New Tricks

I’m writing my blog from California, where I am visiting for a few weeks.  It is both the coolest and the hardest thing to do: cool because I love California, hard because I don’t live here anymore. 

Living in Texas has been a conscious decision and yet I still find myself comparing the two states, sort of like comparing a new boyfriend to an old one.  “My old flame was funnier that this guy.  He was smarter.” 

But comparing new boyfriends to the golden memory of a lost one will never create happiness.  You have to love the one you’re with. 

And that’s where I am with Texas.  It’s time to love the state I'm in. 

My best tool is a thing called “neuroplasticity.”  It’s basically brain fitness.  Your brain has the capacity to adapt to new circumstances.  The brain is rather miraculously flexible, in contrast to what people used to believe.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks??  Turns out that is entirely wrong.  You can.

For a long time, it was believed that neurons were the one type of cell in the body that couldn’t regenerate.  Scientists believed that we were born with a certain number of brain cells and once they were lost, they were gone forever. 

Research has now shown that to be untrue.  

What does that mean for you and for me?  We can change.  We can essentially re-train our brains.  Science supports the idea that we can take something we don’t like and learn to like it, by forging new neural pathways.

One of the most obvious examples is physical exercise.  Some people loathe physical exercise.  They find it painful, sweaty, boring and something that “other people” do.  Then one New Year’s Day, they decide to turn over a new leaf and do what the doctor has been telling them to do for years: exercise. 

Sometimes, it “takes.”  Others give it a few shots, then say, “It’s just as boring and painful and unpleasant as I always thought it would be.”  And they quit.

But those who stick it out for a month or two, find that they actually don’t hate it anymore, that they’re restless if they miss a day, that they are enjoying the fresh air and the feeling of personal power they get from exercise.

What’s happened is that they have re-trained their brains.  They’ve essentially built new neural pathways by continuing to exercise beyond their point of comfort.  The brain has adapted to the “pain” of exercise and gotten accustomed to the benefits of it.  Before you know it, they have brains that like exercise!

Any habit that you want to cultivate is a matter of building new neural pathways.   Think of the days when you played at the beach.  Remember how you dug trenches in the sand and waited for the tide to come up and fill your waterways?  And how excited you got when the moat around your sand castle finally filled with water?

Your new habit is the sand castle.  You dig the waterways by practicing a new habit until the neural pathways are deep enough to carry the water.  At some point, the tide rises high enough that the water flow is effortless.

Let’s say I want to cultivate the habit of doing 10 abdominal crunches a day (modest goal!)  The first day, I really don't want to do them, I don’t like laying down on the floor, they hurt and seem to take forever.  That’s the first little scratching in the sand.

The next day, I still don’t want to do them, but I do.  The scratching in the sand goes a little deeper.

By the end of the week, doing what I don’t want to do every day, I have worn a pretty decent little trench in the sand. After a few weeks, my moat is filling up!

Scientists say that to build a strong neural pathway takes about three weeks of repetition.  So if I keep doing my crunches every day for 21 days, resisting my desire to give it up, I will have worn a new neural pathway, and my brain will not only accept the practice of crunches; it may even demand them.

A new habit is a process.  It’s not magical and it’s not something “other people” do.  Anyone can forge new neural pathways. 

What do you want to do in life that has seemed somehow “beyond” you?  Realize first that it’s not, that it’s in your power to re-shape the way your brain works, to train it to enjoy even those things you find difficult.  It takes time, but the science of neuroplasticity says it can be done. 

This old Texas dog is plenty happy to learn some new tricks, boy howdy!  Me and Texas, we're tight.

Or at least, we're going to be in about 21 days.

The Independent House

The DSM has recently added a new diagnosis, Obsessive Hoarding.  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the United States. That means hoarding is now considered a mental illness by the medical community! 

It’s really ticked off a lot of people (hoarders).  See, they feel like they are just being reasonable.  You don’t know when a newspaper from 1997 might contain that jewel of information you were looking for.  And shouldn’t one have every size and shape of Band-Aid?  It’s entirely possible that your family might suffer 3,000 different kinds of life-threatening cuts and you would not want to be negligently unprepared for that sort of emergency.

The hoarding community thinks the DSM has made a monstrous error in calling hoarding a mental disorder.  After all, the hoarders may be the ones who save the planet if all manufacturing, trucking, communication and growing comes to a sudden and complete stop someday.  

OK, I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek, and to tell the truth, I’ve changed my mind over the course of this blog.  I started out to talk about minimizing but I’ve been converted to a bit of prepper talk.  Minimizing and preparedness are polar-ly opposite things, but they both lead to the same good end: freedom.

The Independent Bedroom

Everything can be rolled up and moved by one person with one box.

True hoarding is an excessive emotional attachment which causes dysfunction in the sufferer’s life.  I've been on a campaign to be the Un-Hoarder. I'm divesting right and left.  I want to be utterly portable.  

However, there is such a thing as reasonable preparedness. I Google’d “Mormon Preparedness” to find out why the LDS church teaches its followers to always have a stock of emergency goods.  The website Mormon.org explains:

"Being prepared for potential emergencies helps us to become self-reliant, which provides more personal independence, industry, thrift and self-respect. It also gives more opportunity to serve and care for others in need."

I would never argue with anything that promotes greater self-respect and charity towards others!  It makes sense to be prepared for natural disasters, accidents, illness, and unemployment... things none of us can predict or prevent.

Some attention to preparedness is simply smart, especially in disaster-prone areas.  The Red Cross in California has long advised households to keep certain items on-hand and have a house exit and emergency family communication plan. 

See: http://www.redcross.org/prepare/

Millions of Boy Scouts and the Red Cross Can't Be Wrong:

Be Prepared!

So there’s a middle ground.  In the process of “minimizing” my home, donating everything I can’t carry by myself or haven’t worn in the last 6 months, I have doggedly held on to my “Get Outta Dodge” bag with water purifier, matches, first aid kit, extra batteries, etc.  In California, an earthquake preparedness kit is highly advised, but even in Dallas, there can be fires, tornadoes, any number of things that might wipe out power for a while.  (Personally, I think a self-defense plan and a bit of extra cash is not a bad idea, either.)

In the course of writing this blog, I’ve decided to review the expiration dates on my extra batteries and make sure my mini-shortwave still works. I strongly advise others to review or begin building your own preparedness kit.  Otherwise, in the event of a disaster, you are utterly dependent on others (or the government, and we all know how prudent that is.)  

Minimizing has been a fabulous exercise for me, enabling me to be light on my feet and able to contemplate moving house with minimal help.  Self-reliance, in other words.  For the same reason, I’m going to update the state of my emergency preparedness.  Being prepared for the unexpected allows one to function and be responsible even in an emergency.  If disaster occurs, you can be part of the solution, not the problem.

I must conclude that minimalists and preppers are both seeking the same thing through very different methods: independence.

The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.

 - Thomas Aquinas

Living in Potentiality

Inspired by the example of a good friend who whittled down her possessions to a duffel bag and a couple of boxes so that she could live in her VW van, I have been on a multi-year quest to “simplify.” 

Last year, moving from my 10-year residence in California to a smaller apartment in Dallas, I discarded, by various means, maybe 30% of my accumulated schtuff. 

(“Schtuff” is my word for superfluous possessions.  For example, a bicycle is something you use purposefully, as you do a computer.  That’s not schtuff.  Things that sit on shelves, all shoes beyond the third pair and furniture that can’t be slept on... that’s schtuff.)

I paid a distressing amount of money to have some professional movers transport the remaining 70% of my schtuff to Texas.  Upon arrival, I then discarded another 10% because it just flat didn’t fit in my smaller space. 

Alright.  Down to 60% now. 

For some reason, I’m not happy at 60%.  I want really serious simplification.  Furniture, appliances, home deco, books, clothes... all down to barest bones.  At this point in my life, I want to be a turtle.  I want everything I own to fit on my back.

It seems I am far from alone in this mindset.  The book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo is an Amazon #1 bestseller right now.  Tidying and simplifiying is an idea whose time is right.  Maybe we have finally become glutted with all our schtuff!

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/1607747308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425995876&sr=8-1&keywords=marie+kondo 

The author has made a lifetime’s work of the science of tidying up.  She advocates radical de-cluttering, all in one great fell swoop.  None of that gradual, moderate, one-room-per-week sort of thing.  She insists that storage solutions just promote more hoarding.  Get rid of it.  Just do it.  

Kondo’s criterion for keeping or discarding something is one simple self-aware question: does this item spark joy?  If it doesn’t, into the bag it goes. The moment you touch an item, you know.  It either sparks joy, or it doesn’t.  Simple as that. 

The end result of discarding of great amounts of schtuff is that you are surrounded by things that do give you joy, with no distraction or stress or overstimulation by the many, many things that don’t. 

I have long been drawn to the Japanese aesthetic, which appreciates stark beauty, simplicity, transparency, natural materials and the grace of open space.  There are no tchotchkes, knick-knacks or gewgaws to draw your eye, collect dust and subtly agitate you.

This is a Japanese teahouse.  It has a focal point; your eye is drawn to the purpose of the room, the teapot.  Transparency is achieved by glass windows.  The walls are unadorned so as not to distract, the materials are natural and untreated.  It feels like a haven of peace.  

Here's an American-style bedroom with a similar aesthetic.  The purpose of the room is to sleep, so the bed is the focal point.  The floor is wood; the blanket is woven.

What interests me most about this bedroom is that the shelves are EMPTY!  Most of us could not rest until we filled up those shelves with something.  Anything, just don’t let that space go empty! This is how things like doll collections get started.  

The discipline of leaving shelves empty could be a grand mental experiment.  There is potentiality in empty space.  Maybe leaving empty space around your physical body allows your mind some room to play.  Maybe that is our own personal potentiality.  Who knows what might come of it?

I yearn for peace in my life and my home. But perhaps the deepest reason I am discarding my schtuff is the memory of how happy I was as a pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago.  I carried only the necessities of life and only in such quantity as I could wear comfortably on my back.  The freedom I felt from being so unencumbered was far more fun than any possession I have ever owned. 

One day on the trail, I saw an abandoned castle on a hill behind a town that I wasn’t even planning to stop in.  I made the instant choice to climb up to the castle and explore.  It wasn’t in the guidebook, and I was all alone in the medieval ruins and I spent a most magical morning there.  I could do that because I was entirely self-contained.  Wherever I went, there I was.  I didn't have to be somewhere in order to catch up with my possessions.  Everywhere was home.

My pilgrimage experience lasted only 5 weeks, but it is a metaphor for life overall.  We’re, none of us, taking any of our schtuff with us.  Your schtuff will likely not mean much to the people you leave behind because they have their own schtuff and probably don’t have the physical or mental space for yours.  We are all pilgrims on this earth, and an overabundance of schtuff just distracts us from that simple fact. 

Pilgrimage was the happiest time of my life, and I am convinced that it was not a one-off opportunity.  As I discard more and more schtuff, I am poised to go explore any castles on hills that I might encounter.  I don’t want to miss anything because I have schtuff weighing me down or distracting me from seeing the opportunities that dance by.  I want to live in potentiality.

A Man Who Lives Fully

Last August, I moved back to Dallas to help my parents as they dealt with my dad’s diagnosis of an incurable blood disorder.  My dad employed me to help bring some closure to his business and personal affairs.  For several months, he felt pretty good and we got a lot done in his office, and had some fun times in between chemo weeks.

Then the disease began to get to him.  There were trips to the hospital, multiplying medications, Hospice and home care, and finally death.

It seems strange to talk about death in a blog about health and fitness.  But death is coming to every one of us and avoidance of the subject does nothing to stop it. I want to talk about it because it seems to me that my dad did it right and that his death might be instructional.

Here’s why I think he did it right:

He lived fully every day of his life.  He pursued his passions tirelessly.  He flew his airplane, he fished and painted and wrote pithy essays.  He made friends with everyone he met.  He got over hurts quickly and didn’t bear grudges.  I don’t think he ever thought things like “What a wasted day!” or “I wish I had taken that chance.”  He took full advantage of opportunities, every day.

When death began to creep up behind him, he didn’t have a long list of things he needed to do before he left.  He’d been living his bucket list all along. 

His relationships with people were as clear as water.  There weren’t a lot of regrets, explanations or apologies that needed to be made.  He stayed current in his friendships.  He allowed himself to be moved by the struggles and dreams of others.

One of the most striking things he said to me was that, looking back on his 80 years, he’d like to live all those experiences over again.  That’s how much he loved life. 

Not because it was easy; my dad had plenty of heartaches.  People who betrayed him.  Business deals that went south.  Things, as in every human life, that just didn’t turn out as expected.  Some of his disappointments were severe, but he never stayed in that regret-place.  He didn’t torture himself about what he might have done differently.  He picked up and moved on. 

And this is part of his legacy to me: always get up and keep moving. No matter how grave the error or grievous the loss, pick up and move on, with love and hope intact, because this is the blueprint for human life: we fall and we get up again.

Lest you think that too simplistic, let me say that I have known people who did not get back up again after a fall.  They gave up the whole endeavor and declined to try again, or they allowed their hearts to become bitter and negative.  Either way, it’s not moving forward. 

So it’s worth saying: when you fall, get up.  Get your body up, your spirit up, your hope and expectations up. 

I’d like to die as my dad did.  Well-loved and trailing a huge adventure of a life behind him.  Having experienced the whole bold undertaking as a glorious expression of love.  Coming to the end with peace because I’d always done my best.  And then resting in the comfort that God will take care of the rest. 

To come to a death like that, I have to live a life like that.  We die as we live.  If daily life is full of self-doubt and recriminations and fear, death will come heavily.  If life is full of exploration and daring and unrelenting hope, death may come as lightly as it did to my dad, my hero in life and now in death, too.

A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

- Mark Twain

Rabbits, Love and 2015

My friend Karen and I have been choosing our “word” on New Years Day for about 20 years now. 

We used to pass Southern fluff novels back and forth and comment on their proper use of Southern manners, correct preparation of grits and the inevitable “gumption” of the main character.  In one of these, we found the then-new concept of choosing a “word” for each new year.

We’ve been choosing our words every year since then, and often found that the words we chose had mysterious and unpredictable manifestations in the unfolding year.  I blogged about this phenomenon last year at this time.

This year, Karen and I have chosen the same word.  It’s a special word.  Completely unique. To my knowledge, no one else has ever taken this as their New Year’s word.  It's worthy of two takers in the same year.  The word is...

 Elwood

Now some pitiable people have never seen the movie, “Harvey.”  And some people just vaguely remember something about a white rabbit.  But some of us absorbed it into our hearts and souls, in a way that made Elwood P. Dowd a personal friend, a mentor and a most enjoyable companion. 

I first saw the movie at an early age when I was simply tickled by the notion of a 6-foot (3-1/2 inch) white rabbit who was always up for an adventure and had fun wherever he went.  Who knew my name without even being introduced.

I saw "Harvey" many times after that and at some point became entranced with the whole philosophy of life that is contained in that movie, like the white crème in the middle of a Hostess cupcake.  Here it is in a nutshell:

"Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, 'In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant.'  Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant."

Now I have nothing against smart.  In fact, I love smart!  But sometimes “smart” is just enough information to make a person unhappy.  What possible good is any information unless you can use it to add happiness to this world?

The one thing every human being desires is happiness.  Why is it in such short supply? 

How many truly happy people do you know?  Chances are, they're not the people who have the most money or the best bodies or the top jobs.  If happiness depended on external circumstances, no one would be reliably happy, because jobs and stock markets and health are always changing. 

Happiness has to be some internal decision, some viewpoint that is stronger and more appealing than “reality.” 

That’s where Elwood comes in.  He says,

"I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor,

and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it."

by which he means, 

“I always have a wonderful time, 

wherever I am, whoever I'm with.”

For that to be true, a person has to be truly open-hearted, receptive and appreciative of whatever they find in other people.  That means I can’t have an agenda; I can’t be looking for something in particular from another person.  I have to take every person as a gift.  They are the joy given to me for that moment of that day.  That’s Elwood in a nutshell.

I don’t think Elwood is just agreeably amiable, just pleasantly simple-minded.  He has found the secret of love and loving.

“Elwood” is going to be a hard word to live up to.  Maybe even harder than the year Shantel rashly chose “impeccable” for her word!

I will fail at Elwood.  Probably before noon.  But I’ll keep trying because Elwood is all the important things in life: joy, peace, contentment, openness, appreciation and the certainty that life is good.

Happy New Year, friends!

Mailman: Beautiful day... 

Elwood P. Dowd: Oh, every day is a beautiful day.