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Super Human by Dave Asprey | Book Summary

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Superhuman: The Bulletproof Plan to Age Backward and Maybe Even Live Forever by Dave Asprey

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From the creator of Bulletproof coffee and the bestselling author of Head Strong and The Bulletproof Diet comes a plan to bypass plateaus and ‘up’ your game at every age.

Dave Asprey suffered countless symptoms of ageing as a young man, which sparked a lifelong burning desire to grow younger with each birthday. For more than twenty years, he has been on a quest to find innovative, science-backed methods to upgrade human biology and redefine the limits of the mind, body, and spirit. The results speak for themselves. Now in his forties, Dave is smarter, happier, and more fit and successful than ever before.

In Super Human, he shows how this is level of health and performance possible for all of us. While we assume we will peak in middle age and then decline, Asprey’s research reveals there is another way. It is possible to make changes on the sub-cellular level to dramatically extend life span. And the tools to live longer also give you more energy and brainpower right now.

The answers lie in Dave’s Seven Pillars of Ageing that contribute to degeneration and disease while diminishing your performance in the moment. Using simple interventions – like diet, sleep, light, exercise, and little-known but powerful hacks from ozone therapy to proper jaw alignment, you can decelerate cellular ageing and supercharge your body’s ability to heal and rejuvenate.

A self-proclaimed human guinea pig, Asprey arms readers with practical advice to maximize their lives at every age with his signature mix of science-geek wonder, candour, and enthusiasm. Getting older no longer has to mean decline. Now it’s an opportunity to become Super Human.

BOOK SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

What is the first thing you would do if you ever gained control of our own biology? Not die, probably.

The author wants to take things further, aiming to age backward and, finally, heal like a deity, so he can keep getting better with age instead of suffering an inevitable decline.

He wants to go from a mere mortal to a 180-year-old Super Human:

“Someone with the wisdom of age but who heals and regenerates like a teenager.”

Let’s see how he plans to achieve that.

PART 1. DON’T DIE

The Four Killers

“Aging is death by a thousand cuts”, the author says.

These are the four diseases most likely to leave the deepest cuts as you age:

Heart disease (23% risk dying from it),

Diabetes (25% risk dying from it),

Alzheimer’s (10% risk developing it), and

Cancer (40% risk getting it and 20% risk dying from it).

As you age, your mitochondria (responsible for producing lots of energy from the food you eat) become damaged and begin producing an excess of free radicals, which leak into the surrounding cells and lay the groundwork for the Four Killers.

To stop damaging your own body with thousands of (big or small) cuts, focus on the basics:

Good nutrition,

Quality sleep, and

A healthy environment free of toxins that cause more cuts.

Take action now to stop this damage before it stacks up. It’s a lot easier to avoid damage to your mitochondria than it is to reverse it later.

What if you made better choices throughout your life, so you took fewer hits over the course of decades? This is the premise of this book.

THE SEVEN PILLARS OF AGING

PILLAR 1 – Shrinking tissues

Loose skin… no muscle tone… shaky hands… foggy memory… that’s what you think when you picture an old person, right? This is what happens as we age when cells die and are not replaced. Brainwise, this causes cognitive decline and dementia. To avoid a lot of unnecessary cell loss, keep your mitochondria healthy.

PILLAR 2 – Mitochondrial mutations

Your mitochondrial DNA is a lot more susceptible to mutations than your human DNA because mitochondrial DNA has a limited ability to repair itself when it is damaged. Again, you’re going to want to take fewer hits to your mitochondria.

PILLAR 3 – Zombie cells

Some cells eventually no longer divide or function properly, yet they persist and secrete inflammatory proteins, causing all the problems that stem from chronic inflammation. Over time, the accumulation of the damage they create is a major cause of aging and disease.

PILLAR 4 – Cellular strait jackets

The extracellular matrix holds your cells together and gives your tissues their elasticity. When these tissues lose their elasticity, they become stiff and your body has to work harder to push blood throughout your circulatory system.

This can lead to aging, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

PILLAR 5 – Extracellular junk

As you age, waste products build up both inside and outside your cells, they stick together and form plaques that cause aging and disease by getting in the way of healthy cellular interaction.

PILLAR 6 – Junk buildup inside cells

Each cell’s own built-in waste disposal system incinerates unwanted materials of all kinds, keeping your cells free of junk and able to function optimally. When the system malfunctions, the waste products end up just sitting there, clogging up the cell until it can no longer function.

PILLAR 7 – Telomere shortening

Just like your shoelaces, there are endcaps for your DNA to protect your chromosomes from fraying with wear and tear (aka age). These caps naturally deteriorate over time, until they can no longer protect the cell.

The simple interventions to avoid the Four Killers – good food (no fried, grilled, or charred meat!!!), the right environment, moderate exercise, stress control (do you meditate?), and quality sleep – are also the best and most effective ways of slowing down or reversing many of the Seven Pillars of Aging.

FOOD IS AN ANTI-AGING DRUG

When it comes to aging, grains are bad, sugar is bad, charred or fried stuff is bad, and too much or too little protein is bad.

Instead, opt for tons of organic vegetables, limited organic fruit, and meat only from pastured animals.

When you eat enough of the right fats without excess carbs or protein, your body learns to efficiently burn fat for fuel. If you eat excess carbs or protein, your body burns those first.

Ideally, get your protein from gently-cooked grass-fed animals, wild fish, or plants like hemp. Limiting how much protein you eat or intermittent fasting are two of the most painless high-impact ways to live longer.

SLEEP OR DIE

A lack of good sleep directly increases your risk of dying from one of the Four Killers, while good quality sleep promotes skin health and youthful appearance, and healthy cell division.

To improve your sleep, get a sleep tracker. Did it take you a long time to fall asleep? Are you wasting your night with light sleep? Did you snore (sign of inflammation)?

The more time you spend in either REM or deep sleep, the more restorative your sleep will be.

You can increase your sleep quality by meditating, taking a hot bath before sleep, eating better, consuming fewer toxins (including alcohol), reducing blue light exposure at night, or taking the right supplements for your biology.

USING LIGHT TO GAIN SUPERPOWERS

To harness the power of light, first reduce junk light at home by installing dimmers and wearing glasses that filter out blue light.

To look better and have more energy, make sure you are exposed to some red or infrared light every day, or aim for fifteen to twenty minutes of natural sun exposure a day.

For the brave ones, consider trying an infrared sauna to aid in detoxification and boost your mitochondrial function.

For help with wound healing, muscle fatigue, or tissue repair, look into red and infrared light therapy. And if your concerns are primarily skin-deep, yellow light therapy may be an easy fix.

PART II. AGE BACKWARD

Turn Your Brain Back On

It’s pretty hard to concentrate or improve your decision-making skills if your brain is constantly and easily panicked – even if the source of panic is a simple text message.

An hour of neurofeedback can help you learn to self-regulate so your fight-or-flight response isn’t activated quite so easily.

Also shining the invisible LED light down your brain for two minutes a day can dramatically improve your brain function, focus, and mood.

When it comes to food, start a diet that consistently keeps your blood sugar low, avoids spikes, and keeps ketones present in your blood.

There are also plenty of pharmaceuticals and supplements that can help you enhance cognitive function as you age, such as:

Piracetam: Reduces cognitive decline with age

CoQ10: Helps your mitochondria produce energy

PQQ: A powerful antioxidant for anti-aging

Curcumin: Improves memory and attention while acting as an antioxidant

METAL BASHING

Arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury are the most toxic and present metals in our environment. Although the EPA has classified each of them as carcinogens, today we are consuming them in considerable quantities.

Toxic metals, such as lead, thallium, and mercury, have a direct impact on mitochondrial cellular function, leading to premature aging and decline.

It is essential to periodically see a functional medicine doctor, get your urine levels tested for heavy metals, and then purge them from our system. Get an IV of glutathione,

Talk to your doctor about activated charcoal treatment,

Eat chlorella tablets along with fish (a common source of mercury),

Consistently use digestive fiber (15 grams every other day for a year),

Sweat it out in an infrared sauna or by exercising.

POLLUTING YOUR BODY WITH OZONE

Ozone therapy can strengthen your immune system and your mitochondrial function.

Weak cells that are vulnerable to invasion from bacteria or viruses are more susceptible to oxidation. Ozone therapy kills off these weak and damaged cells, while it destroys harmful bacteria, yeast, viruses, fungi, and protozoa.

However, please don’t try ozone gas before consulting a doctor! Accidentally inhaling it can cause permanent lung damage or even kill you.

FERTILITY = LONGEVITIY

Before getting any hormone replacement, get a lab test to learn your current hormone levels. The author has supplemented many of his hormones, i.e.:

Testosterone – necessary for muscles and sexual function

DHEA – a pre-hormone

Oxytocin – best known for its role in making you feel good and bond with others

There are many simple ways to hack your hormones besides hormone replacement therapy:

Get good quality sleep consistently,

Eat the right foods (stop eating sugar, soy, excess omega-6 fats, and refined carbs, and replace these foods with additional healthy saturated fat from grass-fed meat, pastured eggs, and energy fats.),

Go through your toiletries and personal care products and get rid of everything containing phthalates and parabens, which mimic hormones in the body and disrupt your natural hormone function,

Exercise regularly, and

Avoid junk light and other environmental toxins.

YOUR TEETH ARE A WINDOW TO THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

When your bite is misaligned, your jaw is always on guard, trying to keep you from banging your teeth into one another.

This causes the trigeminal nerve to send a threat message to your autonomic nervous system, triggering a fight-or-flight response and releasing cortisol, the stress hormone which is highly inflammatory and has its own profound aging effects.

A corrected bite through something as simple as a plastic bite guard can allow your lower jaw to relax, making a big difference in your nervous system.

In other words, proper jaw alignment can help your entire body feel better and become younger.

HUMANS ARE WALKING PETRI DISHES

There are approximately 39 trillion bacterial cells in the human body. If our balance of microorganisms is off (especially in our gut), we age rapidly, develop disease, and die.

The trick is to focus on eating the foods that help good bacteria grow and reproduce: prebiotic fiber and resistant starch.

You can get prebiotics from vegetables that are rich in soluble fiber like sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and asparagus. There is a little prebiotic fiber in coffee and chocolate, too.

The best way for anyone to starve the bad bacteria and feed the good ones is by cleaning up your diet:

Don’t eat grains, legumes, or nightshade vegetables, all of which lay the groundwork for leaky gut syndrome.

Quit eating sugar – bad bacteria love sugar and feed off it.

Never eat industrially-raised animals again, because the antibiotics they receive and the glyphosate in their food will end up in your gut and harm your gut bacteria.

 

Part III. Heal Like A Deity

Finally, although many of the techniques the author mentions in the last part of the book are unregulated and often untested by him, here’s a few ways to practically and realistically heal like a deity:

Spend more time in nature to boost your own natural killer cells and enhance your immune system. Bonus points for frequently visiting a forest with lots of evergreen trees.

Get your hormone levels checked and look at any prescription meds that may be causing a problem. To improve sexual function, simply practice Kegel exercises on a daily basis.

For your skin to look younger than ever:a. Supplement with grass-fed or pastured collagen protein – at least 10 grams per day. You can also make bone broth if you don’t like collagen protein. b. Eat more foods containing polyphenols and antioxidants: vegetables, coffee, tea, and chocolate.

For your hair to look shinier than ever:a. Stop using chemical-laden personal care products and switch to all-natural versions. Throw out anything containing phthalates, parabens, and benzophenones. For women, consider alternatives to hormonal birth control. b. Deal with your stress, already! c. To stimulate blood flow to the scalp, get a head massage or purchase an at-home massager.

Conclusion

Key takeaways

As a general rule, always aim for good nutrition, quality sleep, and a healthy environment free of toxins.

Quit eating grains & sugar, and never eat industrially-raised animals again.

The health and diversity of your gut bacteria is the most important part of your system.

Before trying any advanced biohacking technique or drug, always consult with a doctor.

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In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honoré | Book Summary

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In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed by Carl Honoré

 

We live in the age of speed. We strain to be more efficient, to cram more into each minute, each hour, each day. Since the Industrial Revolution shifted the world into high gear, the cult of speed has pushed us to a breaking point. Consider these facts: Americans on average spend seventy-two minutes of every day behind the wheel of a car, a typical business executive now loses sixty-eight hours a year to being put on hold, and American adults currently devote on average a mere half hour per week to making love.

Living on the edge of exhaustion, we are constantly reminded by our bodies and minds that the pace of life is spinning out of control. In Praise of Slowness traces the history of our increasingly breathless relationship with time and tackles the consequences of living in this accelerated culture of our own creation. Why are we always in such a rush? What is the cure for time sickness? Is it possible, or even desirable, to slow down? Realizing the price we pay for unrelenting speed, people all over the world are reclaiming their time and slowing down the pace — and living happier, healthier, and more productive lives as a result. A Slow revolution is taking place.

Here you will find no Luddite calls to overthrow technology and seek a preindustrial utopia. This is a modern revolution, championed by cell-phone using, e-mailing lovers of sanity. The Slow philosophy can be summed up in a single word — balance. People are discovering energy and efficiency where they may have been least expected — in slowing down.

In this engaging and entertaining exploration, award-winning journalist and rehabilitated speedaholic Carl Honoré details our perennial love affair with efficiency and speed in a perfect blend of anecdotal reportage, history, and intellectual inquiry. In Praise of Slowness is the first comprehensive look at the worldwide Slow movements making their way into the mainstream — in offices, factories, neighborhoods, kitchens, hospitals, concert halls, bedrooms, gyms, and schools. Defining a movement that is here to stay, this spirited manifesto will make you completely rethink your relationship with time.

Top Slow Quotes from Others

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” — Gandhi

“For fast-acting relief from stress, try slowing down.” — Lily Tomlin

“Take the time to live more deeply.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

“Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.” — Søren Kierkegaard

“To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.” — Bertrand Russell

“The whole struggle of life is to some extent a struggle about how slowly or how quickly to do each thing.” — Sten Nadolny, author of The Discovery of Slowness

“When things happen too fast, nobody can be certain about anything, about anything at all, not even about himself.” — Milan Kundera, author of the novella Slowness

“It is a Western disease to make time finite, and then to impose speed on all aspects of life.” — Satish Kumar

“Despite what people think, the discussion about speed is never really about the current state of technology. It goes much deeper than that, it goes back to the human desire for transcendence … It’s hard to think about the fact that we’re going to die; it’s unpleasant, so we constantly seek ways to distract ourselves from the awareness of our own mortality. Speed, with the sensory rush it gives, is one strategy for distraction.” — Mark Kingwell, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto

“Being Slow means that you control the rhythms of your own life. You decide how fast you have to go in any given context. If today I want to go fast, I go fast; if tomorrow I want to go slow, I go slow. What we are fighting for is the right to determine our own tempos.” — Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food

“We want to strike a balance between the modern and the traditional that promotes good living.” — Bruna Sibille

“Reading implies time for reflection, a slowing-down that destroys the mass’s dynamic efficiency.” — Paul Virilio, French philosopher

The Busy Life & Time Sickness

“The world is still straining to do everything faster—and paying a heavy price for it. The toll taken by the hurry-up culture is well documented. We are driving the planet and ourselves towards burnout. We are so time-poor and time-sick that we neglect our friends, families and partners. We barely know how to enjoy things any more because we are always looking ahead to the next thing. Much of the food we eat is bland and unhealthy. With our children caught up in the same hailstorm of hurry, the future looks bleak.”

“All the things that bind us together and make life worth living—community, family, friendship—thrive on the one thing we never have enough of: time.”

“In 1982 Larry Dossey, an American physician, coined the term ‘time-sickness’ to describe the obsessive belief that ‘time is getting away, that there isn’t enough of it, and that you must pedal faster and faster to keep up.’ These days, the whole world is time-sick. We all belong to the same cult of speed.”

“Time-sickness can also be a symptom of a deeper, existential malaise. In the final stages before burnout, people often speed up to avoid confronting their unhappiness.”

“Inevitably, a life of hurry can become superficial. When we rush, we skim the surface, and fail to make real connections with the world or other people.”

“We have forgotten how to look forward to things, and how to enjoy the moment when they arrive.”

“In this media-drenched, data-rich, channel-surfing, computer-gaming age, we have lost the art of doing nothing, of shutting out the background noise and distractions, of slowing down and simply being alone with our thoughts.”

“Instead of thinking deeply, or letting an idea simmer in the back of the mind, our instinct now is to reach for the nearest sound bite.“

“This is where our obsession with going fast and saving time leads. To road rage, air rage, shopping rage, relationship rage, office rage, vacation rage, gym rage. Thanks to speed, we live in the age of rage.“

“And not only do we enjoy going fast, we get used to it, we become ‘velocitized.’ When we first drive onto a motorway, 70 miles per hour seems fast. Then, after a few minutes, it feels routine. Pull onto a slip road, brake to 30 mph and the lower speed seems slow. Velocitization fuels a constant need for more speed.“

“As we go on accelerating, our relationship with time grows ever more fraught and dysfunctional.”

Evolution of our Relationship with Time

“If we are ever going to slow down, we must understand why we accelerated in the first place, why the world got so revved up, so tightly scheduled. And to do that, we need to start at the very beginning, by looking at our relationship with time itself.”

“Survival was one incentive for measuring time. Ancient civilizations used calendars to work out when to plant and harvest crops. Right from the start, though, timekeeping proved to be a double-edged sword. On the upside, scheduling can make anyone, from peasant farmer to software engineer, more efficient. Yet as soon as we start to parcel up time, the tables turn, and time takes over. We become slaves to the schedule. Schedules give us deadlines, and deadlines, by their very nature, give us a reason to rush. As an Italian proverb puts it: Man measures time, and time measures man.“

“Lewis Mumford, the eminent social critic, identified the clock as ‘the key machine’ of the Industrial Revolution. But it was not until the late nineteenth century that the creation of standard time unlocked its full potential.”

“Benjamin Franklin was among the first to envision a world devoted to rest and relaxation. Inspired by the technological breakthroughs of the latter 1700s, he predicted that man would soon work no more than four hours a week.”

“In the United States, meanwhile, a group of intellectuals known as the Transcendentalists exalted the gentle simplicity of a life rooted in nature. One of their number, Henry David Thoreau, retired to a one-room cabin beside Walden Pond near Boston in 1845, from which he decried modern life as a treadmill of ‘infinite bustle…nothing but work, work, work.‘”

“In 1884, Charles Dudley Warner, an American editor and essayist, gave vent to the popular unease, echoing Plautus in the process: ‘The chopping up of time into rigid periods is an invasion of individual freedom and makes no allowances for differences in temperament and feeling.’“

“To teach workers the new time discipline demanded by modern capitalism, the ruling classes set about promoting punctuality as a civic duty and a moral virtue, while denigrating slowness and tardiness as cardinal sins. In its 1891 catalogue, the Electric Signal Clock Company warned against the evils of failing to keep pace: ‘If there is one virtue that should be cultivated more than any other by him who would succeed in life, it is punctuality: if there is one error to be avoided, it is being behind time.’ One of the firm’s clocks, the aptly named Autocrat, promised to ‘revolutionize stragglers and behind-time people.’”

“As the clock tightened its grip and technology made it possible to do everything more quickly, hurry and haste seeped into every corner of life. People were expected to think faster, work faster, talk faster, read faster, write faster, eat faster, move faster.”

“Tempted and titillated at every turn, we seek to cram in as much consumption and as many experiences as possible. As well as glittering careers, we want to take art courses, work out at the gym, read the newspaper and every book on the bestseller list, eat out with friends, go clubbing, play sports, watch hours of television, listen to music, spend time with the family, buy all the newest fashions and gadgets, go to the cinema, enjoy intimacy and great sex with our partners, holiday in far-flung locations and maybe even do some meaningful volunteer work. The result is a gnawing disconnect between what we want from life and what we can realistically have, which feeds the sense that there is never enough time.“

“Part of the answer may lie in the way we think about time itself. In some philosophical traditions—Chinese, Hindu and Buddhist, to name three—time is cyclical. On Canada’s Baffin Island, the Inuit use the same word—uvatiarru—to mean both ‘in the distant past’ and ‘in the distant future.’ Time, in such cultures, is always coming as well as going. It is constantly around us, renewing itself, like the air we breathe. In the Western tradition, time is linear, an arrow flying remorselessly from A to B. It is a finite, and therefore precious, resource. Christianity piles on pressure to put every moment to good use. The Benedictine monks kept a tight schedule because they believed the devil would find work for idle hands to do. In the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin summed up the Western obsession with making the most of every minute with a stern call to action: ‘A man who wastes one hour of time has not discovered the meaning of life.’”

“Perhaps the greatest challenge of the Slow movement will be to fix our neurotic relationship with time itself.”

Slow Myth Busting

Slow is not just a rate of change; it’s a philosophy of life

“In this book, Fast and Slow do more than just describe a rate of change. They are shorthand for ways of being, or philosophies of life. Fast is busy, controlling, aggressive, hurried, analytical, stressed, superficial, impatient, active, quantity-over-quality. Slow is the opposite: calm, careful, receptive, still, intuitive, unhurried, patient, reflective, quality-over-quantity. It is about making real and meaningful connections—with people, culture, work, food, everything. The paradox is that Slow does not always mean slow. As we shall see, performing a task in a Slow manner often yields faster results. It is also possible to do things quickly while maintaining a Slow frame of mind.”

Slow is not Anti-Speed

“Let’s make one thing clear: this book is not a declaration of war against speed. Speed has helped to remake our world in ways that are wonderful and liberating. Who wants to live without the Internet or jet travel? The problem is that our love of speed, our obsession with doing more and more in less and less time, has gone too far; it has turned into an addiction, a kind of idolatry. Even when speed starts to backfire, we invoke the go-faster gospel. Falling behind at work? Get a quicker Internet connection. No time for that novel you got at Christmas? Learn to speed-read. Diet not working? Try liposuction. Too busy to cook? Buy a microwave. And yet some things cannot, should not, be sped up. They take time; they need slowness. When you accelerate things that should not be accelerated, when you forget how to slow down, there is a price to pay.“

Slow is not Slow Motion or Anti-Technology

“Despite what some critics say, the Slow movement is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. Nor is it a Luddite attempt to drag the whole planet back to some pre-industrial utopia. On the contrary, the movement is made up of people like you and me, people who want to live better in a fast-paced, modern world … Being Slow does not mean being torpid, backward or technophobic.“

Slow is not Anti-Capitalism

“Inevitably, the Slow movement overlaps with the anti-globalization crusade. Proponents of both believe that turbo-capitalism offers a one-way ticket to burnout, for the planet and the people living on it. They claim we can live better if we consume, manufacture and work at a more reasonable pace. In common with moderate anti-globalizers, however, Slow activists are not out to destroy the capitalist system. Rather, they seek to give it a human face.

Slow is not One-Size-Fits-All

“There is no one-size-fits-all formula for slowing down, no universal guide to the right speed. Each person, act, moment has its own eigenzeit. Some people are content to live at a speed that would send the rest of us to an early grave. We all must have the right to choose the pace that makes us happy.  ‘The world is a richer place when we make room for different speeds.’”

Slow Philosophy & Core Tenets

“Though speed, busyness and an obsession with saving time remain the hallmarks of modern life, a powerful backlash is brewing. The Slow movement is on the march. Instead of doing everything faster, many people are decelerating, and finding that Slowness helps them to live, work, think and play better. But is the Slow movement really a movement? It certainly has all the ingredients that academics look for—popular sympathy, a blueprint for a new way of life, grassroots action. True, the Slow movement has no formal structure, and still suffers from low brand recognition. Many people slow down—working fewer hours, say, or finding time to cook—without feeling part of a global crusade. Yet every act of deceleration is grist to the mill.”

Balance & The Middle Path

“That is why the Slow philosophy can be summed up in a single word: balance. Be fast when it makes sense to be fast, and be slow when slowness is called for. Seek to live at what musicians call the tempo giusto—the right speed … Like most people, I want to find a way to live better by striking a balance between fast and slow.”

“What the world needs, and what the Slow movement offers, is a middle path, a recipe for marrying la dolce vita with the dynamism of the information age. The secret is balance: instead of doing everything faster, do everything at the right speed. Sometimes fast. Sometimes slow. Sometimes somewhere in between. Being Slow means never rushing, never striving to save time just for the sake of it. It means remaining calm and unflustered even when circumstances force us to speed up.”

Less But Better

“Many recommend doing fewer things in order to do them better, a core tenet of the Slow philosophy … The twenty-four-hour society is not intrinsically evil. If we approach it in a Slow spirit—doing fewer things, with less hurry—it can give us the flexibility we need to decelerate … Slower, it turns out, often means better—better health, better work, better business, better family life, better exercise, better cuisine and better sex.”

“The central tenet of the Slow philosophy is taking the time to do things properly, and thereby enjoy them more. Whatever its effect on the economic balance sheet, the Slow philosophy delivers the things that really make us happy: good health, a thriving environment, strong communities and relationships, freedom from perpetual hurry.”

Lifestyle Revolution

“A genuinely Slow world implies nothing less than a lifestyle revolution.”

Origin & Evolution of the Slow Movement

“The Slow movement is still taking shape. It has no central headquarters or website, no single leader, no political party to carry its message. Many people decide to slow down without ever feeling part of a cultural trend, let alone a global crusade. What matters, though, is that a growing minority is choosing slowness over speed. Every act of deceleration gives another push to the Slow movement.“

“Through the twentieth century, resistance to the cult of speed grew, and began to coalesce into broad social movements. The counterculture earthquake of the 1960s inspired millions to slow down and live more simply. A similar philosophy gave birth to the Voluntary Simplicity movement. In the late 1980s, the New York–based Trends Research Institute identified a phenomenon known as downshifting, which means swapping a high-pressure, high-earning, high-tempo lifestyle for a more relaxed, less consumerist existence. Unlike decelerators from the hippie generation, downshifters are driven less by political or environmental scruples than by the desire to lead more rewarding lives. They are willing to forgo money in return for time and slowness.“

“It (The Slow Movement) all started in 1986, when McDonald’s opened a branch beside the famous Spanish Steps in Rome. To many locals, this was one restaurant too far: the barbarians were inside the gates and something had to be done. To roll back the fast-food tsunami sweeping across the planet, Carlo Petrini, a charismatic culinary writer, launched Slow Food. As the name suggests, the movement stands for everything that McDonald’s does not: fresh, local, seasonal produce; recipes handed down through the generations; sustainable farming; artisanal production; leisurely dining with family and friends. Slow Food also preaches ‘eco-gastronomy’—the notion that eating well can, and should, go hand in hand with protecting the environment.“

“Petrini thinks this is a good starting point for tackling our obsession with speed in all walks of life. The group’s manifesto states: ‘A firm defence of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life…. Our defence should begin at the table with Slow Food.’“

“The (Slow Food) group’s manifesto is a call to arms against the cult of speed in all its forms: ‘Our century, which began and has developed under the insignia of industrial civilization, first invented the machine and then took it as its life model. We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Food.’“

“Slow Food has captured the public imagination and spread across the planet because it touches on a basic human desire. We all like to eat well, and are healthier and happier when we do.”

“The Slow movement has its own momentum. Saying no to speed takes courage, and people are more likely to take the plunge knowing they are not alone, that others share the same vision and are taking the same risks. The Slow movement provides strength in numbers. Every time a group like Slow Food or the Society for the Deceleration of Time makes headlines, it becomes a little easier for the rest of us to question speed. What’s more, once people reap the rewards of slowing down in one sphere of life they often go on to apply the same lesson in others.“

“Collectively, we know our lives are too frantic, and we want to slow down. Individually, more of us are applying the brakes and finding that our quality of life improves. The big question now is when the individual will become the collective. When will the many personal acts of deceleration occurring across the world reach critical mass? When will the Slow movement turn into a Slow revolution?“

Spirituality

“Many find that slowing down has a spiritual dimension. But many others do not. The Slow movement is broad enough to accommodate both. In any case, the gap between the two may not be as wide as it seems. The great benefit of slowing down is reclaiming the time and tranquility to make meaningful connections—with people, with culture, with work, with nature, with our own bodies and minds. Some call that living better. Others would describe it as spiritual.“

“These days, many people are seeking refuge from speed in the safe harbour of spirituality. While mainstream Christian churches face dwindling congregations, their evangelical rivals are thriving. Buddhism is booming across the West, as are bookstores, chat rooms and healing centres dedicated to the eclectic, metaphysical doctrines of New Ageism. All of this makes sense at a time when people crave slowness. The spirit, by its very nature, is Slow. No matter how hard you try, you cannot accelerate enlightenment. Every religion teaches the need to slow down in order to connect with the self, with others and with a higher force. In Psalm 46, the Bible says: ‘Be still then, and know that I am God.’”

Mind

“In the war against the cult of speed, the front line is inside our heads. Acceleration will remain our default setting until attitudes change. But changing what we think is just the beginning. If the Slow movement is really to take root, we have to go deeper. We have to change the way we think.”

“Shifting the mind into lower gear can bring better health, inner calm, enhanced concentration and the ability to think more creatively. It can bring us what Milan Kundera calls ‘the wisdom of slowness.’“

“Research has shown that people think more creatively when they are calm, unhurried and free from stress, and that time pressure leads to tunnel vision.”

“My eureka moments seldom come in a fast-paced office or a high-stress meeting. More often they occur when I am in a relaxed state—soaking in the bath, cooking a meal or even jogging in the park. The greatest thinkers in history certainly knew the value of shifting the mind into low gear. Charles Darwin described himself as a ‘slow thinker.’ Albert Einstein was famous for spending ages staring into space in his office at Princeton University.“

“Einstein appreciated the need to marry the two modes of thought: ‘Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.’ That is why the smartest, most creative people know when to let the mind wander and when to knuckle down to hard work. In other words, when to be Slow and when to be Fast.”

“As one Zen master put it, ‘Instead of saying ‘Don’t just sit there; do something’ we should say the opposite, ‘Don’t just do something; sit there.’“

Meditation & Movement

“One way to cultivate inner Slowness is to make time for activities that defy acceleration—meditation, knitting, gardening, yoga, painting, reading, walking, Chi Kung.”

“Meditation is one way to train the mind to relax. It lowers blood pressure and generates more of the slower alpha and theta waves in the brain. And research shows that the effects last long after the meditating ends.”

“Take yoga, an ancient Hindu regimen of physical, spiritual and mental exercises that seeks to bring body, mind and spirit into harmony. The word ‘yoga’ means ‘unite’ in Sanskrit. In the West, though, we tend to focus on the physical side of the discipline—the breathing control, the slow, fluid movements, the postures, or asanas. Yoga can do wonders for the body, firming and toning muscles, fortifying the immune system, boosting blood circulation and increasing flexibility.”

“Yoga can help achieve that core of stillness. It seeks to sustain a person’s chi—the life force, or energy—which can be hampered by stress, anxiety, illness and overwork. Even those who dismiss the idea of chi as mystical claptrap often find that yoga helps them develop a Slow frame of mind. Through the unhurried, controlled movements, they acquire more self-awareness, concentration and patience.”

“Chi Kung is another Eastern exercise regime whose Slow approach to the mind and body is winning converts. Sometimes described as ‘yoga with meditation and movement,’ Chi Kung is a generic term for a range of ancient Chinese exercises that promote health by circulating chi round the body. In a standing position, and using the pelvic area as a fulcrum, practitioners move slowly through a series of postures that elongate the limbs. Slow, deep breathing is also important. Chi Kung is not about pumping up the heart rate and sweating profusely; it is about control and awareness. It can improve balance, strength, posture and rhythm of movement. Even more than yoga, it helps to achieve a relaxed mind while in an active state. Chi Kung has many branches, ranging from martial arts such as Kung Fu to the much gentler Tai Chi.”

“Against that backdrop, walking, the oldest form of exercise, is making a comeback. In the pre-industrial era, people mostly travelled on foot—and that kept them fit. Then came engine power, and people got lazy. Walking became the transport of last resort, a ‘forgotten art’ in the words of the World Health Organization.”

“Travelling on foot can also be meditative, fostering a Slow frame of mind. When we walk, we are aware of the details around us—birds, trees, the sky, shops and houses, other people. We make connections.“

“The same goes for gardening. In almost every culture, the garden is a sanctuary, a place to rest and ruminate. Niwa, the Japanese word for garden, means ‘an enclosure purified for the worship of the gods.’ The act of gardening itself—planting, pruning, weeding, watering, waiting for things to grow—can help us slow down. Gardening does not lend itself to acceleration any more than knitting does. Even with a greenhouse, you cannot make plants bloom on demand or bend the seasons to suit your schedule. Nature has its own timetable. In a hurry-up world, where everything is scheduled for maximum efficiency, surrendering to the rhythms of nature can be therapeutic.“

Education

“‘The notion of the slow school destroys the idea that schooling is about cramming, testing, and standardizing experience,’ Holt writes. ‘The slow approach to food allows for discovery, for the development of connoisseurship. Slow food festivals feature new dishes and new ingredients. In the same way, slow schools give scope for invention and response to cultural change, while fast schools just turn out the same old burgers.’”

“The children still work hard, but without the drudgery of rote learning. Like every other wing of the Slow movement, ‘Slow Schooling’ is about balance.“
“Whenever people talk of the need for children to slow down, play is always high on the agenda. Many studies show that unstructured time for play helps younger children develop their social and language skills, their creative powers and their ability to learn. Unstructured play is the opposite of ‘quality time,’ which implies industry, planning, scheduling and purpose.”

“In the summer of 2001, the dean wrote an open letter to every first-year undergraduate at Harvard. It was an impassioned plea for a new approach to life on campus and beyond. It was also a neat précis of the ideas that lie at the heart of the Slow philosophy. The letter, which now goes out to Harvard freshmen every year, is entitled: Slow Down. Over seven pages, Lewis makes the case for getting more out of university—and life—by doing less. He urges students to think twice before racing through their degrees.“

“When it comes to academic life, Lewis favours the same less-is-more approach. Get plenty of rest and relaxation, he says, and be sure to cultivate the art of doing nothing. ‘Empty time is not a vacuum to be filled,’ writes the dean. ‘It is the thing that enables the other things on your mind to be creatively rearranged, like the empty square in the 4 x 4 puzzle that makes it possible to move the other fifteen pieces around.’ In other words, doing nothing, being Slow, is an essential part of good thinking.“

Work

“For the Slow movement, the workplace is a key battlefront. When the job gobbles up so many hours, the time left over for everything else gets squeezed. Even the simple things—taking the kids to school, eating supper, chatting to friends—become a race against the clock. A surefire way to slow down is to work less.“

“‘Burnout used to be something you mainly found in people over forty,’ says one London-based life coach. ‘Now I’m seeing men and women in their thirties, and even their twenties, who are completely burned out.’“

“For a chilling vision of where this behaviour leads, look no further than Japan, where the locals have a word—karoshi—that means ‘death by overwork.’“

“These days, we exist to serve the economy, rather than the other way round. Long hours on the job are making us unproductive, error-prone, unhappy and ill.”

“Work devours the bulk of our waking hours. Everything else in life—family and friends, sex and sleep, hobbies and holidays—is forced to bend around the almighty work schedule.

“At the top of the corporate food chain, more and more high achievers are choosing to work freelance or as independent contractors. This allows them to work hard when they choose and still have time to recharge their batteries, enjoy hobbies and hang out with the family.”

“As it turns out, people who cut their work hours often take a smaller hit financially than they expect. That is because spending less time on the job means spending less money on the things that allow us to work: transport, parking, eating out, coffee, convenience food, childcare, laundry, retail therapy. A smaller income also translates into a smaller tax bill.”

“Yet working less is just part of the Slow blueprint. People also want to decide when they work.”

“Things are so much better now. I still work the same number of hours, sometimes even more, but my relationship with time is healthier. Now that I control my own schedule, I move through the working day feeling less hurried and resentful.”

“Of course, speed has a role in the workplace. A deadline can focus the mind and spur us on to perform remarkable feats. The trouble is that many of us are permanently stuck in deadline mode, leaving little time to ease off and recharge. The things that need slowness—strategic planning, creative thought, building relationships—get lost in the mad dash to keep up, or even just to look busy.“

“Though sleeping on the job is the ultimate taboo, research has shown that a short ‘power nap‘—around twenty minutes is ideal—can boost energy and productivity.”

“Many of the most vigorous and successful figures in history were inveterate nappers: John F. Kennedy, Thomas Edison, Napoleon Bonaparte, John D. Rockefeller, Johannes Brahms. Winston Churchill delivered the most eloquent defence of the afternoon snooze: ‘Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion helped by people who have no imagination. You will be able to accomplish more. You get two days in one—well, at least one and a half.’“

Leisure

“Whatever happened to the Age of Leisure? Why are so many of us still working so hard? One reason is money. Everyone needs to earn a living, but the endless hunger for consumer goods means that we need more and more cash. So instead of taking productivity gains in the form of extra time off, we take them in higher incomes.”

“How to make the best use of free time is not a new concern. Two thousand years ago, Aristotle declared that one of the central challenges facing man was how to fill his leisure.“

“Plato believed that the highest form of leisure was to be still and receptive to the world, a view echoed by modern intellectuals.”

“Franz Kafka put it this way: ‘You don’t need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, simply wait. Don’t even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.’“

“In his 1935 essay, In Praise of Idleness, Russell wrote that a four-hour workday would make us ‘more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion.’ With so much leisure, life would be sweet, slow and civilized.”

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Alcoholics Anonymous | Big Book 4th Edition | Book Summary

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Alcoholics Anonymous 4th Edition

Many thousands have benefited from The Big Book and its simple but profound explanation of the doctrines behind Alcoholics Anonymous, which was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith.

 

Preface

 

THIS IS the fourth edition of the book “Alcoholics Anonymous.” The first edition appeared in April 1939, and in the following sixteen years, more than 300,000 copies went into circulation. The second edition, published in 1955, reached a total of more than 1,150,500 copies. The third edition, which came off press in 1976, achieved a circulation of approximately 19,550,000 in all formats.

 

We think this account of our experiences will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic. Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person. And besides, we are sure that our way of living has its advantages for all.

 

Strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent recovery.

 

By the end of 1939 it was estimated that 800 alcoholics were on their way to recovery.

 

In the spring of 1940, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. gave a dinner for many of his friends to which he invited A.A. members to tell their stories. News of this got on the world wires; inquiries poured in again and many people went to the bookstores to get the book “Alcoholics Anonymous.’’ By March 1941 the membership had shot up to 2,000.

 

By the close of 1941, A.A. numbered 8,000 members. The mushrooming process was in full swing. A.A. had become a national institution.

 

Of alcoholics who came to A.A. and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way; 25% sobered up after some relapses, and among the remainder, those who stayed on with

 

  • showed improvement. Other thousands came to a few A.A. meetings and at first decided they didn’t want the program. But great numbers of these—about two out of three—began to return as time passed.

 

Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religious organization. Neither does A.A. take any particular medical point of view, though we cooperate widely with the men of medicine as well as with the men of religion.

 

By March 1976, when this edition went to the printer, the total worldwide membership of Alcoholics Anonymous was conservatively estimated at more than 1,000,000, with almost 28,000 groups meeting in over 90 countries.

 

Each day, somewhere in the world, recovery begins when one alcoholic talks with another alcoholic, sharing experience, strength, and hope.

 

FOREWORD TO FOURTH EDITION

 

THIS fourth edition of “Alcoholics Anonymous” came off press in November 2001, at the start of a new millennium. Since the third

 

edition was published in 1976, worldwide membership of A.A. has just about doubled, to an estimated two million or more, with nearly 100,800 groups meeting in approximately 150 countries around the world.

 

Currently, “Alcoholics Anonymous” has been translated into forty-three languages.

 

Taking advantage of technological advances, for example, A.A. members with computers can participate in meetings online, sharing with fellow alcoholics across the country or around the world. In any meeting, anywhere, A.A.’s share experience, strength, and hope with each other, in order to stay sober and help other alcoholics. Modem-to-modem or face-to-face, A.A.’s speak the language of the heart in all its power and simplicity.

 

We who have suffered alcoholic torture must

 

believe—that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from reality, or were outright mental defectives. These things were true to some extent, in fact, to a considerable extent with some of us. But we are sure that our bodies were sickened as well. In our belief, any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete.

 

Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks—drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.

 

On the other hand—and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand—once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules.

 

The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult, and in much detail is outside the scope of this book. There are, of course, the psychopaths who are emotionally unstable. We are all familiar with this type. They are always “going on the wagon for keeps.’’ They are over-remorseful and make many resolutions, but never a decision.

 

There is the type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink. He plans various ways of drinking. He changes his brand or his environment. There is the type who always believes that after being entirely free from alcohol for a period of time he can take a drink without danger. There is the manic-depressive type, who is, perhaps, the least understood by his friends, and about whom a whole chapter could be written.

 

Then there are types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people.

 

All these, and many others, have one symptom in common:

 

they cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity. It has never been, by any treatment with which we are familiar, permanently eradicated. The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence.

 

Chapter 1: BILL’S STORY

 

Liquor ceased to be a luxury; it became a necessity.

 

The remorse, horror and hopelessness of the next morning are unforgettable. The courage to do battle was not there.

 

In alcoholics the will is amazingly weakened when it comes to combating liquor, though it often remains strong in other respects.

 

God had done for him what he could not do for himself. His human will had failed. Doctors had pronounced him incurable. Society was about to lock him up. Like myself, he had admitted complete defeat. Then he had, in effect, been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he had ever known!

 

It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. I saw that growth could start from that point. Upon a foundation of complete willingness I might build.

 

Thus was I convinced that God is concerned with us humans when we want Him enough. At long last I saw, I felt, I believed. Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes. A new world came into view.

 

There I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my newfound Friend take them away, root and branch. I have not had a drink since.

 

I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within. Common sense would thus become uncommon sense. I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as He would have me. Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive. But that would be in great measure.

 

Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all.

 

These were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them, the effect was electric. There was a sense of victory, followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never

 

known. There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up, as though the great clean wind of a mountain top blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but His impact on me was sudden and profound.

 

Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic! For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. If he did not work, he would surely drink again, and if he drank, he would surely die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us it is just like that.

 

Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish.

 

Bill W., co-founder of A.A., died January 24, 1971.

 

Chapter 2: THERE IS A SOLUTION

 

We of alcoholics anonymous know thousands of men and women who were once just as hopeless as Bill. Nearly all have recovered. They have solved the drink problem.

 

We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this.

 

The main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body.

 

At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected.

 

The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our socalled will power becomes practically non-existent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the

 

suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

 

Chapter 3: MORE ABOUT ALCOHOLISM

 

Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows.

 

Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

 

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals usually brief—were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.

 

We are like men who have lost their legs; they never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men. We have tried every imaginable remedy. In some instances there has been brief recovery, followed always by a still worse relapse. Physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic. Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn’t done so yet.

 

Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self-deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore nonalcoholic. If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the right-about-face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to him. Heaven knows, we have tried hard enough and long enough to drink like other people!

 

Here are some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever (with and without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums—we could increase the list ad infinitum.

 

Though there is no way of proving it, we believe that early in our drinking careers most of us could have stopped drinking. But the difficulty is that few alcoholics have enough desire to stop while there is yet time. We have heard of a few instances where people, who showed definite signs of alcoholism, were able to stop for a long period because of an overpowering desire to do so. Here is one.

 

A man of thirty was doing a great deal of spree drinking. He was very nervous in the morning after these bouts and quieted himself with more liquor. He was ambitious to succeed in business, but saw that he would get nowhere if he drank at all. Once he started, he had no control whatever. He made up his mind that until he had been successful in business and had retired, he would not touch another drop. An exceptional man, he remained bone dry for twenty-five years and retired at the age of fifty-five, after a successful and happy business career. Then he fell victim to a belief which practically every alcoholic has —that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink as other men. Out came his carpet slippers and a bottle. In two months he was in a hospital, puzzled and humiliated. He tried to regulate his drinking for a while, making several trips to the hospital meantime. Then, gathering all his forces, he attempted to stop altogether and found he could not. Every means of solving his problem which money could buy was at his disposal. Every attempt failed. Though a robust man at retirement, he went to pieces quickly and was dead within four years.

 

“Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.’’ Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever. If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of

 

any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol.

 

For those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. Many of us felt that we had plenty of character. There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it—this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish.

 

What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of the first drink?

 

In some circumstances we have gone out deliberately to get drunk, feeling ourselves justified by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy or the like. But even in this type of beginning we are obliged to admit that our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened. We now see that when we began to drink deliberately, instead of casually, there was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be.

 

The actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience.

 

He was positive that this humiliating experience, plus the knowledge he had acquired, would keep him sober the rest of his life. Self-knowledge would fix it.

 

Not only had I been off guard, I had made no fight whatever against the first drink. This time I had not thought of the consequences at all

 

If I had an alcoholic mind, the time and place would come—I would drink again. They had said that though I did raise a

 

defense, it would one day give way before some trivial reason for having a drink.

 

I knew from that moment that I had an alcoholic mind. I saw that will power and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots.

 

An alcoholic mentality was a hopeless condition. They cited cases out of their own experience by the dozen. This process snuffed out the last flicker of conviction that I could do the job myself.

 

The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power.

 

Chapter 4: WE AGNOSTICS

 

In the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.

 

To one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic such an experience seems impossible, but to continue as he is means disaster, especially if he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face.

 

Find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem.

 

As soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.

 

Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another’s conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to effect a contact with Him. As soon as we admitted the possible existence

 

of a Creative Intelligence, a Spirit of the Universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction, provided we took other simple steps. We found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the Realm of Spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive; never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men.

 

Are not some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as were the ancients about the realm of the material?

 

When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work. But the God idea did.

 

The Wright brothers’ almost childish faith that they could build a machine which would fly was the mainspring of their accomplishment. Without that, nothing could have happened. We agnostics and atheists were sticking to the idea that self-sufficiency would solve our problems. When others showed us that “God-sufficiency’’ worked with them, we began to feel like those who had insisted the Wrights would never fly.

 

When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn’t. What was our choice to be?

 

For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.

 

Chapter 5: HOW IT WORKS

 

 

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely

 

give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way.

 

Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:

 

  1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol— that our lives had become unmanageable.

 

  1. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

 

  1. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

 

  1. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

 

  1. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

 

  1. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

 

  1. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

 

  1. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

 

  1. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

 

  1. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

 

  1. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

 

  1. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

 

Many of us exclaimed, “What an order! I can’t go through with it.’’ Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to

 

maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

 

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

 

That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.

That God could and would if He were sought.

 

Being convinced, we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. Just what do we mean by that, and just what do we do?

 

The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way.

 

We alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible.

 

This is the how and why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn’t work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom.

 

When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and

 

more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life.

 

We were now at Step Three. Many of us said to our Maker, as we understood Him: “God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!’’ We thought well before taking this step making sure we were ready; that we could at last abandon ourselves utterly to Him.

 

Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.

 

Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory. This was Step Four. A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking a commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock-in-trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values.

 

But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were short lived.

 

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.

 

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.

 

The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize for God. Instead we let Him demonstrate, through us, what He can do. We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear.

 

Chapter 6: INTO ACTION

 

This is perhaps difficult—especially discussing our defects with another person. We think we have done well enough in admitting these things to ourselves. There is doubt about that. In actual practice, we usually find a solitary self-appraisal insufficient. Many of us thought it necessary to go much further.

 

If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have turned to easier methods.

 

More than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor. To the outer world he presents his stage character. This is the one he likes his fellows to see. He wants to enjoy a certain reputation but knows in his heart he doesn’t deserve it.

 

The inconsistency is made worse by the things he does on his sprees. Coming to his senses, he is revolted at certain episodes he vaguely remembers. These memories are a nightmare. He trembles to think someone might have observed him. As fast as he can, he pushes these memories far inside himself. He hopes they will never see the light of day. He is under constant fear and tension—that makes for more drinking.

 

The rule is we must be hard on ourselves, but always considerate of others.

 

When ready, we say something like this: “My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.’’ We have then completed Step Seven.

 

Now we need more action, without which we find that “Faith without works is dead.’’ Let’s look at Steps Eight and Nine. We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took inventory. We subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal. Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves. If we haven’t the will to do this, we ask until it comes. Remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol.

 

Simply we tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past. We are there to sweep off our side of the street, realizing that nothing worth while can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell him what he should do. His faults are not discussed. We stick to our own. If our manner is calm, frank, and open, we will be gratified with the result.

 

In nine cases out of ten the unexpected happens. Sometimes the man we are calling upon admits his own fault, so feuds of years’ standing melt away in an hour. Rarely do we fail to make satisfactory progress. Our former enemies sometimes praise what we are doing and wish us well. Occasionally, they will offer assistance. It should not matter, however, if someone does throw us out of his office. We have made our demonstration, done our part. It’s water over the dam.

 

So, we clean house with the family, asking each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love.

 

The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.

 

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole

 

attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

 

This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.

 

That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

 

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities. “How can I best serve Thee— Thy will (not mine) be done.’’ These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.

 

Step Eleven suggests prayer and meditation. We shouldn’t be shy on this matter of prayer.

 

We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.

 

But this is not all. There is action and more action. “Faith without works is dead.’’ The next chapter is entirely devoted to Step Twelve.

 

Chapter 7: WORKING WITH OTHERS

 

Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics! You can help when no one

 

else can. You can secure their confidence when others fail.

 

Remember they are very ill.

 

Life will take on new meaning. To watch people

 

recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends— this is an experience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives.

 

We have no monopoly on God;

 

Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A kindly act once in a while isn’t enough. You have to act the Good Samaritan every day, if need be.

 

This truth: Job or no job—wife or no wife—we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.

 

Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone. The only condition is that he trust in God and clean house.

 

Assuming we are spiritually fit, we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do. People have said we must not go where liquor is served; we must not have it in our homes; we must shun friends who drink; we must avoid moving pictures which show drinking scenes; we must not go into bars; our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses; we mustn’t think or be reminded about alcohol at all. Our experience shows that this is not necessarily so.

 

We meet these conditions every day. An alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic mind; there is something the matter with his spiritual status. His only chance for sobriety would be someplace like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything!

 

In our belief any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. If the alcoholic tries to shield himself he may succeed for a time, but he usually winds up with a bigger explosion than ever. We have tried

 

these methods. These attempts to do the impossible have always failed.

 

After all, our problems were of our own making. Bottles were only a symbol. Besides, we have stopped fighting anybody or anything. We have to!

 

“He wants to want to stop.”

 

Chapter 9: THE FAMILY AFTERWARD

 

All members of the family should meet upon the common ground of tolerance, understanding and love. This involves a process of deflation. The alcoholic, his wife, his children, his “in-laws,” each one is likely to have fixed ideas about the family’s attitude towards himself or herself. Each is interested in having his or her wishes respected. We find the more one member of the family demands that the others concede to him, the more resentful they become. This makes for discord and unhappiness.

 

Henry Ford once made a wise remark to the effect that experience is the thing of supreme value in life. That is true only if one is willing to turn the past to good account. We grow by our willingness to face and rectify errors and convert them into assets. The alcoholic’s past thus becomes the principal asset of the family and frequently it is almost the only one!

 

Cling to the thought that, in God’s hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have—the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them.

 

 

First Things First, Live and Let Live, Easy Does It.

 

Chapter 10: TO EMPLOYERS

 

Understand that he must undergo a change of heart. To get over drinking will require a transformation of thought and attitude. We all had to place recovery above everything,

 

The greatest enemies of us alcoholics are resentment, jealousy, envy, frustration, and fear. Wherever men are gathered together in business there will be rivalries and, arising out of these, a

 

certain amount of office politics. Sometimes we alcoholics have an idea that people are trying to pull us down. Often this is not so at all. But sometimes our drinking will be used politically.

 

Chapter 11: A VISION FOR YOU

 

The familiar alcoholic obsession that few knew of his drinking.

 

They must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that motive became secondary. It was transcended by the happiness they found in giving themselves for others. They shared their homes, their slender resources, and gladly devoted their spare hours to fellow-sufferers. They were willing, by day or night, to place a new man in the hospital and visit him afterward. They grew in numbers. They experienced a few distressing failures, but in those cases they made an effort to bring the man’s family into a spiritual way of living, thus relieving much worry and suffering.

 

Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come, if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven’t got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.

 

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.

 

May God bless you and keep you—until then.

 

DOCTOR BOB’S NIGHTMARE

 

A co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. The birth of our Society dates from his first day of permanent sobriety, June 10, 1935.

 

 

To 1950, the year of his death, he carried the A.A. message to more than 5,000 alcoholic men and women, and to all these he gave his medical services without thought of charge.

 

June 10, 1935, and that was my last drink.

 

As I write, nearly four years have passed.

 

The question which might naturally come into your mind would be: “What did the man do or say that was different from what others had done or said?” It must be remembered that I had read a great deal and talked to everyone who knew, or thought they knew anything about the subject of alcoholism. But this was a man who had experienced many years of frightful drinking, who had had most all the drunkard’s experiences known to man, but who had been cured by the very means I had been trying to employ, that is to say the spiritual approach. He gave me information about the subject of alcoholism which was undoubtedly helpful. Of far more importance was the fact that he was the first living human with whom I had ever talked, who knew what he was talking about in regard to alcoholism from actual experience. In other words, he talked my language. He knew all the answers, and certainly not because he had picked them up in his reading.

 

 

I spend a great deal of time passing on what I learned to others who want and need it badly. I do it for four reasons:

 

  1. Sense of duty.

 

  1. It is a pleasure.

 

  1. Because in so doing I am paying my debt to the man who took time to pass it on to me.

 

  1. Because every time I do it I take out a little more insurance for myself against a possible slip.

 

Unlike most of our crowd, I did not get over my craving for liquor much during the first two and one-half years of abstinence. It was almost always with me. But at no time have I been anywhere near yielding. I used to get terribly upset when I saw my friends drink and knew I could not, but I schooled myself to believe that though I once had the same privilege, I had abused it so frightfully that it was withdrawn. So it doesn’t behoove me to squawk about it for, after all, nobody ever had to throw me down and pour liquor down my throat.

 

If you think you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book, I feel sorry for you. If you still think you are strong enough to beat the game alone, that is your affair. But if you really and truly want to quit drinking liquor for good and all, and sincerely feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you. It never fails, if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when you were getting another drink.

 

After reviewing these things and realizing what liquor had cost me, I went to this Higher Power that, to me, was God, without any reservation, and admitted that I was completely powerless over alcohol and that I was willing to do anything in the world to get rid of the problem. In fact, I admitted that from then on I was willing to let God take over instead of me. Each day I would try to find out what His will was and try to follow that, rather than trying to get Him to always agree that the things I thought up for myself were the things best for me. So, when they came back, I told them.

 

Whether you quit six days, months, or years, if you go out and take a drink or two, you’ll end up in this hospital tied down, just like you have been in these past six months. You are an alcoholic.” As far as I know that was the first time I had ever paid any attention to that word. I figured I was just a drunk. And they said, “No, you have a disease, and it doesn’t make any difference how long you do without it, after a drink or two you’ll end up just like you are now.” That certainly was real disheartening news, at the time.

 

The next question they asked was, “You can quit twenty-four hours, can’t you?” I said, “Sure, yes, anybody can do that, for twenty-four hours.” They said, “That’s what we’re talking about. Just twenty-four hours at a time.” That sure did take a load off of my mind. Every time I’d start thinking about drinking, I would think of the long, dry years ahead without having a drink; but this idea of twenty-four hours, that it was up to me from then on, was a lot of help.

 

“If they can do it, I can do it!” Over and over he said this to himself. Finally, out of his hope, there burst conviction. Now he

 

was sure. Then came a great joy. At length, peace stole over him and he slept.

 

It was in the next two or three days after I had first met Doc and Bill that I finally came to a decision to turn my will over to God and to go along with this program the best that I could. Their talk and action had instilled in me a certain amount of confidence, although I was not too absolutely certain. I wasn’t afraid that the program wouldn’t work, but I still was doubtful whether I would be able to hang on to the program, but I did come to the conclusion that I was willing to put everything I had into it, with God’s power, and that I wanted to do just that.

 

I remember telling them too that it was going to be awfully tough, because I did some other things, smoked cigarettes and played penny ante poker and sometimes bet on the horse races, and they said, “Don’t you think you’re having more trouble with this drinking than with anything else at the present time? Don’t you believe you are going to have all you can do to get rid of that?” “Yes,” I said, reluctantly, “I probably will.” They said, “Let’s forget about those other things, that is, trying to eliminate them all at once, and concentrate on the drink.”

 

I’ve heard people get up in meetings and say it—is this statement: “I came into A.A. solely for the purpose of sobriety, but it has been through A.A. that I have found God.”

 

I became an active alcoholic from that first day, when alcohol produced a very special effect in me. I was transformed. Alcohol suddenly made me into what I had always wanted to be.

 

Alcohol became my everyday companion. At first, I considered it a friend; later, it became a heavy load I couldn’t get rid of. It turned out to be much more powerful than I was, even if, for many years, I could stay sober for short periods. I kept telling myself that one way or another I would get rid of alcohol. I was convinced I would find a way to stop drinking. I didn’t want to acknowledge that alcohol had become so important in my life. Indeed, alcohol was giving me something I didn’t want to lose.

 

I will keep my job for a year while you go save the drunks.” That is exactly what I set out to do.

 

As I look back on it now, I did everything wrong, but at least I was thinking of somebody else instead of myself. I had begun to get a little bit of something I am very full of now, and that is gratitude.

 

“Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us.” It is very simple—though not always easy. But it can be done.

 

I know the Fellowship of A.A. doesn’t offer any guarantees, but I also know that in the future I do not have to drink. I want to keep this life of peace, serenity, and tranquility that I have found.

 

When I entered a sanitarium for prolonged and intensive psychiatric treatment, I was convinced that I was having a serious mental breakdown. I wanted help, and I tried to cooperate. As the treatment progressed, I began to get a picture of myself, of the temperament that had caused me so much trouble. I had been hypersensitive, shy, idealistic. My inability to accept the harsh realities of life had resulted in a disillusioned cynic, clothed in a protective armor against the world’s misunderstanding. That armor had turned into prison walls, locking me in loneliness—and fear. All I had left was an iron determination to live my own life in spite of the alien world—and here I was, an inwardly frightened, outwardly defiant woman, who desperately needed a prop to keep going.

 

Alcohol was that prop, and I didn’t see how I could live without it.

 

I wasn’t mad or vicious—I was a sick person. I was suffering from an actual disease that had a name and symptoms like diabetes or cancer or TB—and a disease was respectable, not a moral stigma!

 

“We cannot live with anger.” The walls crumpled—and the light streamed in. I wasn’t trapped. I wasn’t helpless. I was free, and I didn’t have to drink to “show them.” This wasn’t “religion”—this was freedom! Freedom from anger and fear, freedom to know happiness, and freedom to know love.

 

“The thing I do is to say ‘God, here I am and here are all my troubles. I’ve made a mess of things and can’t do anything about it. You take me, and all my troubles, and do anything you want with me.’ Does that answer your question?”

 

I am learning that I cannot have my own way as I used to. I blame my wife and children. Anger possesses me, anger such as I have never felt before.

 

Strength has come from weakness.

 

I learn that honesty is truth and that truth shall make us free!

 

Invariably reward myself for my efforts with that “first” drink.

 

Every time I blacked out, and that was every time I drank, there was always that gnawing fear, “What did I do this time?”

 

The mental state of the sick alcoholic is beyond description.

 

But we were staying sober as long as we kept and talked together. There was one meeting a week at Bill’s home in Brooklyn, and we all took turns there spouting off about how we had changed our lives overnight, how many drunks we had saved and straightened out, and last but not least, how God had touched each of us personally on the shoulder. Boy, what a circle of confused idealists! Yet we all had one really sincere purpose in our hearts, and that was not to drink.

 

Our one desire is to stay in A.A. and not on it. Our pet slogan is “Easy Does It.”

 

I got to the place where I’d look forward to the weekend’s drinking and pacify myself by saying that the weekends were mine, that it didn’t interfere with my family or with my business if I drank on the week- ends. But the weekends stretched on into Mondays, and the time soon came when I drank every day.

 

One clear thought came to me: Try prayer. You can’t lose, and maybe God will help you —just maybe, mind you. Having no one else to turn to, I was willing to give Him a chance, although with considerable doubt. I got down on my knees for the first time in thirty years. The prayer I said was simple. It went something like this: “God, for eighteen years I have been unable to handle this problem. Please let me turn it over to you.”

 

Nothing had changed and yet everything had changed. The scales had dropped from my eyes, and I could see life in its proper

 

perspective. I had tried to be the center of my own little world, whereas God was the center of a vast universe of which I was perhaps an essential, but a very tiny, part.

 

There have also been numerous times when I have thought about taking a drink. Such thinking usually began with thoughts of the pleasant drinking of my youth. I learned early in my A.A. life that I could not afford to fondle such thoughts, as you might fondle a pet, because this particular pet could grow into a monster. Instead, I quickly substitute one or another vivid scene from the nightmare of my later drinking.

 

The Six-Step program as it was at that time. The six steps were:

  1. Complete deflation.

 

  1. Dependence and guidance from a Higher Power.

 

  1. Moral inventory.

 

 

 

  1. Continued work with other alcoholics.

 

When you are right and the time is right, Providence will provide.

 

One could not take the moral inventory and then file it away; that the alcoholic has to continue to take inventory every day if he expects to get well and stay well.

 

I was thirty-three years old and my life was spent. I was caught in a cycle of alcohol and sedation that was proving inescapable, and consciousness had become intolerable.

 

Every doctor gets his quota of alcoholic patients. Some of us struggle with these people because we know that they are really very sick, but we also know that, short of some miracle, we are not going to help them except temporarily and that they will inevitably get worse and worse until one of two things happens. Either they die of acute alcoholism or they develop wet brains and have to be put away permanently.”

 

He further explained that alcohol was no respecter of sex or background but that most of the alcoholics he had encountered had better-than-average minds and abilities. He said the alcoholics seemed to possess a native acuteness and usually excelled in their fields, regardless of environmental or educational advantages.

 

“We watch the alcoholic performing in a position of responsibility, and we know that because he is drinking heavily and daily, he has cut his capacities by 50 percent, and still he seems able to do a satisfactory job. And we wonder how much further this man could go if his alcoholic problem could be removed and he could throw 100 percent of his abilities into action.

 

“But, of course,” he continued, “eventually the alcoholic loses all of his capacities as his disease gets progressively worse, and this is a tragedy that is painful to watch: the disintegration of a sound mind and body.”

 

More often, I was having these little moments of clarity, times I knew for sure that I was an alcoholic. Times when I was looking at the bottom of my glass asking myself, Why am I doing this? Something had to give, something had to change. I was suicidal, evaluating every part of my life for what could be wrong. It culminated in one last night of drinking and staring at the problem. It made me sick to think about it, and even sicker to continue drinking it away. I was forced to look at my drinking as the chief suspect.

 

The idea that religion and spirituality were not one and the same was a new notion. My sponsor asked that I merely remain open-minded to the possibility that there was a Power greater than myself, one of my own understanding. He assured me that no person was going to impose a belief system on me, that it was a personal matter. Reluctantly, I opened my mind to the fact that maybe, just maybe, there was something to this spiritual lifestyle. Slowly but surely, I realized there was indeed a Power greater than myself, and I soon found myself with a full-time God in my life and following a spiritual path that didn’t conflict with my personal religious convictions.

 

I started drinking nearly thirty years ago—right after I was married. My first drinking spree was on corn liquor, and I was

 

allergic to it, believe me. I was deathly sick every time I took a drink. But we had to do a lot of entertaining. My husband liked to have a good time; I was very young, and I wanted to have a good time too. The only way I knew to do it was to drink right along with him.

 

 

I am trying now, each day, to make up for all those selfish, thoughtless, foolish things I did in my drinking days. I hope that I never forget to be grateful.

 

I should have realized that alcohol was getting hold of me when I started to become secretive in my drinking.

 

I never knew which came first, the thinking or the drinking. If I could only stop thinking, I wouldn’t drink. If I could only stop drinking, maybe I wouldn’t think. But they were all mixed up together, and I was all mixed up inside. And yet I had to have that drink.

 

After that I sat for a week, a body in a chair, a mind off in space. I thought the two would never get together. I knew that alcohol and I had to part. I couldn’t live with it anymore. And yet, how was I going to live without it? I didn’t know. I was bitter, living in hate. The very person who stood with me through it all and has been my greatest help was the person that I turned against, my husband. I also turned against my family, my mother. The people who would have come to help me were just the people I would have nothing to do with.

 

Nevertheless, I began to try to live without alcohol. But I only succeeded in fighting it. And believe me, an alcoholic cannot fight alcohol. I said to my husband, “I’m going to try to get interested in something outside, get myself out of this rut I’m in.”

 

Mere cessation from drinking is not enough for an alcoholic while the need for that drink goes on.

 

“Half measures availed us nothing”; No one made me drink, and no one was going to make me stay sober. This program is for people who want it, not people who need it.

 

If everyone who needed A.A. showed up, we would be bursting at the seams. Unfortunately, most never make it to the door.

 

Following the principles laid out in the Big Book has not always been comfortable, nor will I claim perfection. I have yet to find a place in the Big Book that says, “Now you have completed the Steps; have a nice life.” The program is a plan for a lifetime of daily living. There have been occasions when the temptation to slack off has won. I view each of these as learning opportunities.

 

 

“You hit bottom when you stop digging.” DENIAL IS THE MOST cunning, baffling, and powerful part of my disease, the disease of alcoholism.

 

I found everything I had ever looked for in Alcoholics Anonymous.

 

I used to thank God for putting A.A. in my life; now I thank A.A.

for putting God in my life.

 

As long as I put A.A. first in my life, everything that I put second would be first class.

 

I asked the therapist I was seeing, sometimes with beer in hand, would I have to stop? His answer was that we had to find out why I drank. I’d already tried but was never able to find out why until I learned the answer in A.A.—because I’m an alcoholic.

 

I learned that alcoholism isn’t a sin, it’s a disease.

 

The slogans on the walls, which at first made me shudder, began to impress me as truths I could live by: “One Day at a Time.” “Easy Does It.” “Keep It Simple.” “Live and Let Live.” “Let Go and Let God.” “The Serenity Prayer.”

 

Commitment and service were part of recovery. I was told that to keep it we have to give it away.

 

HOW CAN a person with a fine family, an attractive home, an excellent position, and high standing in an important city become an alcoholic? As I later found out through Alcoholics Anonymous, alcohol is no respecter of economic status, social and business standing, or intelligence.

 

In the first step of the Twelve Steps of A.A. “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become un-manageable.”

 

The explanation that alcoholism was a disease of a two-fold nature, an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind,

 

The obsession of the mind was a little harder to understand, and yet everyone has obsessions of various kinds. The alcoholic has them to an exaggerated degree. Over a period of time he has built up self-pity and resentments toward anyone or anything that interferes with his drinking.

 

He suggested that for me a good starting point would simply be recognition of the fact that I had failed in running the world—in short, acceptance of the fact that I was not God. He also suggested that I might try occasionally to act as if I believed. Somewhere I had heard that it is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking than to think yourself into a new way of acting, and this made sense in the context of “acting as if.”

 

I remember telling a friend years ago that I didn’t have a drinking problem, I had a stopping problem. We laughed. It was true, but there was something else going on, something that never occurred to me until I came to A.A. I didn’t just have a stopping problem. I had a starting problem too.

 

In working the steps, my life changed. I think differently today; I feel different today. I am new. We have a sign at the A.A. meetings I go to that says, “Expect a Miracle.” My sobriety is full of miracles.

 

“Don’t drink! Don’t think! Go to meetings!”

 

Many years later, although alcohol is not part of my life and I no longer have the compulsion to drink, it can still occur to me what a good drink tastes like and what it can do for me, from my stand-at-attention alcoholic taste buds right down to my stretched out tingling toes. As my sponsor used to point out, such thoughts are like red flags, telling me that something is not right, that I am stretched beyond my sober limit. It’s time to get back to basic A.A. and see what needs changing. That special relationship with

 

alcohol will always be there, waiting to seduce me again. I can stay protected by continuing to be an active member of A.A.

 

Later I learned the definition of a social drinker: some-one who could take it or leave it.

 

They said I only had to go to meetings on days I would have had a drink. They said I needed to identify, not compare. I didn’t know what they meant. What was the difference? Identifying, they said, was trying to see how I was like the people I was with. Comparing, they told me, was looking for differences, usually seeing how I was better than others.

 

By taking care of the internal environment via the Twelve Steps, and letting the external environment take care of itself.)

 

“I’m a success today if I don’t drink today,”

 

(Today there is absolutely nothing in the world more important to me than my keeping this alcoholic sober; not taking a drink is by far the most important thing I do each day.)

 

It helped me a great deal to become convinced that alcoholism was a disease, not a moral issue; that I had been drinking as a result of a compulsion, even though I had not been aware of the compulsion at the time; and that sobriety was not a matter of willpower.

 

At last, acceptance proved to be the key to my drinking problem.

 

When I stopped living in the problem and began living in the answer, the problem went away.

 

And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.

 

Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

 

  • and acceptance have taught me that there is a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us; that we are all children of God and we each have a right to be here. When I

 

complain about me or about you, I am complaining about God’s handiwork. I am saying that I know better than God.

 

Before A.A. I judged myself by my intentions, while the world was judging me by my actions.

 

One of the primary differences between alcoholics and non-alcoholics is that non-alcoholic change their behavior to meet their goals and alcoholics change their goals to meet their behavior.

 

“You don’t have to drink over it.”

 

“It’s not how much you drink, it’s what drinking does to you.”

 

The tides of life flow endlessly for better or worse, both good and bad, and I cannot allow my sobriety to become dependent on these ups and downs of living. Sobriety must live a life of its own.

 

There is a saying that alcoholics either get sobered up, locked up, or covered up.

 

From experience, I’ve realized that I cannot go back and make a brand-new start. But through A.A., I can start from now and make a brand-new end.

 

I went to meetings every day and started taking the steps. The First Step showed me that I was powerless over alcohol and anything else that threatened my sobriety or muddled my thinking. Alcohol was only a symptom of much deeper problems of dishonesty and denial.

 

What I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter what hardships and losses I’ve endured in sobriety, I have not had to go back to drinking. As long as I work the program, keep being of service, go to meetings, and keep my spiritual life together, I can live a decent life.

 

As my faith grows, my fears lessen.

 

True happiness is found in the journey, not the destination.

 

Humility is the key.

 

Some people get sober because they’re afraid to die. I knew I would live, and that was far more terrifying. I had surrendered.

 

For each step, I still had to go through the process of recognizing that I had no control over my drinking. I had to understand that the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous had helped others and could help me. I had to realize that if I did want sobriety, I had better do the steps whether I liked them or not. Every time I ran into trouble, I ultimately found that I was resisting change.

 

My mentor had to remind me that A.A. is not just a project. A.A. offers me an opportunity to improve the quality of my life. I came to recognize that there is always a deeper and wider experience awaiting me.

 

All my sobriety and growth, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, are dependent upon my willingness to listen, understand, and change.

 

“There is just one good drunk in every alcoholic’s life, and that’s the one that brings us into A.A.,”

 

The A.A. members who sponsored me told me in the beginning that I would not only find a way to live without having a drink, but that I would find a way to live without wanting to drink, if I would do these simple things. They said if you want to know how this program works, take the first word of your question— the “H” is for honesty, the “O” is for open-mindedness,

 

and the “W” is for willingness

 

“If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.”

 

“The only real freedom a human being can ever know is doing what you ought to do because you want to do it.”

 

“A.A. does not teach us how to handle our drinking,” he said. “It teaches us how to handle sobriety.”

 

It’s no great trick to stop drinking; the trick is to stay stopped.

 

I have come to realize that the name of the game is not so much to stop drinking as to stay sober. Alcoholics can stop drinking in many places and many ways—but Alcoholics Anonymous offers us a way to stay sober.

 

God willing, we members of A.A. may never again

 

have to deal with drinking, but we have to deal with sobriety every day.

 

THE A.A. TRADITION

 

The Twelve Traditions

 

One—Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.

 

Two—For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority— a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

 

Three—The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.

 

Four—Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.

 

Five—Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

 

Six—An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

 

Seven—Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

 

Eight—Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

 

Nine—A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.

 

Ten—Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

 

Eleven—Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.

 

Twelve—Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

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Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin | Book Summary

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Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich by Duane Elgin 

 

 

First published in 1981, VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY was quickly recognized as a powerful and visionary work in the emerging dialogue over sustainable living. Now-more than 44 years later and with many of the planet′s environmental stresses more urgent than ever-Duane Elgin has once again revised and updated his revolutionary book.

VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY is not a book about living in poverty; it is a book about living with balance. Elgin illuminates the changes that an increasing number of Americans are making in their everyday lives-adjustments in day-to-day living that are an active, positive response to the complex dilemmas of our time. By embracing the tenets of voluntary simplicity-frugal consumption, ecological awareness, and personal growth-people can change their lives and, in the process, save our planet.

 

What is Voluntary Simplicity?

It turns out voluntary simplicity has a lot of synonyms that Elgin uses throughout the book including:

Green lifeways, Earth-friendly living, soulful living, simple living, sustainable lifestyles, living lightly, compassionate lifeways, conscious simplicity, Earth-conscious living, simple prosperity

What does “voluntarily” mean?

“To live more voluntarily is to live more consciously. To live more consciously is to live in a life-sensing manner. It is to taste our experience of life directly as we move through the world.”

“To live more voluntarily is to live more deliberately, intentionally, and purposefully—in short, it is to live more consciously…To act in a voluntary manner is to be aware of ourselves as we move through life. This requires that we pay attention not only to the actions we take in the outer world, but to ourselves acting—our inner world.”

What does “simply” mean?

“To live more simply is to live in harmony with the vast ecology of all life. It is to live with balance—taking no more than we require and, at the same time, giving fully of ourselves.”

“To live more simply is to live more purposefully and with a minimum of needless distraction…To live more simply is to unburden ourselves—to live more lightly, cleanly, aerodynamically. It is to establish a more direct, unpretentious, and unencumbered relationship with all aspects of our lives: the things that we consume, the work that we do, our relationships with others, our connections with nature and the cosmos, and more. Simplicity of living means meeting life face-to-face. It means confronting life clearly, without unnecessary distractions. It means being direct and honest in relationships of all kinds. It means taking life as it is—straight and unadulterated.”

And, when you put it all together into “voluntary simplicity”:

“When we combine these two concepts for integrating the inner and outer aspects of our lives, we can then say: Voluntary simplicity is a way of living that is outwardly simple and inwardly rich. It is a way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct and conscious contact with living.”

 

What are the Goals of Voluntary Simplicity?

Simplicity can be applied to every aspect of your life. Elgin acknowledges that those who adopt life changes of simplicity often do so after “deep soul-searching.”

He sums up the objective as:

The objective of the simple life is not to dogmatically live with less but to live with balance in order to realize a life of greater purpose, fulfillment, and satisfaction.

First, we must wake up:

We can awaken ourselves from the dream of limitless material growth and actively invent new ways to live within the material limits of Earth.

With conscious simplicity, we can seek lives that are rich with experiences, satisfaction, and learning rather than packed with things.

You can change your life and change the world:

By embracing a lifeway of voluntary simplicity — characterized by ecological awareness, frugal consumption, and personal growth — people can change their lives. And in the process, they have the power to change the world.

And, connect directly with the world:

Simplicity fosters a more conscious and direct encounter with the world.

In living more simply we encounter life more directly—in a firsthand and immediate manner. We need little when we are directly in touch with life.

 

How You Can get Started with Voluntary Simplicity and Live Simply:

The simplicity movement is a global “leaderless revolution.” But, there are many ways you can get involved if you choose to do so (and I hope you do!):

“When people ask me, ‘What can I do?’ I often reply that one of the most powerful things we can do is to start talking with other people about our personal hopes and fears for the future.”

“As individuals we are not powerless. Opportunities for meaningful and important action are everywhere: in the food we eat, the work we do, the transportation we use, the manner in which we relate to others, the clothing we wear, the learning we acquire, the compassionate causes we support, the level of attention we invest in our moment-to-moment passage through life, and so on. The list is endless, since the stuff of social transformation is identical with the stuff from which our daily lives are constructed.”

“The character of a society is the cumulative result of the countless small actions taken day in and day out, by millions of persons.”

“Traditional political and economic perspectives fail to recognize the most radical change of all in a free-market economy and democratic society: the empowerment of individuals to consciously take charge of their own lives and to begin changing their manner of work, patterns of consumption, forms of governance, modes of communication, and much more.”

“Simplicity is simultaneously a personal choice, a community choice, a national choice, and a species choice.”

“The outcome of this time of planetary transition will depend on the choices that we make as individuals. Nothing is lacking. Nothing more is needed than what we already have. We require no remarkable, undiscovered technologies.”

“Our choice is ruin or responsibility.”

“As we become empowered to take charge of our lives, we feel that no one is to blame other than ourselves if our experience of life is not satisfying.”

“To live sustainably, it is vital that we each decide how much is ‘enough.’”

“Conscious simplicity is not an alternative way of life for a marginal few; it is a creative choice for the mainstream majority, particularly in developed nations.”

 

The History of Simplicity:

Simplicity has been a theme in all the world’s wisdom traditions: Christian, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Puritan, Quaker, Transcendentalist, you name it. The Greeks have the “golden mean” and the Buddhists have the “middle way.”

“Living more consciously seems to be at the core of a path of simplicity and, in turn, makes it clear why this way of life is compatible with Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Sufism, Zen, and many more traditions.

“An old Eastern saying states, ‘Simplicity reveals the master.’ As we gradually master the art of living, a consciously chosen simplicity emerges as the expression of that mastery. Simplicity allows the true character of our lives to show through.”

“Historian of the simple life David Shi describes the common denominator among the various approaches to simpler living as the understanding that the making of money and the accumulation of things should not smother the purity of the soul, the life of the mind, the cohesion of the family, or the good of the society.”

Elgin spends some time highlighting the work of Richard Gregg, who coined the term “voluntary simplicity” in the 1930s:

“(Richard Gregg) said that the purpose of life was to create a life of purpose.”

“Gregg saw a life of conscious simplicity and balance as vital in realizing our life purpose because it enables us to avoid needless distractions and busyness.”

“Simplicity is a relative matter depending on climate, customs, culture, and the character of the individual.” — Richard Gregg

“Voluntary simplicity involves both inner and outer condition. It means singleness of purpose and sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life. It means an ordering and guiding of our energy and our desires, a partial restraint in some directions in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions. It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose. Of course, as different people have different purposes in life, what is relevant to the purpose of one person might not be relevant to the purpose of another…The degree of simplification is a matter for each individual to settle for himself.” — Richard Gregg

 

Simple Living Myths & Misconceptions:

Elgin says, “Contrary to media myths, consumerism offers lives of sacrifice while simplicity offers lives of opportunity.” In the media, simplicity is often presented as: 1) Crude or Regressive Simplicity (anti-technology, anti-innovation, back-to-nature movement), 2) Cosmetic or Superficial Simplicity (shallow simplicity, green lipstick on our unsustainable lives), or 3) Deep or Conscious Simplicity.

Myth #1: Simplicity means poverty

“It makes an enormous difference whether greater simplicity is voluntarily chosen or involuntarily imposed.

“Simplicity is not about a life of poverty, but a life of purpose.”

“Voluntary simplicity is not about living in poverty; it is about living with balance.”

“Poverty is involuntary and debilitating, whereas simplicity is voluntary and enabling. Poverty is mean and degrading to the human spirit, whereas a life of conscious simplicity can have both a beauty and a functional integrity that elevates the human spirit. Involuntary poverty generates a sense of helplessness, passivity, and despair, whereas purposeful simplicity fosters a sense of personal empowerment, creative engagement, and opportunity.”

“A conscious simplicity, then, is not self-denying but life-affirming. Voluntary simplicity is not an ‘ascetic simplicity’ (of strict austerity); rather, it is an ‘aesthetic simplicity’ where each person considers how his or her level and pattern of consumption can fit with grace and integrity into the practical art of daily living on this planet.”

Myth #2: Simplicity means rural living

“Instead of a ‘back to the land’ movement, it is much more accurate to describe this as a ‘make the most of wherever you are’ movement.”

Myth #3: Simplicity means ugly living

Myth #4: Simplicity means economic stagnation

“Although the consumer and material goods sectors would contract, the service and public sectors (education, health care, urban renewal) would expand dramatically. When we look around at the condition of the world, we see a huge number of unmet needs: caring for the elderly, restoring the environment, educating illiterate and unskilled youth, repairing decaying roads and infrastructure, providing health care, creating community markets and local enterprises, retrofitting the urban landscape for sustainability, and many more. Because there are enormous numbers of unmet needs, there are equally large numbers of purposeful and satisfying jobs waiting to get done. The difficulty is that in many industrialized nations there is such an overwhelming emphasis placed on individual consumption that it has resulted in the neglect of work that promotes public well-being.”

 

Wake up & break out of Society’s Automation:

“Simplicity is the razor’s edge that cuts through the trivial and finds the essential.”

“To live voluntarily requires not only that we be conscious of the choices before us (the outer world) but also that we be conscious of ourselves as we select among those choices (the inner world). We must be conscious of both the choices and ourselves as the chooser. Put differently, to act voluntarily is to act in a self-determining manner. But who is the ‘self’ making the decisions? If that ‘self’ is both socially and psychologically conditioned into habitual patterns of thought and action, then behavior can hardly be considered voluntary. Therefore, self-realization—the process of realizing who the ‘self’ really is—is crucial to self-determination and voluntary action.”

“If we do not become conscious of these automated patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, then we become, by default, human automatons.”

“An old adage states, ‘It’s a rare fish that knows it swims in water.’ Analogously, the challenge of living voluntarily is not in gaining access to the conscious experiencing of ourselves but rather in consciously recognizing the witnessing experience and then learning the skills of sustaining our opening to that experience.”

“The capacity to move through life with conscious awareness is central to our species identity. We have given ourselves the scientific name Homo sapiens, which means that we are a species that not only ‘knows’ but ‘know that it knows.’ We have identified our core trait as a species—our capacity for reflective consciousness. Living ever more consciously goes to the very heart of our species natures and to our core evolutionary journey as a human community.”

“To the extent that we are able to see or know our automated patterns, we are then no longer bound by them. We are enabled to act and live voluntarily.”

“As we learn to watch ourselves ever more precisely and intimately, the boundaries between the ‘self-in-here’ and the ‘world-out-there’ begin to dissolve. In the stage beyond self-reflective consciousness, we no longer stand apart from existence as observers; now we are fully immersed within it as conscious participants.”

 

On Media (TV & Internet):

“As the Internet fosters a new capacity for rapid feedback from citizens and organizations around the world, the human family is developing a level of collective awareness, understanding, and responsiveness to the well-being of the Earth that previously would have been unimaginable.”

TV: “Mass entertainment is used to capture the attention of a mass audience that is then appealed to by mass advertising in order to promote mass consumption.”

“Because television’s being programmed to achieve commercial success, the mind-set of entire nations is being programmed for ecological failure.”

“The most precious resource of a civilization—the shared consciousness of its citizenry—is literally being prostituted and sold to the highest corporate bidders.”

“Because the overwhelming majority of prime-time hours on television are devoted to programming for amusement, we are entertainment-rich and knowledge-poor.”

 

On Identity:

“The hallmark of a balanced simplicity is that our lives become clearer, more direct, less pretentious, and less complicated. We are then empowered by our material circumstances rather than enfeebled or distracted by them. Excess in either direction—too much or too little—is complicating.”

“When we engage in ‘identity consumption,’ we become possessed by our possessions, we are consumed by that which we consume.”

“We begin a never-ending search for a satisfying experience of identity. We look beyond ourselves for the next thing that will make us happy…But the search is both endless and hopeless, because it is continually directed away from the ‘self’ that is doing the searching.”

“It is transformative to withdraw voluntarily from the preoccupations with the material rat race of accumulation and instead accept our natural experience — unadorned by superfluous goods — as sufficient unto itself.”

“A self-reinforcing spiral of growth begins to unfold: As we live more consciously, we feel less identified with our material possessions and thereby are enabled to live more simply. As we live more simply and our lives become less filled with unnecessary distractions, we find it easier to bring our undivided attention into our passage through life, and are thereby enabled to live more consciously.”

 

On Inner & Outer Alignment:

“Simplicity has as much to do with each person’s purpose in living as it does with his or her standard of living.”

“Voluntary simplicity, then, involves not only what we do (the outer world) but also the intention with which we do it (the inner world).”

“The ecological crisis we now face has emerged, in no small part, from the gross disparity that exists between our relatively underdeveloped inner faculties and the extremely powerful external technologies at our disposal.”

“Throughout history, few people have had the opportunity to develop their interior potentials because much of the human journey has been preoccupied with the struggle for survival.”

“Simpler living integrates both inner and outer aspects of life into an organic and purposeful whole.”

 

On Work:

“Given the drive to find meaningful work coupled with the shortage of such work in today’s economy, it is not surprising that many choosing a simpler way of life are involved in starting their own small businesses.”

“When our work is life-serving, then our energy and creativity can flow cleanly and directly through us and into the world without impediment or interruption.”

“Overall, people viewed work in four primary ways:

As a means of supporting oneself in activity that is meaningful and materially sustaining

As an opportunity to support others by producing goods and services that promote a workable and meaningful world

As a context for learning about the nature of life—using work as a medium of personal growth

As a direct expression of one’s character and talents—as a celebration of one’s existence in the world”

 

On Money & Materialism:

“Once a person or family reaches a moderate level of income, here are the factors that research has shown contribute most to happiness: good health, personal growth, strong social relationships, service to others, connection with nature.”

“Until the last few generations, a majority of people have lived close to subsistence, so an increase in income brought genuine increases in material well-being, and this has produced more happiness. However, in a number of developed nations, levels of material well-being have moved beyond subsistence to unprecedented abundance.”

“The more materialistic values are at the center of our lives, the more our quality of life is diminished…reported lower levels of happiness and self-actualization and higher levels of depression, anxiety, narcissism, antisocial behavior, and physical problems such as headaches.” — Tim Kasser

 

Questions to Ponder:

Elgin poses many thought-provoking questions throughout the book. Here are my favorites that are worth thinking about:

“Who are these people who want to slow down, lighten their impact on the Earth, and grow the quality of their relationships with the rest of life?”

“Why would an individual or couple adopt a way of life that is more materially frugal, ecologically oriented, inner-directed, and in other ways removed from the materialism of much of Western society?”

“What is the pathway from consumer to conserver?”

“If the material consumption of a fraction of humanity is already harming the planet, is there an alternative path that enables all of humanity to live more lightly upon the Earth while experiencing a higher quality of life?”

“Instead of visualizing how material limitation can draw out new levels of community and cooperation, many people see a life of greater ‘simplicity’ as a path of sacrifice and regress. Living within the limits that the Earth can sustain raises a fundamental question: Can we live more lightly on the material side of life while living with greater satisfaction and meaning on the nonmaterial side of life?”

“They all share 3 concerns:

How are we to live sustainably on the Earth?

In harmony with one another?

And in communion with the universe?”

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The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh | Book Summary

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The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering Into Peace, Joy, and Liberation by Thich Nhat Hanh

 

“Mindfulness is the energy that allows us to recognize our habit energy and prevent it from dominating us.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh

Who is Thich Nhat Hanh and why listen to him?

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, spiritual leader and author.

Today, he’s probably the second most influential Buddhist figure in the Western world after the Dalai Lama.

Yet at 16 years old, he was just another novice monk at a temple in central Vietnam. In fact, his family believed a monk’s life would be too difficult for him, but after he entered the temple, he says he felt so joyful and free. On moonlit nights in front of the pond listening to the other monks chanting holy sutras, he felt like he was listening to a choir of angels.

But then when Nhat Hanh was a young adult, his country erupted into war. The Vietnam War lasted almost 20 years and over one million soldiers and civilians died.

Many monks chose to retreat from society, but Nhat Hanh bravely spoke out against the war, urging both sides to find peace. In this way, he promoted a type of “engaged Buddhism” which uses mindfulness as a foundation to actively create positive change in society. For this reason, Martin Luther King Jr publicly nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967, saying:

His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Nonetheless, in 1975 when the war was over, Thich Nhat Hanh was exiled from his own country by the North side which won the war. He spent the next part of his life promoting Buddhism in western countries, opening mindfulness centers under the name Plum Village in France, America and elsewhere. He wrote many popular books to spread the practice of mindfulness, including this one.

In the mid-2000s Nhat Hanh was finally allowed to return to Vietnam, but his health has been slowly declining. In 2014 he suffered a stroke leaving him in a wheelchair mostly unable to talk. He’s now returned to the same temple where he first became a monk and remain there until he died in 2022.

I think his life story demonstrates one of the core truths of Buddhism: that in life everyone faces suffering. Yet we can also embrace that suffering as our path towards peace.

So let’s now explore some of the best lessons from this book, starting with:

  1. Buddha’s teachings were passed down orally for 400 years before being written down

Today the two major schools of Buddhism are Theravada and Mahayana. The main difference between them is they follow two separate Transmissions or records of Buddha’s teachings. These are called the Southern and Northern Transmissions and they were written down in different places after Buddha’s death.

The Southern Transmission is a record of Buddha’s teachings written down about 400 years after Buddha died. It was written down in the language of Pali by Sri Lankan monks. (This one is also known as the Pali Canon.)

You have to understand that Buddha’s teachings were passed down orally from monk to monk for many generations. So after 400 years, there was only one monk alive in Sri Lanka who could recite all of Buddha’s teachings from memory. It’s a bit ironic, but this monk was arrogant so the other monks had to persuade him to recite the teachings. The Southern Transmission is followed by members of Theravada Buddhism who live mostly in southeast asian countries like Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Now, The Northern Transmission is a separate record of Buddha’s teachings, written down in the language of Sanskrit in a part of India. The original Sanskrit writings are lost, but the Chinese and Tibetan translations survive. The Northern Transmission is followed by members of Mahayana Buddhism who live mostly in east asian countries like China and Japan.

At the time, it was normal for teachings to be preserved and passed down orally. They say that people had better memorization skills back then than we do today. Yet it’s no small feat for a teaching to be preserved accurately being passed down this way for hundreds of years. Even while Buddha was alive, some of his monks (like his disciple Arittha) misunderstood his teachings or understood them only partially.

Nhat Hanh doesn’t seem concerned about rigidly following one school of Buddhism. To understand what Buddha really taught in the clearest way, he studies multiple schools and translations. While most of the schools share important core teachings in common, sometimes one of the schools offers a point of view that better reflects what Buddha actually taught.

  1. Buddhism not about memorizing theories, but living in a new way

Buddhist teaching are meant to awaken our true self, not merely to add to our storehouse of knowledge.

In this book, Thich Nhat Hanh appears to teach a more modern form of Buddism, one that may be easier for Western people to digest. He does not talk about certain beliefs common in traditional Buddhist countries which may be viewed by secular people as superstitious. For example, performing moral acts to improve one’s chances for a better rebirth.

Nhat Hanh focuses on the practical aspects of Buddhism, especially mindfulness. In this way, he resembles other teachers who also brought Buddhist ideas to the West beginning in the 1960s, including Alan Watts and Shunryu Suzuki.

The Buddha often said his teachings are like a finger pointing at the moon. All the books and lectures are meant to point us in the right direction, but at some point we are supposed to stop thinking about them. Nhat Hanh says it is like following a map to get to Paris. Once you arrive, you fold up the map and enjoy yourself.

  1. Embrace suffering as a fact of life (The First Noble Truth)

Without suffering, you cannot grow. Without suffering, you cannot get the peace and joy you deserve.

The Buddha called suffering a Holy Truth, because our suffering has the capacity of showing us the path to liberation. Embrace your suffering, and let it reveal to you the way to peace.

Buddha famously said that “life is suffering.” Many people misunderstood that to mean Buddhism is a pessimistic philosophy, full of doom and gloom. But Buddha’s real message here is not meant to be negative, he is just stating a fact that nothing in life is ultimately satisfying.

The heart of Buddha’s teachings are The Four Noble Truths. These truths were part of the first lesson Buddha gave his disciples after he became enlightened. Thich Nhat Hanh focuses heavily on these four truths at the beginning of the book to give us a foundational understanding of Buddhism. Buddhists believe that because Buddha shared these truths, he “put into motion the wheel of the Dharma” which in this context means “the Way of Understanding and Love”.

So let’s talk about suffering. We all suffer in some way. We suffer in our health, our relationships or the accidents that happen to us. And even if nothing is going wrong in our lives right now, we still suffer from anxiety that something could go wrong. A poor person suffers because they desire more money and security, a wealthy person suffers because they could always lose the money and security they acquired.

Thich Nhat Hanh grew up in the middle of a war. He was surrounded by immense suffering and destruction that most of us can’t imagine. Adults and children being killed. Bombs dropping on homes. People hungry and starving. Society and cultural values being broken. He says those wounds of suffering are still there inside him. But that’s okay because…

It is only through our suffering that Buddha can communicate with us. In the first sentence of this book, Thich Nhat Hanh says Buddha was a human being and he suffered too. It is because of that shared experience of suffering that his teachings can connect with us. So our pain, unhappiness or dissatisfaction is not an obstacle to peace, but rather provides the bridge.

  1. Look deeply to find the causes of your suffering (The Second Noble Truth)

So this next step is to identify what we are consuming that is causing our suffering. This means realizing what things we are letting into our mind or our lives that eventually lead to unnecessary hurt.

Buddha mentioned four kinds of source materials that we must be aware of: food, sense impressions, intentions and consciousness. Let’s look at these closer:

Food includes what you eat, and also how you sleep and work. These are the physical basics of your existence. They are more important for well being than most people think. For example, modern scientific studies have proven that a lack of sleep is a factor in all major mental health issues like depression, anxiety and suicide. Next we have…

Sense impressions, these include what you see and hear like social media, movies, news and in-person conversations. If you feel terrible after watching something, then that is a good sign it is toxic to your mental health. Next are…

Intentions, these are the goals you chase. Often people believe getting status, fame or possessions will make their lives better, but it actually leads them towards more unhappiness. It’s helpful to listen to what people who are already rich or famous are saying about this. For example, the famous comedian and movie actor Jim Carrey has some awesome speeches about this, here’s a quote from one:

I’ve often said that I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame so they could see that it’s not where you’re gonna find your sense of completion.

– Jim Carrey

And finally we have consciousness, this is what is going through your mind. Our consciousness can be a great source of suffering if we are not in control of it. Thich Nhat Hanh describes it like this:

We chew the cud of our suffering, our despair, like the cows chew the regurgitated grass. Every time we think about being abused, we are abused once again. But actually that is not happening now; it is all over. Thinking like this, we can be abused every day, even though our childhood may have had a great deal of happiness and sweet moments. We ruminate on our hatred, suffering, and despair and it is not healthy food.

So once we see which types of source materials create our suffering, we must choose not to ingest more of those in the future. Only consume those materials which you can be sure are safe, for your mind and body. This is how to live The Second Noble Truth.

For example, I spent a few months following the news every day and I didn’t really consider how much it colored my worldview in a negative and anxious way. When I started only checking the news once per week for a short burst, I found my life became a lot better and calmer.

  1. Face your real suffering directly to end it (The Third Noble Truth)

The next step to ending suffering is facing it directly, which means not avoiding aspects of experience which are unpleasant. (Remember Buddha didn’t just teach that life is suffering, but he also taught how to end suffering. )

Thich Nhat Hanh says people are often awakened while going through a difficult time. Why? Because they are forced to face their suffering and they see how their own irresponsible behavior caused it to happen. While this is painful, it is the first step to not falling into that suffering again.

To face your suffering, touch deeply both the good and bad parts of life. It’s about experiencing everything that happens to you indiscriminately. Knowing that both the positive and negative things pass with time.

Mindfulness practices allow us to touch life deeply. These include mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful eating… and generally doing anything mindfully. Doing things mindfully means doing them with your full attention in the present moment. Not being distracted by sadness from the past or worry for the future.

Mindfulness allows us to appreciate what we already have. When people become older or they have bad health, they always deeply miss being young and healthy. Yet young and healthy people usually never appreciate or even notice what they do have. Mindfulness can change this. For example, by giving your full attention to your breathing for a few moments, you can feel how good it feels to breath into your lungs. Someone who has breathing problems would pay anything to feel this.

As a child, Thich Nhat Hanh and his siblings would run outside to take a shower every time it rained. They were bursting with happiness, simply enjoying themselves. But as they grew older, they began to worry about school, clothes, making money and the war. But mindfulness can bring us back to the joy of our true home, which is always found in the present moment.

  1. Follow the Noble Eightfold Path to stop doing what causes suffering (The Fourth Noble Truth)

So the final Noble Truth is to follow the eight right practices of Buddhism. By following these practices, you can avoid doing the things which cause suffering.

Buddha taught The Noble Eightfold Path in his first discourse after awakening, and continued teaching it all his life. In fact, his last talk ever was on the subject of this Noble Eightfold Path. When Buddha was dying, a young monk named Subhadda managed to visit him. Subhadda asked Buddha if two of the other local spiritual teachers were really enlightened. Buddha said that wasn’t important. He said what was most important is that Subhadda practice The Noble Eightfold Path if he wanted to reach liberation, peace and joy.

These eight practices are not really religious or moral rules in the traditional sense. Buddha said you shouldn’t follow these rules because someone in authority tells you to. Instead, you should first see with your own awareness how the wrong practices lead to suffering and the right ones lead to peace.

The Noble Eightfold Path

The Noble Eightfold Path includes Right View, Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Diligence, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Here is a brief overview of how Thich Nhat Hanh explains each of these eight practices:

Right View – Buddhism does not teach us which point of view is right, but it gives us practices to get rid of wrong views. Most of us are stuck in wrong views because our perceptions are based on our human afflictions like craving, ignorance and prejudice. We can get rid of these inaccurate perceptions and wrong views by touching reality deeply through mindfulness practices.

Right Thinking – Most of our thoughts contribute to our suffering because we are distracted by anxiety for the future or regret from the past. The right way of thinking is being in touch with the present moment. Nhat Hanh sometimes asks his students “What are you doing?” to help them come back to the present. When you are in the present, your everyday experiences becomes much more deep and enjoyable, even seemingly boring activities like washing dishes.

Right Speech – Telling the truth and not changing what you say when you’re talking to different people. However, speaking the truth must be done in a way that does not cause hurt to others. So do your best to communicate the truth using language other people will be able to accept. The foundation of right speech is deep listening, which means listening non-judgmentally with your whole being. Therapists are trained to listen this way, and it nourishes both people in the conversation.

Right Action – Being compassionate and protective of all life, including people, animals, plants and minerals. Not killing. Being generous about sharing your time, energy and other resources with those in need. Not stealing. Being sexually responsible, which means only making love inside of a long-term committed relationship. Eating mindfully rather than destructively. And not using alcohol or other intoxicants.

Right Livelihood – Earning your living without violating any of the right actions we just listed. Buddhism also says not to sell alcohol, drugs, poisons, arms, meat or slaves. And don’t peddle prophecies or fortunes.

Right Diligence – Having goals which won’t cause suffering. Suffering is often caused by having the wrong goals, being wrongly diligent for food, possessions, sex or other sensual pleasures. Thich Nhat Hanh says we all have a store consciousness from where seeds arise into our daily thoughts. These seeds can be wholesome or unwholesome. So we must nurture the wholesome seeds that arise in our mind so they stay here longer. We must also let the unwholesome seeds (like anger, ignorance and greed) sink back down to our store consciousness.

Right Mindfulness – This means being aware of what you are doing in the present moment, rather than being lost in your thoughts about the past or future. A great way to practice mindfulness is by sitting and watching your breath. This is a classic Buddhist meditation. Every time you catch your mind wandering, return your attention back to the breath. This is a great exercise that helps us train ourselves to pay attention to the here and now. However, the real transformation will happen when you practice this kind of attention all day long, no matter what you’re doing.

Right Concentration – This is living deeply with every moment that comes to you, welcoming whatever happens. Living deeply is the key. But how can we do this? Buddha taught one useful practice called The Concentration on Impermanence to help us out. In this practice, you see your beloved one as impermanent. When you recognize that your loved one will someday not be here, then you naturally enter right concentration, cultivating appreciation while at the same time letting go of craving and attachment.

  1. Stop your old habit energies with mindfulness

We all have done things we later regretted. Sometimes we do destructive actions that we don’t even want to do! Why? Because our old addictions, habits and patterns have an energy of their own. We can slip back to those old patterns.

Buddha said our habit energy is like two strong men dragging a third man into a fire pit. The two strong men that we can’t resist are our old habit energies. These energies often overpower us and drag us back to suffering.

Mindfulness is the energy that allows us to recognize our habit energy and prevent it from dominating us.

Doing something with our full awareness can break the pattern of our old habit energies. Practices like mindful breathing, mindful walking or mindful listening can help us stay in control of our habit energies.

The opposite of mindfulness is doing something mindlessly, which means being totally controlled by your habit energies. For example, many people commute to work in their car every day and they can “zone out” completely while driving. They spend an hour thinking about something else and it’s like their hands move themselves. They arrive at work and can barely remember how they got there!

Thich Nhat Hanh says it is good to say “hello habit energy” when you see old destructive thoughts, emotions or behaviors rise up again. Greet your old habits without judgment as if they are an old friend. Don’t feel guilty because we all carry these energies.

The four functions of mindfulness

Buddha said the four functions of mindfulness are stopping, calming, resting and healing. These are the four ways mindfulness can be useful to us. Let’s look at these quickly one-by-one:

Stopping – Thich Nhat Hanh says:

We have to learn the art of stopping — stopping our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions that rule us.

Calming – When you feel an overwhelming emotion like anger, you can first recognize it is there, then accept that it is present (rather than denying it), then embrace the anger like a mother comforting her child. When you are calmer you can look deeply what brought this emotion out, and gain insight into what causes contributed to the anger. This is how mindfully accepting and embracing our emotions can calm us.

Resting – Mindfulness should be relaxed, light and free of struggle. It does not have to be hard work. Nhat Hanh says we should “Be like the earth. When the rain comes, the earth only has to open herself up to the rain.” and Buddha often repeated that he taught “The practice of non-practice.”

Healing – If you stop, become calm and rest, then healing can happen in your mind and body. The other three functions are necessary for the healing to begin. It’s just like when an animal becomes hurt, it lays down and rests totally for many days so its body can be healed. But normally our human minds never stop and rest from our old patterns, so the wounds from our past don’t heal.

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Are You Fully Charged? The 3 Keys to Energizing Your Work and Life by Tom Rath | Book Summary

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Are You Fully Charged?: The 3 Keys to Energizing Your Work and Life by Tom Rath

 

Tom Rath, author of five influential bestsellers, reveals the three keys that matter most for our daily health and well-being, as well as our engagement in our work. Drawing on the latest and most practical research from health, psychology, and economics, this book focuses on changes we can make to create better days for ourselves and others. Are You Fully Charged? will challenge you to stop pursuing happiness and start creating meaning instead, lead you to rethink your daily interactions with the people who matter most, and show you how to put your own health first in order to be your best every day.

The Book in Three Sentences

There are three keys to being fully charged each day: doing work that provides meaning to your life, having positive social interactions with others, and taking care of yourself so you have the energy you need to do the first two things. Trying to maximize your own happiness can actually make you feel self-absorbed and lonely, but giving more can drive meaning and happiness in your life. People who spend money on experiences are happier than those who spend on material things.

Are You Fully Charged summary

Daily well being is what we should be targeting.

The new research on daily experiences has changed the way we think about health, happiness, and well being.

Scientists can now study the day to day experiences of individuals often in minimally invasive ways. (Fitbit, etc.)

3 keys to bring fully charged: meaning, positive interactions, and energy.

“The odds of being completely engaged in your job increases by 250% it you work on meaningful projects each day.”

The pursuit of meaning, not happiness is what makes life better.

The more value you place on your own happiness, the more likely you are to feel lonely. If you spend your time seeking your own happiness then you end up feeling more shallow or self-absorbed. Meaning, however, makes you feel better by giving yourself to a cause bigger than yourself.

Fredrickson’s research found that 70% of people had higher happiness levels vs meaningfulness levels. These people displayed a similar genetic markers as those in stressful and adverse situations.

Study of teenagers showed that those with a higher percentage of meaningful behaviors had lower levels of depression. 2014 study followed them for a full year and tested them in an fMRI scanner about hedonic acts vs meaningful acts.

Spend time listing the positive impact your work does. Attach meaning to the small things you do and “connect the dots between your efforts and a larger purpose.” It’s important to understand how you contribute value.

The differences in how we view our work can just be a result of the stories we tell. You can tell a negative version of the story or you can tell a positive version. Which true version do you want to believe?

Study of hospital workers by Raznoski found that people who made connections with patients and coworkers found more meaning in their work.

Most people try to “squeeze meaning in around the edges” of their day rather than dedicating their work day to meaningful things. “Work for more than a living.”

“Work is a purpose, not a place.”

When figuring out what you should do each day begin by asking, “How can my time make a difference for others?”

According to one research study, doubling your income only increases happiness by 9 percent.

The game of upward comparison: “Satisfaction and income are almost entirely relative to ones comparison group.”

Many successful people can live stressful and miserable lives if all they do is compare upwardly.

Idea: compare downward to maintain perspective? Travel to poor areas? Etc.

Most work days consist of small wins and tiny actions, not large external bonuses or rewards. You need meaning to drive you forward on most days.

Spending more time working toward a shared mission will add meaning to your life.

One of the downfalls of the “follow your passion” advice is that it assumes that putting your own passion and happiness at the center of your world is what leads to meaning, fulfillment and joy. That is often not the case.

Focus on your strengths every day. People who do are 6x more likely to find meaning in their job.

“Cast a shadow rather than living in one.”

It’s easy to fall into a default career path that is more about other people’s expectations than your own interests.

View work as the original social network. Just how negative and positive emotions can spread virally online, they can do the same in the office.

For most of us, reactionary actions take up way more of our day than tasks we initiate. But most of the meaning we derive is from task we initiate, not reactions we fall into based on what others need.

One study: people unlock their phones 110 times per day.

“We lose 28% of our time each day.”

Dan Gilbert study: participants reported a wandering mind 48% of the time and “a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” (Think about how different a wandering mind is from a mind in flow. And we know that flow is one of the most happy and fulfilling experiences we can have.)

Rest more: There is always the option to do nothing.

Physical mail only shows up once per day and then we process it. But email is something we check all the time. (How can you blockemail and only answer once per day?)

Finland’s 45/15 break time … Covered by Tim Walker.

“What the most productive people have in common is that they treat working time like a sprint (52 minutes on average) and then pairing it with a recharge session (17 minutes on average).

Idea: what if you treated work like practice? At practice each period is planned. Hell, each minute is planned. And then breaks are planned as well.

“We need 3 to 5 interactions to make up for each negative one.”

Being ignored is actually worse than hearing a negative comment. We often think that not telling someone bad news is preferable, but ignoring people is the worst possible option. We often assume the worst when we hear nothing — not to mention feeling lonely.

The Contagion Effect in relationships explains why the people around us influence our own behaviors. (NEJM obesity study, smoking, etc.)

People who spend money on experiences are happier than those who spend on material things.

People who spend on other people end up happier AND it makes someone else happy too.

Share the things you are planning with other people because anticipation increases well being. Give people the chance to anticipate great experiences. (Planning a vacation can often lead to more happiness than the vacation itself.)

Energy is critical. Yes, doing things for others and living a life of meaning is important. But without energy you can’t do your best work. “If you want to make a difference for years to come, you have to put your health and energy first.”

Maintain a better balance of proteins to carbohydrates throughout the day. And reduce sugar.

“People now spend more time sitting than sleeping, 9.3 hours per day.”

“The average American spends over 15 hours per day sitting or sleeping.”

“After sitting for two hours your good cholesterol drops by 20 percent.”

10,000 steps per day is a good baseline target of movement for most people.

Exercise creates a twelve hour mood boost. This is a good reason to do something physical early in the morning.

The 10,000 hours study by K. Anders Ericsson has a hidden finding most people ignore: the top performers slept over 8 hours on average.

Rhinovirus and sleep study: those not getting efficient sleep were 5.5x more likely to get sick when exposed to the Rhinovirus.

For better sleep avoid light, excessive heat, and noise.

Chopsticks study: smiling, even when you don’t feel like it, you experience less stress.

Botox study: hindering the frowning muscles led to reduced rates of depression weeks later.

“Giving improves well-being in many ways.”

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Winners | And How They Succeed by Alastair Campbell | Book Summary

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Winners: And How They Succeed by Alastair Campbell

Winning is not the important thing, it is the only thing.

The Sunday Times no. 1 bestseller. How people succeed – and how you can, too.

Alastair Campbell knows all about winning. As Tony Blair’s chief spokesman and strategist he helped guide the Labour Party to victory in three successive general elections, and he’s fascinated by what it takes to win.

How do sports stars excel, entrepreneurs thrive, or individuals achieve their ambition? Is their ability to win innate? Or is the winning mindset something we can all develop? Drawing on the wisdom of an astonishing array of talented people – from elite athletes to top managers, from rulers of countries to rulers of global business empires – Alastair Campbell uses his forensic skills, as well as his own experience of politics and sport, to get to the heart of success. He examines how winners tick. He considers how they build great teams. He analyses how they deal with unexpected setbacks and new challenges. He judges what the very different worlds of politics, business and sport can learn from one another. And he sets out a blueprint for winning that we can all follow.

SUMMARY PT 1: WINNING DEPENDS FIRST AND FOREMOST ON A SOLID STRATEGY THAT WILL LEAD YOU TO YOUR ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE.

If you’re reading this, you’ve decided you want to be a winner. Whether you’re shooting for the corner office or dreaming of rock ’n’ roll fame, there are a few essential things to know.

First is strategy. Strategy is the how of winning. A strategy paves the way toward your goal; thus it is the most important aspect of becoming a winner.

 

Former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov says that if you don’t commit to a strategy, you’re doomed to react to your opponents, allowing them to control the game.

The what of winning is your objective. You need to determine what you want to win before you can lock down a successful strategy.

 

For instance, if you want to lose weight, your objective might be to lose 10 pounds. Once you’ve defined your objective, then you can create a strategy to help you reach it.

Yet a strategy is useless if your objective is essentially unattainable. Remember: winners set goals they can reach.

 

In November 2013, Tony Pulis started managing the British soccer team Crystal Palace, a club struggling to stay in the Premier League. Pulis didn’t shoot for the stars and try to make the team Premier League champions in his first year. Instead, he set a realistic objective of securing the team’s position in the league – and he succeeded.

However, don’t confuse your strategy with tactics, or the little steps in between that help you realize your strategy and ultimately, your objective.

 

If your strategy to lose 10 pounds is to start dieting and perform exercises daily, your tactics will include things such as monitoring your caloric intake, taking the stairs instead of the elevator and joining a diet group.

In the holy trinity of winning, strategy is just one aspect. The other two components are leadership and “teamship,” or the elements that make a winning team.

SUMMARY PT 2: LEADERSHIP COMES IN MANY FORMS; THERE’S NO ONE TRAIT THAT UNITES ALL THE GREAT LEADERS OF HISTORY.

So what does it take to become a great leader? There’s no one specific trait; each leader is outstanding in a different way.

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel possesses the ability to see what works in a given situation and to stick with it. Instead of offering grand gestures, she acts pragmatically. Because of these skills, Merkel is a winner, leading one of the European Union’s most powerful nations.

During the recent eurozone crisis, for example, Merkel was steadfast even when politicians such as British Prime Minister David Cameron or US President Barack Obama pushed her to act faster or more boldly. Despite pressures all around her, Merkel would not be rushed, staying true to a time-proven strategy of being cautious and sticking to long-term goals.

Winston Churchill became a great leader by recognizing Nazi Germany as a major threat early on, and he addressed this issue with a laser-like focus. In fact, his record as a winner wasn’t very impressive until World War II rolled around.

Here’s his story:

In 1899, Churchill as a young man tried his hand at politics but lost an election. After working as a war correspondent in South Africa, he returned to Britain and finally became a member of parliament (MP).

Yet still he lost subsequent elections, eventually fighting his way back into government. By the 1920s, he was Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, leading the country’s return to the gold standard – a disastrous move that resulted in deflation and unemployment.

Despite all this, Churchill is still one of history’s great leaders. Early on he saw the danger of Adolf Hitler and the aspirations of Nazi Germany. He channeled all his energies into finding ways to defeat the Nazis.

It was this insight and determination that resonated deeply with the British people and made Churchill the great leader the world now remembers him to be.

Next, we’ll explore the building blocks of successful teams, the third element in the holy trinity of winning.

SUMMARY PT 3: WINNING MEANS CREATING A TEAM IN WHICH PEOPLE SHARE TALENTS WHERE YOU FALL SHORT.

Do you think a soccer club composed of 11 athletic clones would be a winning team?

Definitely not. A team with members who all have the same skills just won’t win. If you want to be a winner – in sports or business – you need to find a team with talents that complement your own.

A team brings together people with different strengths – a winning strategy. As a winner, you need to find people for your team who excel in areas in which you struggle.

For instance, you might be a great striker but a terrible defender. Naturally, you’d bring someone on your team who can defend the goal!

Remember that a leader’s job is to define a team’s goals, strategy and tactics, ensuring that everyone on the team knows what to do.

For example, a cycling team comprises athletes, mechanics, sports therapists, and so on. But in the follow car, the person with the walkie-talkie who is directing team tactics is the leader.

After a leader comes the warriors. They’re not the “stars” of the show, but they make the engine run.

 

For instance, consider the role of a bus driver during an election campaign. This person drives the bus, carrying a politician from meeting to rally. If a driver were unreliable, the whole campaign would collapse!

The talent refers to people who make all the difference, the rare personalities who have something extra, who are more capable or knowledgeable than the pack.

 

In politics, the talent is often the leaders themselves. Consider Hillary Clinton, who challenged Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primary in the United States, but lost. She then was named secretary of state, a preeminent “talent” on the president’s team.

But being a winner isn’t just about strategy, solid teams and leadership. It’s also about what’s on your mind.

SUMMARY PT 4: WINNERS HATE LOSING AND PUT PRESSURE ON THEMSELVES, LEAVING THEIR COMFORT ZONE, TO AVOID IT.

It’s often said that winning is all about mind-set. But what exactly does this mean? Are winners merely people who really want to win? Doesn’t everybody want to win?

Of course, most people want to win, but not everyone fears losing. Many people are winners simply because they’re too scared to lose.

Many winners have experienced the pain of defeat and will go to great lengths to avoid repeating the experience.

Olympic gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps has won more gold medals than any Olympian in the history of the games. His motivation to win goes back to the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics.

That year, he was ready to compete but didn’t win a single meet. It was this failure that pushed him to work harder, and he never lost a race again!

Winning isn’t just about motivation, however. It’s also about getting out of your comfort zone.

While things that are familiar and easy might make you feel good, staying in a place where you’re comfortable will prevent you from winning big.

For years, Garry Kasparov won chess tournament after chess tournament. His successes kept him firmly in his comfort zone and, certain that he’d win, he stopped testing new strategies or making bold moves.

He thus stopped growing as a player, his skills stagnating. Finally, Vladimir Kramnik, an opponent, beat him and claimed Kasparov’s world title.

To win, you’ve got to push yourself and get out of your comfort zone. In other words, you need to put yourself under pressure. Pressure influences both your body and mind, improving your ability to focus and think, and in turn, unlocking new heights of performance.

SUMMARY PT 5: WINNERS SET THEMSELVES APART FROM THE PACK BY INNOVATING AND ACTING BOLDLY.

Want to stand out from the crowd? You could always dress up like Superman. But for those who aren’t into costumes, there are other ways to get noticed – a key aspect of being a winner.

To get noticed, you first have to be bold. When you act boldly, you’ll stand out because you’ll accept challenges that those people who are more reserved just wouldn’t.

Being bold also helps you push past the fact that in many areas, you might be a novice – but still have the drive to achieve. Entrepreneur Richard Branson, for example, was just 17 years old when he launched a student newspaper. A few years later, he founded Virgin, a record business.

Branson went on to found several other companies, including Virgin Airlines. All these projects had one thing in common – Branson committed despite a lack of experience in each field!

Branson is dyslexic, a potential impediment when running a news organization. He also knew nothing about the music business but was, as a consumer, frustrated with the lack of labels for great music. What’s more, Branson also knew next to nothing about the airline business.

His foray into aviation was launched when he was bumped off a flight to the Virgin Islands. Annoyed with the delay and poor service, he decided to launch his own airline. A bold move that made him a winner!

Boldness will set you apart, and similarly, a hunger for innovation will help you win. But remember, innovation doesn’t necessarily mean invention. Instead, to innovate, you take a product, service or process and make it better.

Thus a winner pays attention to the details and finds opportunities. Apple, for example, took an existing product like the mobile phone and improved it – a classic innovative, winning strategy.

SUMMARY PT 6: A CRISIS CAN QUICKLY OVERWHELM YOU IF YOU DON’T KEEP YOUR MIND ON WHAT MATTERS.

Have you ever noticed that so many events today are called a “crisis”? From minor disagreements between heads of state to a blogger’s bad hair day, “crises” seem to be everywhere and define everything.

But none of these examples represent a real crisis – a situation that could overwhelm if you don’t make the right decisions.

 

A soccer team losing a few matches isn’t a crisis. On the other hand, issues involving people potentially abusing power, such as US President Bill Clinton’s affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, could be considered a crisis in politics.

Let’s examine this a bit more deeply.

When a true crisis strikes, you need to stay focused. If you find yourself in a crisis, remember to keep your mind on what truly matters – the things over which you have influence. This is a key point.

When Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky was revealed, Clinton kept himself focused on the political issues at hand. When the media published the revelations, Clinton was on the phone with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, talking over concerns regarding Russian nuclear arms.

Clinton knew the prosecutor’s report would be published that same day, but he didn’t know what it would say. He also wasn’t sure how friends, family or colleagues would react to the report.

He did know, however, that he couldn’t control these things. What he could do was focus on doing his job. In the end, it was Clinton’s constant focus that earned him the respect he needed to make it through the crisis.

IN REVIEW: WINNERS BOOK SUMMARY

The key message in this book:

Winners come in all shapes and sizes. While winners share certain traits, such as boldness or innovation, their ability to beat the competition is also a result of the teams they build and their focus amid crises.

Actionable advice:

When dealing with a crisis, be honest.

If you find yourself in the middle of a crisis, you might feel like closing your eyes and wishing it to disappear – or worse, pointing the finger at someone else. These are not the best solutions and certainly not the easiest. Instead, do something radical: be honest.

If you did something wrong, fess up or at least initiate an honest, transparent inquiry into the issue. If you don’t, someone else will do it for you – potentially bringing issues to light that could irreparably damage your reputation.

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The Mindful Day | Practical Ways to Find Focus, Calm, and Joy by Laurie J. Cameron | Book Summary

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The Mindful Day: How to Find Focus, Calm, and Joy From Morning to Evening by Laurie Cameron

For overscheduled professionals looking to incorporate mindfulness into their daily lives, this step-by-step guide draws on contemplative traditions, modern neuroscience, and leading psychology to bring peace and focus to the home, in the workplace, and beyond.

Designed for busy professionals looking to integrate mindfulness into their daily lives, this ultimate guide draws on contemplative practice, modern neuroscience, and positive psychology to bring peace and focus to the home, in the workplace, and beyond.
In this enriching book, noted mindfulness expert and international teacher and business leader Laurie J. Cameron – a veteran of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being at George Mason, and 20-year mindfulness meditation practitioner- shows how to seamlessly weave mindfulness and compassion practices into your life. Timeless teachings, compelling science and straightforward exercises designed for busy schedules — from waking up to joy, the morning commute, to back-to-back meetings and evening dinners – show how mindfulness practice can help you navigate life’s complexity with mastery, clarity and ease. Cameron’s practical wisdom and concrete how-to steps will help you make the most of the present moment, creating a roadmap for inner peace – and a life of deeper purpose and joy.

Chapter 1 – Practicing mindfulness assists you to stop thinking about the past, or mentally running ahead to the future. 

All of us are aware that physical exercise is good for health; however, as a matter of fact, our minds can gain from exercise, as well. This is the point where mindfulness comes in. However, before we proceed to the mind gym and begin practicing, let’s explain what the meaning of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the awareness we acquire when we concentrate our attention on our inner sensations and feelings, or toward our immediate surrounding. However, more than this, mindfulness is essentially about changing our outlook. As we redirect our attention inward, we begin to notice negative habits, such as making fast decisions, criticizing ourselves, or trying to control everything. By giving us the gift of awareness, mindfulness assists us transform these habits, and helps us to be more open-minded, more accepting, and also more receptive to change.

Essentially, mindfulness is a strong tool that can assist you to appreciate the present moment. As a matter of fact, we need it. Think about a Harvard University study that discovered that the human mind concentrates on the present moment just 53% of the time. This signifies that you’re using nearly half your mental life being busy with abstract thoughts – frequently analyzing what’s has occurred already, or anticipating what might occur in the future.

The cause for this is rooted in our biology. Just like the remaining part of your body, your mind is essentially made for survival. Evolution has fortified you with a mental alarm system that’s usually at alert for dangers, regularly anticipating the worst-case scenario. For our olden forefathers, it was safer to concentrate on the critical inner voice than anticipating for the best in a likely dangerous condition.

In the contemporary world, which is volatile, uncertain, and extremely complicated, our evolution works against us. Our mental alarm systems are regularly overwhelmed with info, distractions, as well as danger. This doesn’t just make mindfulness a challenge – it makes it vital for our well-being as well.

In the following chapter, you’ll learn about how you can begin to reclaim your peace of mind by learning about simple mindfulness practices.

Chapter 2 – Learning only a few basic practices is all you need to begin being mindful. 

The first thing to do on your mindfulness path is to learn some vital practices. Altogether, these practices make a basis for a calmer, more compassionate mindset.  Also, they will assist you to make better choices.

This is the first one: mindful breathing. This can be done at any time, anywhere. It has to be your go-to exercise when you feel as though your mind I wandering, or when day-day life throws a curveball at you and you have to calm down, fast. Just stop anything you’re doing and redirect your concentrate to your breath: concentrate on the sensation in your nose as you breathe in the air, to the feeling in your chest as it increases with your breath, and then reduces again.

As soon as you’ve followed your breath for a moment, you can proceed to a different vital practice, the body scan.

In order to do this exercise, turn your attention toward the feelings in your body. Begin by concentrating on your feet, and gradually change your attention up to your body, ending with the crown of your head. Is any part of your body aching, or tingling, feeling hot or cold? By observing these physical feelings, you’ll as well become conscious of any emotions you’re feeling.

For instance, if your stomach is clenched, it probably signifies that you are feeling fear or worry. As you learn to precisely know your emotions, you can make use of them as a source of relevant information. How? Well, when you have an understanding of your emotions, you can make use of this greater awareness to make more important decisions–decisions that take you closer to the life you really want to live, and the kind of person you want to be.

Loving-kindness meditation is our following practice. To do this exercise, concentrate on a person you know and hold them in your mind. Visualize this individual wishing you well. After, visualize yourself giving back their warm, loving wishes. Silently wish them peace, love, and joy.  End the exercise by wishing these good things for yourself as well. Research has revealed that loving-kindness meditation increases our compassion for both other people and ourselves.

Our last practice is known as STOP, and it’s particularly beneficial in stressful circumstances. As you might have thought, this is an acronym. The S represents Stop since the first step in any challenging circumstance should be to just pause, and know that your emotions require some space. The T stands for Take a breath, as this will assist you to calm down and take your attention back to the present moment. The O represents Observe your immediate experience.

Take a few instants to study how you’re feeling, by observing your bodily sensations, your feelings, as well as your thoughts. The last one which is P represents Proceed with kindness. Amidst this difficult moment, reflect on how you can develop yourself. This could be as basic as reaching out to a friend or just taking a walk.

Chapter 3 – By practicing gratitude and meditation, you can get a mindful morning.

Morning can be a whirlwind of stress. Even before you’ve woken up, you’re stressing about your to-do list or that forthcoming presentation at work. By the time you get up from bed, you’ve already got your game face on, mentally planning for success. If this seems conversant, there’s a better approach.

The first thing to do in order to have a better morning is to be kinder to yourself. When you wake up from sleep, it’s tempting to think about every slight thing you didn’t get around to the day before. The author used to stress about, if she didn’t instantly remind herself of her entire unresolved tasks, she wouldn’t get the motivation to do those tasks that day either.

However, beginning your day by concentrating on your failures is neither healthy nor beneficial. As a matter of fact, if you truly want to enhance your productivity in the day, attempt concentrating your first thoughts in the morning on gratitude. Use a few minutes, as you’re still lying in bed, and think about the whole thing you’re grateful for. This could be anything like your friends and family, your work projects, to the basic reality that you’re living to witness another day.

It was discovered by researchers at Harvard Business School that practicing gratitude has an important positive effect on your physical and mental health. Also, feeling grateful can assist you to be more productive since gratitude puts you in a more conscious and energetic mood.

Should in case you’re thinking about how you’re going to fit in this whole gratitude into your life, you can be sure that a little goes really a long way. A study that was conducted by the University of California discovered that practicing gratitude every week is more effective than doing it daily; therefore, in order to benefit from this powerful practice, you just have to do it one time a week.

For the remaining six days, you can provide your morning routine an improvement by starting a short meditation session. Also, research has revealed that meditation decreases anxiety and assists us to regulate our feelings. Only ten minutes per day of meditation can be the only thing you need for you to reap these benefits.

Even though it might look daunting, meditation doesn’t need to be challenging. It can be as basic as sitting down in a quiet place and practicing mindful breathing for just ten minutes. Don’t bother if you notice your mind regularly wandering as you meditate. As a matter of fact, each time you sense that you’re distracted and have to refocus, you are in fact boosting your self-awareness.

Chapter 4 – Mindfulness assists one to become a better communicator.

How often have you listened to one of your colleagues; however, discovered that your attention had wandered to another place? You might be saying, “Hmm, right, I hear you,” however, 50% of you are already pondering on your following meeting. Noticing that you’re not really interested, your colleague speaks faster, and it gets more and more difficult to follow what she’s talking about.

When you listen mindfully, you concentrate your entire attention on what is being said to you. If you discover that your attention is wandering, simply pull it back to the speaker. Even though it’s tempting to come in with your own view as the other individual is talking, attempt to prevent yourself from doing this.

Similarly, when we’re speaking to others, it can be easy to hear just what we anticipate to hear, not what is really being said. Mindful listening entails being open and receptive rather than depending on your own expectations. In order to know that you’ve really understood the other person’s message, shortly summarize what you believe they’re attempting to say to you, and ask them if you’ve got it correctly. Attempt it– you might be surprised by how regularly you’ve misunderstood what a person said.

Email is another vital part of professional communication. Whether you believe it or not, there is something known as mindful emailing.

Think about the last time you got a displeasing email from a colleague. Maybe you considered it unfair, or critical of your work. When this occurs, it can be tempting to instantly fire off a defensive or aggressive response.

However, there’s a better, more mindful approach of addressing circumstances such as this.

First and foremost, you have to take a pause before reacting, and make use of this time to foster a sense of compassion for the person that sent the email. Bring to mind the person that sent the message, and bear in mind that, just like you, they as well have needs, concerns, and hopes for the future. Attempt to put yourself in their situation and question yourself what they might want from you at the moment? As soon as you’re in a kinder mindset, respond to their email in a spirit of openness as well as collaboration.

Writing emails that are kinder might not look like much; however, it can have a huge effect on your workplace. As a matter of fact, research conducted by the University of Michigan has discovered that greater compassion at work brings about reduced staff turnover, more collaboration, and more dedication to the organization. Therefore, before you press “send,” take a minute to think about everything you have to gain, only by being nice.

Chapter 5 – Your spare time is a valuable resource, and you shouldn’t waste that time.

Do you get the best out of your weekends? As a young kid, you most likely had no issues making the most out of your spare time; however, as an adult, it can be a bit more difficult. Rather than spending that time with our friends or intentionally having fun, we usually waste our time off, sitting on the sofa and going through the internet from our phones. Instead of seizing the day, we’re allowing it to slip away.

But the good news is that making the most out of your leisure time doesn’t need to be difficult or costly. As a matter of fact, it can be as basic as turning off the TV and taking a mindful walk.

This practice entails concentrating your attention on the basic act of walking. Each time you take a step, notice the stability of the ground as your feet touch the ground. Take in your surroundings, as well; however, don’t allow your thoughts to wander a lot. For example, if you sight an apple tree, notice it, and appreciate it; however, attempt not to ponder on how much you’d wish to bake an apple pie when you get back to your house!

It is even good for your health as well as your brain if you can take your mindful walk in nature. Similar to every other part of your body, your brain needs to work hard daily, and at times it requires rest. Various studies have shown that, when you go for a walk in nature, a part of your brain known as the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of planning and decision-making, is less active. Also, researchers from Japan have also discovered that, compared to walking in an urban surrounding, walking through woodland reduces your blood pressure and lowers your cortisol level, the alleged “stress hormone.”

If you’ve kids, it’s even a good idea to bring them together with you on your mindful nature walk. Now, experts believe that the quality of the time you use with your children is very much significant than the quantity. When you walk mindfully with your kid, you’re completely dedicating to being in the moment with them.

Also, to your kid, whenever they have your complete, undivided attention is possibly the highest quality time of all! Furthermore, kids love it when adults share in their sense of wonder and awe of the natural world. Therefore, if you’ve got a child present in your life, make a date to spend your following weekend together with the child, relishing the trees, the sky, as well as the sun on your face.

Chapter 6 – Hugging meditation assists us to show the people we love that we care about them.

When the husband of the author gets home from his workplace, there’s a family member he can usually depend on to give him a warm welcome – his golden retriever, Beau. Anytime he hears the door, Beau hurries over, barking his excitement and wagging his tail. Dogs such as Beau find it easy to show their love; however, human beings don’t usually find it really easy.

As the story of this shaggy dog shows, the instant a person passes through your door is a great chance to communicate your affection for that person. If your family welcomes have turn into a slight lackluster of late, why don’t you attempt the hugging meditation?

This practice begins with basically identifying that the other individual is now present. For instance, you could walk to the front door, meet their eyes, and say something like, “Welcome home.” After, both of you should take a mindful breath, to completely put yourself in the moment.

Now you can hug one another, for a complete three full breaths. Become aware of your presence and joy at this moment with your first breathe. So, with your second breath, increase your awareness of that other person and imagine their presence and joy as well. Then, with your last breath, allow a sense of joy and appreciation wash over you since you are together.

Aside from making the one you love to feel welcome, hugging has other advantages as well.

To begin with, hugging increases your connection with your partner, by boosting your levels of oxytocin, normally called the “love hormone.” However, it has been proven to minimize the harmful effects of stress on your body as well. For instance, researchers at the University of North Carolina have found out that women who usually hug their partner have a lower blood pressure compared to women who don’t.

However, what is the reason why are hugs really good for us? Well, according to neuroscientists, they believe it’s due to the fact that the sensations of a warm hug stimulate a part of our brains known as the insula, which assists us to process our emotions. Due to that, we immediately feel less irritated. Therefore, if your partner looks tense or stressed after a long day, attempt holding them in a hug till their body calms down.

Chapter 7 – Mindfulness allows you to feel as though you’ve actually come home.

The majority of us anticipate the end of the working day when we can spend time with the people we love, or just enjoy a carefree evening. Therefore, it looks cruelly ironic that immediately we get to our house, usually, all we can think about is work!

If you find it difficult to remove your thoughts away from your work, then a mindful evening ritual can assist you to relax.

The first aspect of this ritual is to speak your intention. When you reach outside your front door, take a second to touch the doorknob and make this declaration loudly: “As I enter my house, I am present, calm, and at peace.”

As soon as you’ve walked across your threshold, pause before moving any further. Make use of this pause to practice three mindful breaths. While doing that, ask yourself these three basic questions: “What are my thoughts presently? What sensations am I feeling,” and “What feelings are present with me?”

If you’ve had a hectic day, you might become conscious of some painful feelings. Don’t attempt to disregard these emotions; however, accept them, and concentrate your attention on the part of you that is going through pain. Lastly, send yourself kind and loving wishes. If you find it hard to think of what these might be, then visualize what you would tell a friend who was feeling unhappy after a terrible day, and mentally speak these words to yourself.

After you’ve finished this ritual, you can use the remaining of your evening concentrating on something that is positive, like cooking and enjoying a meal.

Taking about cooking, this is a thing you can do mindfully as well. Begin by giving the ingredients your undivided attention. This can be as basic as running some uncooked grains of rice through your hands before you put the rice in the pot, or observing the bright orange shade of melon as you slice it. If you feel as though your mind is wandering, you can make use of heat as an anchor for your attention. Maybe it’s a boiling pot of water or the sizzle of garlic in a frying pan, focus on the warmth, sounds, and smells of the heat sources in your kitchen, and continue taking your attention back to them.

As you eat your evening food, feel thankful to the farmers and everybody that participate in making the food possible, and give thanks that life has offered you another chance to enjoy the present moment.

Review

Your mind has grown to stress about the future and dwell on the past. However, you don’t need to be a slave to your neurobiology. Basic mindful practices can assist you to concentrate on the present, and appreciate the brief instants of intimacy, joy, and calmness that only occur in the here-and-now.

Relish the moment, even when it’s cold and dark.

Winter can be a hurdle, and a lot of us count down the days until spring comes. However, a more mindful technique is to accept this extreme season instead. Bear in mind that the most vital time is the present; therefore, instead of anticipating brighter days, look for means to make the winter more pleasant. Light candles in the evening to form a warm glow, put cozy blankets on the couch, and invite friends over to keep your company in the time of those long, dark nights. With some mindful attention to detail, winter can turn into a source of happiness and a chance for connection.

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