I tried, there was no reaction.  Somehow, in the end, I lumped all of these feelings of inadequacy into  a pretty unhealthy attitude about having to take care of myself.  I had to take care of myself, because nobody else would.

Resenting gender roles

Gender roles can become a confusing issue when taking care of ourselves.  In many families, it is modeled that the male is more of the dominant provider while the woman tends to be more domestic and takes care of the family.  Seeing this modeling growing up, I pretty much expected that at some point there would be a man in my life that would earn more than me and take care of things. (And I, in turn, would take care of him, the house, and domestics.)

I have always resented being a female. I don’t want the traditional life of husband, house, children, but on the flip-side, it seems so difficult to break into the work-world and be taken seriously by men. It seems like males always get the break, the better jobs, and the better salaries.

Even in business, I feel I’ve had to prove myself twice as hard because I am a female.  I would think I’d be going to meet with a new client, and they just wanted to date me. Oftentimes I’ve been cast off as “just a girl” and once was asked by a former boss “Can’t you just sit there and look pretty?!?”

Resisting authority

Ever since I started teaching in Thailand, I’ve had to face massive negative thoughts and resistance.  From my alarm clock, to my boss, to my thoughts in my head, I was pretty much cursing the world until about noon each day. This went on for about the first three months.  Then, from a series of trying to just work through it and stop resisting, I was able to let it go and move past it.  It was surprising and shocking for me to realize that I could be in such a peaceful place for the past five years (not having to deal with an alarm or boss), but the second I put myself in a position of a subordinate, I was completely freaking out!

I think I’ve never really had a “real job” with regular hours or bosses or expectations because it hit all my buttons from working as a kid.

Once something “went wrong” or someone pissed me off, I would quit.  And then it was over. I think because I liked the ‘re-creating my life’ part, I saw the next thing as a new adventure, but still never really landed on anything till I started my business.  It has been a struggle, to say the least, to get it going and running from abroad…  and I am trying to make decisions that will help me stay on here longer.  Teaching is a great way to get a work permit and earn some extra money while I build my business up over the next year.  But it has helped me to realize the importance of accepting authority (rather than avoiding it) and realizing that the resisting it really has only gotten in my own way.

Resisting “what is”

I think I’ve focused most of my life on “Trying to create the perfect situation”.  Recently I was hit with the brick on my head that it NOT All About Creating the Perfect Situation, but it is also about Accepting What Is. Maybe it is about a 50/ 50 split. You can partly create an ideal situation, but no situation is completely ideal.  We all have to learn to just go along with life and handle our emotions as they come up. 

Things are going to be unpredictable, hard, frustrating, annoying, not make sense, and piss you off. I think part of taking care of yourself is learning how to handle yourself in these situations.  By becoming stronger and dealing with difficult situations (rather than avoiding them), you are actually taking better care of yourself. This was a BIG BIG BIG realization for me because it meant I don’t have to keep hopping around the globe re-creating some ideal scenario and then giving up (rather quickly) when it doesn’t “work out”. If I look back, honestly, I’ve been doing that since I was 16.

Life beyond resentment

By no means have I mastered this one yet, but what I’ve found helpful so far is to Observe the Resentment. This has been an effective exercise in helping me to see past the illusions I’m creating, and look deeper at the root cause.  Mostly, I’ve found out that these emotions fade, and I can be more enjoyable and productive if I face my resistance straight on.  When I feel my teeth clenching, my body tensing, and my head on overdrive repeating “I HAVE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE”, I now meet it with a simple question…   Why?

I continue to drill down and nearly every answer results in some sort of anxiety rooted in my childhood work situation.  Maybe I’m crazy sitting there and talking to myself like a maniac, but, honestly, it works. I continue to ask myself why I am feeling (anxious, nervous, trapped, annoyed) and more times than not, I get some form of:  because that’s what I felt as a kid and I hated it.

But why should what I felt as a child get in the way of my success as an adult?

Simply put, If I want to get beyond it, I have got to get over it. Letting go of old hurt and resistance frees up mental space and allows us to grow, so that’s what I’m going to do. I need to get over the resentment, because there is life beyond it.

That said, what are the areas of resistance in your life?

Are you holding on to any resentment that is keeping you stuck?

Thanks for your comments!!

Stress can be real or imagined.  Whether or not the stress is real, the body will begin to react to the stress as if it is real.

Newsflash:  Most of our stress is imagined.

If you need proof of this, look out your window on a ‘good day’ and my guess is it looks pretty much the same as it does on a ‘bad day’. The only thing that has changed is our perception, and our attitude. The rest of the world goes on much the same from day to day.  What I care about is You, and I’d like to help you by sharing some tactics I’ve learned about getting back to positive and dramatically increasing your productivity. That is where you are going to make your difference and help the world. Check it out: Ten Ways to Actively Reduce Your Stress:

1. Learn How to Breathe

When I was diving in Ko Ha, my instructor Rob was briefing me before we went diving.  I explained to him that I had problems with buoyancy and needed more weights than normal.  He smiled and said, “No you don’t, you just need to learn how to breathe!” Rob went on to tell me this:

“When people are underwater, they are not relaxed.  They are trying to go down, but they are breathing rapidly, which fills your lungs up with air and makes you more buoyant.  When you are heading in a direction you don’t want to go (i.e. up), you begin to panic even more.  This cycle keeps you going where you don’t want to go.  What you need to do is learn how to relax your breath and direct where you are going with your breath.  For example, if you are trying to go lower, take long slow breaths, or breathe out more than in.  Or, to go up, instead of kicking, just focus on your breath.”

When we got to the ocean floor, I did an exercise where I laid on the bottom and practiced my breathing.  I took a deep breath, and rose up.  I let it out and sank.  I took long inhales and let out the air quickly and was able to move up easily without any kicking!  I continued to direct my entire dive and buoyancy with my air intake and outtake, and the experience was amazing! I could literally change where I wanted to go just by changing my breathing! You can do this with your emotions, too.  When you are stressed out, your breathing gets all out of whack. Your short huffy breaths are not getting oxygen to your system and then you cannot think. Until you stop, breathe, and take long deep breaths, you can not direct your situation to something better.  Plus, as a bonus, it is really hard to think about being angry and your breathing at the same time.  Let your breath direct your position in life!

2. Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Body

My friend Lisa is great.  She and I frequently talk about our latest epiphanies and one day she told me this:

“We are totally disconnected from our bodies.  Most days, we are just a bunch of heads floating around thinking about what we need to do next!  We have Got To get back into our bodies and get connected!”

Here is the thing:  if you are a thinker, you probably over-think everything.  I’m super guilty of this.  I have a strategic plan in my head before I even get out of bed in the morning.  I frequently have to stop myself from being too heady and actually get moving. Moving your body pumps the blood and circulates the oxygen where the best ideas come from!  So don’t hesitate, motivate!

3. Check Your Vitals

How many of us get started on a project and forget about our very basic vitals like eating, drinking, going to the bathroom, and sleeping.  Working on overdrive without any fuel is a bad combination.  If you are task oriented and have problems walking away and taking care of yourself, try this:  set a buzzer.  Turn on a timer in another room, or set a notification on your computer to stop and take time to replenish your vitals.  Your work will improve dramatically and you can fuel your projects further.

4. Change Your Environment

Stressed?  Go outside.  Take a walk and find some greenery.  Play with animals, watch them, hug a tree, watch bugs, watch people, realize there is more that exists than just you. Sometimes we get stressed out because we think we are the only ones playing this big silly game and that we have to figure it out all by ourselves.  Getting out of your environment will help you shift your thoughts and change your perspective!!

5. Unplug

Sometimes I want to bitch-slap my computer. I get everything all set up, and it locks up.  I have all the right windows open, and it shuts down.  I think my laptop is plugged in and it runs out of battery.  When this kind of stuff happens, it is time to:

JUST WALK AWAY FROM THE TECHNOLOGY

It will get better later, and you need a break.  Walk away, stretch your cramped body, take a break, and come back refreshed.

6. Plan Breaks in Your Schedule

Speaking of breaks, you should have them planned into your schedule.  I do an exercise with my clients where I help them to build a schedule for their Ideal Lifestyle.  It’s funny, because most of my clients forget to put in the basics, like taking breaks, eating, and creating recovery time. We are far more productive if we don’t work ourselves to death. Sound silly?  Do you take breaks?  Do you try to push through when things go wrong, or can you go chill in the hammock and come back stronger?  Get your nearest Kit Kat and gimme a break.

7. Control Your Control Issues

Here’s a great one for us overachiever, super results driven, perfectionist control issued business owners… Who’s got control? If you find yourself in a situation that feels out of control, is your first instinct to fix it?  A better question would be, do I even have the ability or control to fix this? Oftentimes, I get caught up in trying to fix things that I don’t even have control over. The Thais have a great solution for this, they just simply say Mai Pen Rai, or it’s Finished.  No explanation, and just walk away.  If you don’t have control over someone or something (*and really, who does?*) you may be better off just walking away.

8. Stop Spinning & Get Centered

I do this often.  I will stop what I’m doing in the midst of a project and go lie down. I’m not napping, I am taking a moment to settle my thoughts and get centered. Often I amass ridiculous amounts of information at a time.  In order for me to reorganize this information and actually DO something with it, I have to get centered.  I’ve found the most effective way to do this is to go lay down and focus on my breath while letting the information settle. Invariably, it the information stops spinning and settles into a logical place.  Then I can go back to a project and work efficiently.  Do you have something you can do when you start spinning?

9. Recondition Your Mind

Think you can get to happy without actually trying for it?  Guess again.  Us happy people are working harder to stay positive. It doesn’t take much effort or creativity to be a Negative Nancy.  But it takes some Massive Skillz to be a Positive Patty! I hit lows, and way lows, but I’m getting better at knowing what gets me back up and moving.  Part of knowing how to bounce back is having some tricks up your sleeve. Here are a few of mine:  dance music, positive books, reading other motivational blogs, writing, talking to friends or going out, movies, and mantras.

10. Make Mantras

For those of you that haven’t found the switch in your brain to turn off the noise, I recommend reconditioning with mantras.  They really work, and I’ve spent a lot of time making flash cards and pulling some of my favorite sayings and quotes into this list I’m going to share with you.  I don’t have the credits of where these came from, some from me, authors I like, and just general concepts I’m trying to believe in… but I encourage you to Take Action Now, and if nothing else, make some Magic Mantra cards that you can pick up when you are feeling down. My Magic Mantras:

• I am ready to live with an open heart.
• I am open and ready to relinquish expectations, timelines, and control.
• I call in the miracle of money!
• I feel safe.
• I am open and ready to embody wealth and abundant living!
• Thank you for your help, guidance, and encouragement to easily complete my goals.
• You will never be ready; But you can get ready.
• Thank you for providing all of the resources I need to do your work.
• The Universe is Perfect!
• I am calm and relaxed.
• I am open and ready to practice forgiveness.
• I am open and ready to do your work and be a Universal messenger.
• I have everything already.
• I practice unconditional love.
• There is a difference between knowing and doing.
• This is the Perfect Process.
• Don’t push the river.
• Remember, you are a golden child of an eternal Universe.  You are blessed completely!

Got any more ideas?  Share them below!!  I’m always interested in learning more from you all!

“It’s the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee, a sort of wager on my part.  And though you may call me a dreamer or a fool or any other thing, I believe that anything is possible.”

-Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

When I was younger, I didn’t know what to believe, or who to believe.  My mother and father had very different opinions and I did not grow up with a particular religion or faith to rely upon.  As I got older I became more confused by life, expectations, and societal norms.  But, after much trial and error, I learned the most valuable lesson:  to rely upon my intuition and move forward on Faith.

In this article, I am going to convey the steps that I have found that have led me to rely more upon my intuition and faith.  I am sharing this with you because my life has moved forward in miraculous ways that I completely attribute to this process.  In this process, we begin by overcoming logic, then increase trust  in our intuition and feelings.  Next, we take action and move forward (despite our fears!), and trust in the process while it is unfolding.  You have always been taken care of, and you always will be!

Strengthening your ability to trust in yourself and increasing your faith will move you to new levels; turning the impossible into the possible.

Overcoming Logic

Overcoming logic can be very tricky for us because there is nothing concrete or tangible about intuition and faith.  You cannot see them, test them, or measure them.  They are an invisible force which defies our logic and rational mind.  Most of the time when we have an impulse or are drawn towards something, it is our intuition guiding us toward our next step in life.  We may have a ‘gut feeling’ or sense that we should go somewhere, talk to someone, or move into a new interest or field.  While these sensations cannot be seen, they can be felt.  It then becomes more important for us to rely on our feelings than our thoughts. 

Trusting Our Intuition and Feelings

While this process may seem scary, I have had the most amazing outcomes when I have trusted my feelings-and I have seen the results! When I have been prompted to move forward in a particular area of my life, and followed through with it, good things happened.  And, when I haven’t, bad things happened.  As simple as that sounds, you would think it would make it easier to trust our instincts and stop relying on Logic.  But, growing up the way we have in our society, we are taught to stay inside the safety of a system with predictable results.  This mode has little to no risk, and fairly guaranteed results.  The challenge with moving forward on instinct is that often times, our results are not guaranteed, the resources are not currently available, and we have no reason whatsoever to know it will work.  We now are going into a situation where the risk is extremely high, and the results are not guaranteed At All.  We are Going on Faith.

Taking Action and Moving Forward (Despite Your Fears!)

When I decided to go Location Independent with my business, there were no guarantees.  I had the signs, the intuition, and all of the promptings to do so.  But, I was scared!  I had no idea what was in store for me, how I would live in another country while running my business, or how I would be taken care of.  When I downsized all of my belongings, packed up and flew on a one-way ticket to Bangkok, I was going entirely on faith.

You may find yourself in situations where you ‘know’ you should move forward but you are oscillating back and forth about all of the “How to’s”.  What I recommend is to take action and move forward, despite your fears!  Try to break down the whole process into small steps and just focus on what is right in front of you.  Getting into gear and taking action will help you to see the next step, whereas not doing anything just keeps you stuck in your head.  One example I use with my clients is this:  a man can lay at the bottom of a mountain and go up and down the mountain several thousand times in his head.  But, at the end of the day, he is still at the bottom of the mountain!  It is better to just take the first step, and then see the next one, moving slowly forward and gaining higher ground as you go.  Just sort out what the first step is, do it, and then do the next one.  It really is just as simple as that!  

Trusting In The Process

Sometimes in order to move ahead, we need to renew our faith and trust that we will be taken care of.  We begin to doubt and worry when we don’t see immediate results.  When we have taken this risk and put our trust in faith, we often times want to rush the process and see instantaneous results. 

The only way to continue to move forward is to have patience and trust in the process.

We live in an abundant Universe that wants to provide for us.  And, if you are honest with yourself, I am sure you can look back at any point in your life and see the evidence that You Have Always Been Taken Care Of.  The right people, circumstances, and opportunities came through for you with absolute perfect timing.  In essence, there was never really any need to get so worked up and worried about your life.  Everything works out, and as we move forward and trust in the process, we can begin to relax.  A relaxed state brings in a higher consciousness where we can tap into our intuition and feelings even more.  By spending quiet time in whatever ways help bring you peace (nature, meditation, resting) you are allowing the answers, or the next steps to come in.  And slowly, over time, you can overcome logic, increase your intuition, trusting and taking action more quickly and letting the miracles unfold… one after another, time and time again.

“I realize the odds, and science, are against me.  But science is not the total answer; this I know, this I have learned in my lifetime.  And that leaves me with the belief that miracles, no matter how inexplicable or unbelievable, are real and can occur without regard to the natural order of things.  So once again, just as I do every day, I begin… in the hope that the miracle that has come to dominate my life will once again prevail.

And maybe, just maybe, it will.”

-Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

Discussions & Comments:  Share an experience you’ve had where you went out on faith and were rewarded by the outcome!

“The cause of any and all stress in my life has largely been due to the belief that I was somehow responsible for other people or things outside of my control.”

Let’s face it: this world can be scary, unpredictable, and changes ALL THE TIME. This is why we have learned that “The only constant IS CHANGE”. So, living in a world of constant change and unending variables leads us to wanting to create a protected and predictable place to live. We find ourselves wanting to gain control of our situations and thereby make our environment safe. While this is a natural tendency, control can (and does) work against us. It affects our business, our relationships, but most importantly our stress level.

When we attempt to control (things, situations, or people), we begin to take ownership for the results. With ownership comes responsibility in which we turn into personal responsibility. By assuming personal responsibility, we take on the role of ownership; and if you own it, you must have to fix it. Our culture and society is one based on having a high level of personal responsibility for the things in our lives and we assume it is our duty to manage every aspect of our lives perfectly at all times. The result: massive stress.

Control -> Ownership -> Personal Responsibility -> The Need to Fix = STRESS

The Stress Relief that I am here to offer you is this concept:

“If you don’t OWN it, you don’t have to FIX it.”

The reality is that many things are outside of our control. For this reason, the only real responsibility we have is our reaction to what is happening around us. I discuss this quite frequently with my clients in the “Behavior” part of my program. If we have been conditioned to ‘Find Fault and Fix’ our whole lives, guess what? We are bound for unhappiness! We will never be satisfied with how things are, how people are, or where we are in our lives.

Many of us are so conditioned to ‘Find Fault and Fix’ other people because it gives us the excuse of not focusing on ourselves. We can easily waste energy and time analyzing and gossiping about the lives of others when we would be better served focusing on our own.

However, you may have already concluded that we also have a tendency to play the ‘Find Fault and Fix’ role in our own lives. I believe at a moderate level, this has been engrained in our personalities to move us towards evolution. However, as a society, we have taken it to the extreme resulting in the “Nothing Is Ever Good Enough” feeling. Have you ever felt this way? Do you think that you are good enough? Right now, without changing anything, do you feel good enough? Are you deserving? Do you feel worthy of success?

Many of us are stuck on the treadmill of “After I do/ achieve/ obtain __________, then I will be worthy. But it is that feeling that is keeping you from success, from happiness, from achieving your best life now. We need to recognize this pattern and take heed! Pay attention to the fact that we are trying to fix something that isn’t broken. We are much further today then we were yesterday. Stop for a moment and give yourself credit for that. You are evolving, and you are also right where you need to be.

By realizing that most of the stress that we put upon ourselves is imagined, we begin our journey to personal freedom. I love the title of a book I recently picked up entitled, “Relax, You’re Already Perfect”.

If we can give ourselves the gift of letting go, we can learn to relax. As stress goes down, we are exceedingly more creative, productive, and enthusiastic about life. This also pertains to our success at work and in relationships. If we can give others the gift of accepting them for who they are, right now, we let them relax. People tend to be more inclined to make change and share their gifts in a relaxed environment. The continual need to intervene in other’s lives is a form of caring, but it can also be seen as a form of control. I have had to learn this one the hard way—which is why I’m sharing this with you now.

Take a moment to reflect on your life and relationships and ask yourself the following questions:

Do I react emotionally when something doesn’t go ‘as planned’?

Do people often fail to meet my expectations?

Have I ever let myself be satisfied with my life- just because?

Does this pressure stress me out?

Do I have extremely high expectations for myself?

I want to touch things in museums.
I want to push Emergency buttons to see what happens.
I want to discuss and discover everything about a perfect stranger overnight.
I want to find out how things work.

I jump in 150 percent first thing—letting things happen or develop slowly simply pisses me off.

One of my favorite things to do is to assimilate a massive amount of information, filter through it and find the shortest and most direct path to success. I love turning obstacles into opportunity and solving problems- this is how my brain works. This is why I love helping people with their lives and businesses. It is easy for me to see the solutions and help people achieve happiness through personal achievement.

But sometimes, I like problem solving too much. Sometimes my brain will ‘create’ situations or problems in order to fix them. I don’t do this so much in my own business as much as in my personal life. I find relationships a complete head trip. I’m fine until this hyper-analytical problem solving tendency crosses the line from work to play and I begin spread sheeting and processing people. I put a person through my questioning:

Why did they do that?
What does this mean?
Why do I feel upset?
How do I fix this?

And, sadly (for me) my brain or internal interrogator won’t let up until it has answers. The usual and simplest explanation won’t satiate the interrogator.

• They’re tired / I’m tired
• PMS
• They need to eat / I need to eat
• They need to sleep /I need to sleep
• They’ve had a bad day / I’ve had a bad day
• Or simply: I’m overreacting & taking it personally

I confuse myself even harder by the psychology and Eastern religious philosophies I know.

I brought this on for a lesson; What is the lesson?
Who does this person represent to me; Is this a pattern?
Everything is supposed to happen just as it is; There is a reason for everything.

But, in my head / my reality, something just doesn’t FEEL RIGHT. And so, the struggle for acceptance and peace begins. Letting it go. Giving it up. Handing it over.
By now I realized I’ve worked myself into a frenzy by Trying To Figure It All Out. I have worked very hard to create an issue over nothing. I have over extended one moment in time to many—over-thought and over-calculated something unnecessarily.

One time, I was considering a similar situation with myself and sought out an Eastern religion bookshop called East West Bookstore in Mountain View, California. There was an author presenting his newly released book, “Building a Better Buddha”. I slipped in the back of the room and listened while he shared his journey and wisdom. After the talk, I approached him. Trying to formulate my thoughts, I asked him:

Most of the time, I do pretty well. I try to do the right thing, accepting myself and others. But sometimes I get the “Monkey Mind” you talk about. I just don’t know how to move past these tendencies of being ‘good’ for a period of time, then slipping up and feeling like I’m ‘bad’ and completely digressing into old patterns or behaviors. What do you think I should do?

He smiled coyly, as if he had been there a million times and wrote this inscription in my newly purchased book:

“Take the White & Keep The Black.
No fight; No Blame.”
–Tao te Ching

Six years later, I am finally beginning to understand what he meant.

“You can still live on that shimmering line between your old thinking and your new understanding, always in a state of learning. In a figurative sense, this is a border that is always moving—as you advance forward in your studies and realizations, that mysterious forest of the unknown always stays a few feet ahead of you, so you have to travel light in order to keep following it.”
–Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Many of us are continually striving to arrive. We want to reach that point, that moment, that second when every aspect of our lives simultaneously comes together. This is the future point where we can feel accomplished, be successful and finally give ourselves credit for how far we’ve come. But the problem is, this line keeps moving further and further out and until we realize that we are really doing ourselves a huge disservice. What if we allowed ourselves to live comfortably between worlds? What if we could actually permit ourselves to relax into the gap and not be so hyper-focused on Finishing or Being Done?

If you are always in a state of wanting to Finish something or Be Done, you are never ever going to enjoy where you are at.

“Yes, but I have all these other things I need to get done!” you contest.

Here is the thing, when you have completed what you are currently working on and move onto task number two, you will just want to push through again to task number three. And so it goes. The important factor here is not how you go about accomplishing tasks, it’s how YOU FEEL ABOUT ACCOMPLISHING THESE TASKS. If you are pushing, you feel rushed, anxious, behind, and frustrated. This mental state leads to stress that the body takes on and a mind that can not rest.

On the contrary, let’s pretend for a moment that you can accept that you have done your best. You continue to do your best, and what you have accomplished up to date is exactly where you need to be. Let me repeat: You ARE EXACTLY WHERE YOU NEED TO BE. Because, the logic goes, if you have done everything that you could to the best to your ability it has led you RIGHT here. Therefore, you are not falling behind—you are exactly where you are supposed to be.

Freeing your mind from the worry and stress of having to be somewhere you aren’t actually allows you to feel better right now.

If you are satisfied with yourself, your choices, and your circumstance, the strangest thing happens: you can be happy. Happiness leads to reduced stress, a positive attitude, and an optimistic outlook on life. But, even more, happy and relaxed people GET MORE DONE! Because you are traveling lightly (no more mental baggage, stress, and guilt) you have freed up space in your world to move forward easily.

Your happiness is directly proportional to the amount you are able to accept and embrace your current situation.

You are where you are. If you decide you want to make a change, great, I encourage you to. But, you also need to bring your full awareness to each step along the way of that process. Being happy through a transition is the biggest lesson we can actually learn—change comes about faster once we have fully accepted our situation for exactly what it is. And if you think about it, we will probably spend most of our lifetime in a state of transition, so why not get used to it! And, ultimately, the more you come to understand what it means to be in the process, the more you will understand there is less to do.

“Ultimately, you must forget about technique. The further you progress, the fewer teachings there are. The Great Path is really No Path.”
–Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace

“Mai Pen Rai” is elusive in its meaning and description and can be understood to mean any of the following: it’s OK, it doesn’t matter, no worries, or it is what it is. This gentle acceptance of life that the Thais emit has made for a country that attracts travelers from around the world. Thailand is known as “The Kingdom” and “The Land of Smiles” and the signs of happiness are everywhere here. I had forgotten what it was like to see people so genuinely relaxed and happy. I hear people whistling, singing, and merrily humming to themselves as they go about their day. Having a tonal language, the words are literally sung here, as well. People in Thailand are not just happy individually, they do something that many western cultures have forgotten, they share. Meals are shared, work is done in groups, and there is comradery instead of competition.

When something is out of stock, or has stopped working, it is “finished”. Your hamburger might be as finished as your internet service, and there is no telling when or why. The Thais do not trouble themselves with the explanation or trying to make unknown guesses of remedying the situation into the unknown future. Initially, I was annoyed by this, but then I came to appreciate the brilliance of the statement. When flashed a smile and told, “finished”, I have no unrealistic expectations to put in place. I no longer have to go through the mental crisis of trying to figure something out that I do not have the answers to. I can just accept it and relax.

Relaxation is built into the Thai society. Restaurants and resorts have names like The Easy Room, Come Sea; Let’s Relax, and you will frequently see people sleeping on the job. The streets are dotted with signs for massage and reflexology and posters remind you to “Enjoy Unlimited in Your Life“. Even my phone texts me messages from Mr. Happy and reminds me emphatically when I refill my calling card, “Make sure every day is HAPPY and don’t forget to bring your HAPPINESS with you Everywhere!”

Westerners that have made Thailand their home all have the same story: “I was tired of the grind, and the stress.” After being here for just over two months now, I am finally starting to unwind from all the years of stress. I don’t even think I realized the amount of constant pressure I was holding onto until I got away. I can now see it in my friends. All of my friends and colleagues first response to a ‘How are you’ in an email or IM responded with “BUSY”. I would hear only of how busy they were, or how much work they had to do. And even though I am no longer there, I have still been feeling the pressure of needing to produce at lightning speed. My mind has a running audio loop of “I need to get my website updated; I still haven’t posted that blog; I need to figure out my internet”.

I also want to see the country at lightening speed. My brain has yet to register the fact that I am living here. I still have the mentality of a speed traveler, trying to see the whole country in couple of weeks. Operating on overdrive and having the mentality of constantly trying to produce things runs deep in my psyche. But, really, what good does it do?
After being exposed to the “Mai Pen Rai” society, I have learned that the bulk of these items circling in my head really don’t need to happen right now. It is an unnecessary stress built up from years of trying to “push through life.” I think because many of us don’t enjoy a task, or have so many tasks to do, we believe, “If I could just get this thing done, then I would be able to _____ (insert: relax, enjoy, have the life I’ve always wanted). And just because everyone else around us is playing the same game, we choose to participate. But, the reality is, this is simply a choice.

I’m convinced at this point that the Thai culture was blessed by their “Mai Pen Rai” attitude. They are relaxed enough to take a midday nap. They are smiling when you look at them because they aren’t thinking of the eighty-million other places they ‘need’ to be. They are working together. They are enjoying their days, as well as their moments. The culture, in essence, is present.

So when you find yourself racing around, trying to swim upstream, or generally trying to fight the way of the world, remember the phrase, “Mai Pen Rai”, and just let yourself be “finished’.