do it yourself FREEDOM

As I began to write down these ideas I noticed that they fit into a few reoccurring themes: mind, health, home, work, money, community, and time. Each idea in the book impacts one or more of these areas to greater and lesser degrees.

For example, ‘Eat Better’ strongly effects health and money. When you eat better your health tends to improve. Good health removes many physical and mental burdens. When you eat better you tend to save money because you eat at home more and buy fewer empty fast food calories. I found it useful to categorize each idea to better understand how and where the idea impacted life.

Mind

A sharp mind and the ability to think creatively helps us identify and overcome obstacles. More knowledge, skills, and experience gives us the resources we need to make better informed decisions, think outside the box, and recognize opportunities.

Health

Good health reduces physical burdens. We’re able to do more of the things we want without as many physical limitations. Good health also can clearly improve our quality of life.

Home

We tend to divide most of our time between home and work. Both yield us security but home tends to be far more important to our sense of security especially as we increase our equity.

Work

Most people spend a lot of time at work or in activities to earn money to support themselves. Work can also be a rewarding activity that helps build self esteem, skills, and rewards beyond money.

Money

We live in a capitalist world powered by money. Commerce empowers and restricts us depending on how we choose to coexist with it. Money can be a powerful ally or an enemy depending on how we choose to think. It can trap us and provide freedom.

Community

Positive impacts to the people and environment around us always comes back to us and lessens external barriers. This category includes the people, places, and physical things around you including ecological impacts.

Time

Time is our most precious and limited commodity. The only way to create more time is to allocate more or less to the activities we choose. Ultimately it’s how we choose to spend our time that traps us or gives us the freedom we seek.

You might notice that these common themes contain sub-themes, like community can include things like, people, politics, environment, and business. I chose to keep the categories few and high level to help focus on the bigger issues that limit freedom. In other words simple concepts are easier to understand, digest, and use. The short version, although not as descriptive, is usually the better choice.

Before I dive into the chewy center I’m going to outline some guiding principles or foundational ideas that seem to make this approach more successful.

Any Step Forward is a Good Step

Too many people try to tell you how to live, as if there’s a perfect way to live. We get fed it on television, we try to live up to it, and we levy it on others without thinking. The truth is that there is no one size fits all way to live. Each of us is different and has different needs, goals, beliefs and values. So in an attempt to be inclusive to everyone I’ve found it really useful to leave my personal bias out of this book and stick to logical and practical ways of looking at how each choice helps move us forward.

Nobody’s a Hypocrite

I’ve also noticed that people tend to judge themselves and others when they fail to live up to expectations. It’s almost like we’re paralyzed by the fear of becoming a hypocrite. The best example that most of us are familiar with is dieting. When people choose to eat better and exercise they’ve chosen to make a positive impact on their life. But when they cheat and give into a momentary craving the tendency is to give up the diet entirely. Don’t get discouraged and give up just because you aren’t perfect. No one is.

Stay Bias Lite

I’ve also really tried to leave my political, religious, and social bias out of this book and focus on how each choice impacts freedom. I don’t think it makes any sense to write a book on freedom and exclude anyone. I think it makes more sense to keep it focused on ideas that benefit anyone no matter their political party, religious beliefs, economic status, level of eduction, ethnicity, weight, height, or even favorite color.

Keep Our Ears Open

Along the lines of being bias lite I wanted to through this simple idea. Liberal doesn’t mean open minded and conservative doesn’t mean close minded. Some of the most liberal people I know are the most close minded people I know and some of the most conservative people I know have the most open minds.

I think this little idea can help us heal as a nation because it reminds us that we can hold tight to our beliefs while keeping our ears open. When we close ourselves off to other opinions we do ourselves a huge disservice and we become the old dog that can’t learn new tricks. It’s the tricks that make life fun and give us the tools to make life better.

You Choose

The last thing I want to add before you dive in is to keep an open mind and take a few grains of salt with you. Remember not every idea here is for everyone in the same porportion. Try to listen with an open mind, see how my logic works, and feel free to agree and disagree, I just ask that you don’t throw the idea out with the bath water.

“One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”- Buddha

Most advice intends to solve a problem. Bad advice tends to distract you from the real problem and merely attempts to treat symptoms. Some good advice arrives at the wrong time. I hope the simple ideas presented here find their way to you at the right time and show you how to cut past the symptoms lying on the surface and help you treat the real underlying issues.

The summer of 2007 was the right time for me to stumble on this simple way of looking at things. I’m not exactly what combination of events lead up to the brief moment of clarity that sparked this book and so many positive changes in my life. It could have been a number of things, my looming 40th birthday, frustration with the war in Iraq, climbing fuel prices, my job, or even the evaporation of my home’s equity. It almost doesn’t matter; catalysts can come from almost anywhere and the net effect is always the same, change.

I can remember the exact instant I came to my senses. I was sitting in my truck, stuck in traffic, headed to my office in San Francisco one hundred miles from home. I realized that there was one simple thing I could do to solve all my problems. In a nutshell, I could make different choices.

Like most people I often blamed outside forces for many of my troubles. Some external forces are unavoidable but many we create ourselves. By focusing on the things we can control we can make real progress. Blaming things other than ourselves is an easy way to avoid the truth. When I applied this solution to the things that worried me most I instantly realized I wasn’t helpless. I could immediately begin moving my life in the right direction simply by making different choices.

I know this might sound a bit dimwitted at first but when you stop and think about it we choose our own paths. If we’re proactive and thoughtful we tend to make better choices. The real trick is to convince ourselves that blaming external forces outside our control doesn’t help. Making better choices is the main thing that drives us forward.

I then began to brainstorm big and little things I could do that would make immediate positive impacts on my life. Big life changes take time and require careful planning. Little life changes are quick and provide instant benefits. I also realized that if my choices impacted the world around me negatively they would ultimately impact me negatively so I kept a win-win requirement in mind as I brainstormed. In other words each choice had to be a win for me and a win for the world around me.

I ended up with a fairly long list by the time I got home that night. Now a year later I’ve gotten them all together in a form easily digestible by you. I’ll be posting them here regularly and then once I have them all together I’ll publish them in a printed book through Lulu.com.