Why You Should Write Daily

writing-center-wordlie

One of the most instrumental changes in my life has been writing every single day. For many years I was a writer who didn’t write that regularly. It was always on the back of my mind to write, but I didn’t find the time. Then I started this blog in January 2007, and have written pretty much [...]

Habit Mastery: Creating the New Normal

habits

Changing habits, at its core, is simply a process of changing what’s normal for you. This is something I’ve done myself a gajillion times over the last 7-8 years: not smoking became my new normal (lots of pain for a month or so) running became normal eating vegetarian became normal later eating vegan became normal [...]

Create a Sacred Space in Your Heart

relax

‘Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.’ ~Thich Nhat Hanh Yesterday I had tea with a Daoist tea monk who said for tea to change you, you have to create a sacred space in your heart [...]

Walled-in: Life Without Facebook

quitting-facebook

I quit Facebook because I wanted to live deliberately. Seventeen months ago, I deleted my Facebook account — not just deactivated it, but fully deleted it — and the relief was tremendous. No longer did I have to check for updates, deal with friend requests (is this someone whose updates I want in my life? [...]

A Post-Valentines Day Message: Empty-Handed, Full-Hearted

empty-handed, full-hearted

We often load ourselves up when we travel, because we want to be prepared for various situations. This burden of being prepared leaves us with our arms full, unable to receive whatever is there when we arrive. It leaves us tired from carrying, so that we are not happy when we meet someone new on [...]

The New Rules of Fitness for 2013

fitness-bucket-list

We’ve entered 2013, and yet most of us think of exercise like it’s 1991. Let’s toss out the old and welcome the new. The old: long sessions of jogging, or marathon sessions on the elliptical machine or treadmill, or working every bodypart individually on a dozen different weight machines and dumbbell stations, doing circuits in [...]

The Willingness to Think Differently

thinking-differently

I can summarize the most successful people I’ve ever known with one trait: the willingness to challenge mainstream ideas. This has been the key to everything good in my life too: I changed my health and drastically reduced my carbon footprint when I stopped eating like everyone else around me and became vegetarian (and eventually [...]

Finding Peace with Uncertainty

fear

Fear of an uncertain future: it can stop us from doing great things, and it can keep us holding onto things that are hurting us. For example: you might be holding onto clutter for reasons of comfort and security, even if the clutter gives you anxiety and costs a lot of money. And: you might [...]

Happiness is Uncovering What You Already Have

happiness

When I set out to convert my unhappiness with my life into happiness, about 7 years ago, I had some ideas about how to do it. I was going to get out of debt and lose weight and get a better job and declutter my house and get into shape and become productive and write [...]

An Intentional Life

intention

Many of us go through our days awake, but following patterns we’ve developed over the years. We are going through the motions, doing things at home, online, at work without much forethought. Contrast this with the idea of an Intentional Life: everything you do is done with consciousness, fulfilling one of your core values (compassion, [...]