do it yourself FREEDOM

Impacts: Mind, Health, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time

“When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.” – John F. Kennedy

“I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.” -  Abraham Lincoln

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” – Buddha

“Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.” – Martin Luther

“War is the greatest plague that can affect humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.” – Martin Luther

“Though the bamboo forest is dense, water flows through it freely.” – Zen proverb

The main problem with choosing to resolve differences through conflict is that the final cost is incalculable at the onset. This is because it is not known what the opposition will bring to the table or what responses will be required. This is true for every kind of conflict from arguments at home, to lawsuits, to world wars.

When the final cost is incalculable it’s impossible to know if choosing to resolve the difference through conflict will turn out to be positive or negative. It’s like jumping off a cliff without knowing the height of the fall. It could be a street curb or the grand canyon. The risk is only acceptable if you know the final cost.

The only certainty is that the conflict will cost money, time, energy, and sometimes lives. This is why conflicts of all kinds should be avoided. Conflicts by their nature involve accepting unknown amounts of risk and gambling without knowing the rules of the game.

The people who enjoy or profit from conflict will always advocate war, legal battles, and incite arguments. Some do it for sport and others for profit. It is also easy to get sucked into conflicts so the next time it happens to you try to step back and consider the potential benefits and costs and look for other ways to resolve the difference.

On a larger scale try to always vote for the elected officials who put war after diplomacy and social services before defense budgets. Governments wield enormous amounts of power and can spend money we don’t have at extremely fast rates. The world will be a better place to live when we can choose people to represent us in government who recognize that war and conflict is not the best way to bring us peace, prosperity, stability and freedom.

Take Action

• Be like a duck.
• When opportunities for conflict arise look for ways both sides can walk away with a win.
• Find alternative ways of dealing with anger. We often get enticed into conflict by our own feelings.
• Be on the lookout for those that like to stir things up. Avoid these people.

Impacts: Mind, Community

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain

You might this suggestion is a little hypocritical because I say things like burn less, travel light and travel more with almost the same breath. Traveling more definitely comes at a price but it can also be tremendously rewarding. So maybe the right way to think of it is, when you travel, make it count.

When you travel to other places, especially places foreign to you, it exposes you to new ideas, new challenges, and opens your eyes to the extreme diversity of the human race and the world we live.

Europeans might be the luckiest people in the world in this regard. Their proximity to each other and their diversity has its draw backs but it definitely helps them appreciate each other in a way many Americans don’t experience. In America cultural diversity is one of our strengths but we  have few opportunities to truly experience and appreciate other cultures fully. Europeans have an opportunity to experience different cultures, languages, neighboring governments all in a relatively small region.

Traveling frees you because it can change the way you think about other people. This new understanding follows you home and can help make you a better community member because you’ll see more commonalities than differences in the people around you.

Take Action

• Begin saving money now for travel.
• Schedule a trip to a new place and plan to stay a while. World-wind trips often seem like a better deal but seeing more places in a shorter period of time may only leave you tired and overwhelmed. Pick a new place each year.

Impacts: Money, Community

“It is better to travel well than to arrive.” – Buddha

By travel light I mean use less fuel to get you to your destination. For example, when I was a kid my dad would take us backpacking every summer in the Sierra mountains. We learned to carry everything we needed on our backs and pack-out what we packed-in. But not everyone else does this and a trail of human droppings is often unavoidable. Cans, bottles, plastic, toilet paper, and all sorts of trash makes it’s way into all sorts of places, including remote mountain lakes, albeit in far lesser quantities than down the hill. The reality is that we leave an impact everywhere we go even when we intend to leave no trace.

Every time we drive we burn fuel, leave a little rubber on the ground, wear down the road a little more, kill a few bugs, ok now this IS sounding ridiculous. But in my absurdity I’ve made the point. If we make a little effort we can reduce our impact when we’re on them move, even though we’ll never eliminate our impact completely. Even a naked man walking leaves footprints.

Every time we make a conscious effort travel light we lower our impact which makes the world a tiny bit cleaner. We also tend to save ourselves some money because it tends to be cheaper to travel light because you burn less gas, buy fewer plane tickets, make fewer trips to the auto mechanic, and it all adds up to real savings. The environmental impacts will seem minuscule compared to the financial benefits but as more people make an effort to consider the footprints they leave behind we’ll all start to feel the benefits.

Take Action

• Make fewer trips around town.
• When running errands chose the shortest route.
• Buy a more fuel efficient car.
• Walk more.
• Ride your bike more.

Impacts: Health, Home, Work, Money, Community

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.” Henry David Thoreau

“What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” – Henry David Thoreau

By burning less I mean everything from cars to lawn movers to cigarettes to fireplaces, yep anything on fire. Every time you choose to burn less you reduce your carbon footprint which immediately makes positive improvements to the environment and indirectly to your health.

We often don’t think about the stuff we burn. In fact most of us probably don’t realize how much is burned for us to bring us the things we want. Coal is now generating about half the electricity in America. Our cars and homes burn up the majority of the fuel we use. But it goes far beyond these things. Lets take the banana you ate at breakfast this morning. It was probably imported and traveled thousands of miles on a ship that burned fuel the whole way to America. Once it arrived more fuel was burned up in the truck that brought it to the brightly lit air-conditioned store where you bought it. Your choice of paper or plastic is such a minimal issue compared to the rest it always makes me laugh when they ask me. I usually ask myself why am I buying this fruit from across the globe.

I’m not trying to get all crazy here; I’m just pointing out a simple truth that we don’t often think about when we answer the bag question. Everything in our modern world requires energy that usually comes from burning a fossil fuel. I bet once we run out of gas our carbon impact will be reduced for us and all the problems of global warming and pollution will be solved. We’ll have a few bigger problems.

Until that happens the benefits of burning less are cleaner air and water and an immediate reduced dependence on combustible fuels. Switching to renewable clean energy sources and reducing your consumption of energy all together reduces a burden that impedes your freedom everyday. Burning less means you spend less too. Fossil fuels are still a relatively inexpensive source of energy but every time you choose to burn less you save more, which will always give you more freedom.

Take Action

• Drive less, carpool, take mass transit.
• Bike and walk more.
• Shop in small local stores that sell locally made products and food.
• Only in-season produce from farmers’ markets.
• Use less electricity and heating fuels in you home.
• Insulate you home.
• Add passive solar features to your home.
• Move to a more temperate climate.
• Move closer to work.
• Consider careers that permit working from home.
• Travel less.
• Vacation closer to home.

Impacts: Mind, Community

“It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.” – Henry David Thoreau

When we stop to really listen to the people around us we give ourselves the opportunity to truly engage with and participate. If we choose to remain closed or focused on our own stuff we inadvertently miss the opportunity to learn, grow, and connect with others. We chop-off what might have been the easiest way to open doors and create opportunities.

It’s not surprising that a culture built on concepts of individualism would produce so many people that find it hard to listen. As a teenager one of my favorite quotes was, “Opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one and most of them stink.” In hindsight, pun intended, this simple sound bite actually tells a much larger story about our culture and begs the question, why do we take opposing positions so quickly. Why not just take other peoples’ opinions with a grain of salt, appreciate the person’s point of view, and glean what we can?

I’m not sure that anyone can become a perfect listener but those that try will find themselves opening new doors and taking great strides toward a happier life.

Take Action

• Begin with family and friends. Stop to listen and carefully consider what they have to say.
• Engage in discussion. Avoid arguements. Instead focus on exploring and discovering why others feel the way they do. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Impacts: Mind, Community

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.” – Buddha

United we stand divided we fall, right? Sounds good on paper and in speeches but unless we live it, freedom doesn’t work, for anyone. Our diversity makes us stronger. In fact it is arguable that America is as strong as it is due to our cultural and religious diversity. Some on the fringes seem to prefer to disagree with that statement but the vast majority of us will point to all the evidence and prove them wrong.

Embracing diversity also means you are choosing to find ways to focus on the things that bind us together. This is not easy and many people find it difficult to take the first steps. An easy place to begin is to try to accept people for who they are, see past the differences and look for commonalities. Our differences are what make us interesting. They give us something else to bring to the table. If we let them divide us we all become weaker.

Exercise

• Make a list of controversial issues you feel strongly about that involve other people.
• To the left of each item mark the items you feel strongly opposed to with an X.
• Now ask yourself why.
• Reflect on the reasons that involve another persons culture, race, religion, or lifestyle.

Impacts: Mind, Community

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.” -
Henry David Thoreau

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. ” – Henry David Thoreau

Extreme examples teach valuable lessons. Avoiding throwing the extreme out with the bath water. Wring what you can out of the towel. Henry David Thoreau lived a life that exemplified this and now serves to inspire many. But there are many examples around us of people who are testing the edges of what most consider the norm.

A good example is the freegan movement. Freegans are people who put their values where their wallets were. They use alternative strategies for living and participate little in the conventional economy. They consume few resources and embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, and cooperation. They are opposed to materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed.

At first their radical lifestyle would seem so foreign that many people would disregard them all together. When you choose instead to pause and withhold judgment to consider their point of view you may actually take something away that helps you grow and think differently. But this is just one example and no example has to be so extreme to offer value.

Take Action

• Visit freegan.info to learn more about freegans.
• Look for similarities instead of differences.
• Look for lessons instead of of passing judgment.
• When others around you cast judgment on extreme examples try to avoid taking part. If possible start a dialog to see the lesson.

Impacts: Mind

“Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.” – Henry David Thoreau

Writing down you thoughts, plans, ideas and values is an excellent way to process information. Sitting and thinking is definitely beneficial to the mind but writing stuff down tends to work the brain harder, making you really think through thoughts. Things that were once fleeting are now recorded for later reflection or simply act as a way of making the ideas more tangible.

Writing increases your personal freedom by giving you a way of processing and potentially sharing your thoughts. The more focused you stay on moving toward your goals the more successful you’ll be in achieving them. The cost is minimal, just time, ink and paper; or in the age of computers, a little electricity.

Take Action

• Start an offline journal and make it part of your routine by writing something every day at the same time even if it is, “I have nothing to say,” and don’t forget to include the date.
• Start an online journal. Sign up for a free wordpress blog. www.wordpress.com.
• Instead of scraps of paper or sticky notes try using a notebook and keep ideas, notes, lists in one place.

Impacts: Mind, Health, Community, Time

“If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.” – Francis Bacon

“He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.” – Buddha

Focusing your time and energy on anything that doesn’t move your forward is often a waste of time but more importantly it’s a mental distraction. The only thing you might benefit from is learning something from another person’s mistake. If you can leave it at that you’ve done yourself a favor. If you spend time dwelling on them, judging them, it does no one any good. It also leave you feeling negative. It might even make others feel negative which is definitely counterproductive if you have need to maintain a relationship with them.

But none of us are immune to passing judgment on others. We all do it from time to time. The trick to moving this out of your life is to simply recognize when you’re doing it and choosing to slow down and stop.

Gossip is usually one of the most common ways we get sucked up into judging others. Gossip might bring one group of people together but drives a division between you and the judged. The glue used to form the relationship with the gossipers is not very lasting either and often leads to more trouble. Choosing to judge less brings people closer together, empowers everyone, and increases everyone’s self esteem.

Take Action

• Avoid gossip in conversation and publications.
• Avoid tabloids.
• Watch for situations where other people are being judged and try not to take part in those conversations. If possible try to redirect the conversation.
• Be mindful of your own thoughts and catch yourself when you begin to judge.
• Find a way of staying on the right side of the thin line between having an opinion and casting judgment.
• Remember the person who benefits most from judging less is you, then the judged.