do it yourself FREEDOM

Impacts: Mind, Health, Home, Work, Community

“Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.” – Buddha

Appreciate what you have and what other people offer. Staying focused on the positive keeps your mind focused on moving forward and helps you to avoid dwelling on things that you either can’t influence or affect.

Appreciating more also helps you slow down and live in the present. This will give your mind a break from the day to day stress it otherwise would be mulling over. So in effect appreciating instantly gives you time to let positive thoughts linger longer making it easier for your to live strategically and stay focused.

Take Action

• Look at the space around you. Spend at least two minutes taking in the things you see. Focus on breathing deep and try not to let your mind wander. Try to notice small details without judgment or purpose. Simply take in the space around you.
• On the next cloudless night go outside after dark and find a safe place to sit. Ideally bring a friend and go someplace dark enough to see the stars. Look up. Try to spend as much time as you can. Even a few minutes of relaxing with a friend under the stars can help you take big steps toward feeling more free.

Impacts: Mind, Health, Home

“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.” – Vincent Van Gogh

The feeling of accomplishment is probably one of the most important pieces of increasing confidence and happiness. There is almost nothing like it. Taking a step back and admiring your own work might on the outside seem a little selfish but it can be one of the more rewarding feelings we can have.

For some people making something might be as abstract as a poem, or watching their child graduate from college. For others it could be literally building a piece of furniture, or growing a lush garden. It almost doesn’t matter if you’ve done it for yourself and it’s something you love doing.

When I was in high school I discovered pottery. In fact I became such a good potter I decided to try to make a living making pots in my twenties. The one thing I learned about myself is that the act of making things itself was the most important part. The physical finished object was only interesting to me for as long as it took for me to decide if it was good or not.

When I started making pots to sell a little bit of that good feeling died because I was making things I hoped other people would buy and I started to focus on only on it’s value to other people. Now in my forties, one of my personal goals is to have time enough again to make pots, but this time I want to do it completely for myself. I don’t want to have to rob myself of the feeling of accomplishment to support myself. I also personally think it’s worth the time spent wedging the clay, at the wheel, and tending the kiln, because it’s what I like to do. It makes me happy.

Making something for yourself is about giving yourself the permission to spend time doing something you like and that gives you the greatest feeling of accomplishment. Don’t put extra requirements on yourself like it has to be a work of art, or that other people have to like it. Just make it for yourself. After all it’s your feeling of accomplishment, not theirs.

Take Action

• Anyone can make stuff. Make something for yourselfwithout the intention of showing it to anyone else.
• Try making gifts instead of buying them.

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

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau

Habits usually just happen. Usually we fall into habits simply because we’re wired naturally to automate. If you take a step back and look at yourself simply as a living organism you might notice that your body pretty much runs itself without much conscious intervention from you. Your heart beats, your eyes blink, you breathe, etc. It even has automated ways to telling you to eat and drink.

If you’re proactive and make an effort to create positive habits, (healthy habits, time saving habits, work habits, etc), you can actually use your natural tendency to automate in positive directions. For example once you’ve been getting up early for a while you tend to automatically get up early. Bad habits form just as easily.

Breaking habits is very hard to do simply because you’re working against your natural tendency. Generations of biology are your obstacle. Try replacing one habit for another instead of trying  to break a habit. Smokers are onto this simple concept, and in fact often point to this natural tendency to explain sudden weight gain or other negative side effects after quitting smoking. To stay ahead of the habit curve consciously work to replace bad habits with beneficial habits.

Rituals are one way to create new habits. We tend to think of rituals in a religious context but if your break the idea down you’ll see that a ritual is simply an intentional act or series of actions.

To use ritual to build good habits make a conscious effort to give yourself a series of steps for simple tasks designed around the new habit you want to form. Ideally write the steps down to help you in the beginning. Eventually the list will be obsolete because you’ll quickly memorize the steps and even begin to refine and perfect you actions. In the end the simple ritual you designed will be as natural as a mindless habit.

Habits and rituals are key tools for increasing personal freedom because they help you remove bad stuff from your life and replace it with good stuff. Habits and rituals are not as powerful a tool as belief but nearly.

Take Action

• Learn about the Japanese tea ceremony. It’s a great example of ritualized tea drinking.
• Watch for habits you’ve already created. Begin by asking yourself if that habit is moving you forward of back. In other words notice what you’re doing.

Impacts: Mind, Money, Community, Time

“It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness” – Thomas Jefferson

This is different from want less. Consume less is more about changing your actual behavior and I’m going to take a slightly different angle on this topic from the majority that suggest that consumerism is a bad idea.

Most people tend to focus on the environmental, economical, and human impacts as the the primary reasons that consuming less makes more sense. In fact I personally agree with those strong arguments but I think there might be stronger argument that could help more people adopt an anti-consumerism point of view.

You see being an active consumer costs a lot of money and for money to be spent it must be earned or borrowed. Earning and borrowing money usually means that more of your time must be spent making money which in turn limits your choices. Compounded on top of that is the simple fact that many people tend to spend up to and beyond their income, no matter their income level. So while keeping up with the Joneses might be status quo and virtually second nature to many of us these days it’s a behavior that also tends to land us in trouble.

For example, imagine yourself right now with absolutely no debt and a small but livable steady source of income that requires little or no effort or time. How would that make you feel? Would you keep your day job? Lets say you decide that you’d rather quit your day job and enjoy your new found free time. What would you do? Would you start a little business? Would you travel? Would you write a book? What would you do?

Now let me ask you a harder question. If you knew for a fact that you could have that life in the next few years, what would it be worth to you? What is that kind of freedom worth to you?

I’ve been asking myself that question for over a year now. I’ve realized that there are literally thousands of ways of generating alternative income streams that don’t involve get rich schemes. They all take time to develop and not all of them work out but with persistance it is absolutely an achievable goal.

If I tried to replace my current income that would be very difficult and take a long time. But If I worked it from both ends by adding a little side income and reducing my spending I’d get their quicker. The more I add and the more I take away the faster I move toward my goal.

Choosing to consume less, like choosing to make more money, is simply a choice and hard work. The hardest thing to overcome is the baggage in our own heads. When many of us were young and didn’t have things we assumed that things would make me happy. As we get older we begin to realize that it’s not the things we aquire but people and time we make for ourselves that makes us truly rich.

Take Action

• Watch The Story of Stuff.
• Buy what you need.
• Buy more value.
• Avoid buying things that don’t help you achieve your goals.
• Look for free stuff online first; you’ll be amazed what people give away. See craigslist.org and freecycle.org.
• Pay with cash or debit and avoid using credit cards.
• As you carry things you’ve bought into your home consider their physical weight. When you take out the trash consider the weight again. Ask yourself if you’re just throwing away the things you buy?
• Avoid packaging. Reward companies that use reusable packaging or  little packaging by buying their products. Recyclable packaging is better than non-recyclable but it’s still added to the cost of the product and you paid for it.

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

“The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you.” – Jean Jacques Rousseau

“The Lord commonly gives riches to foolish people, to whom he gives nothing else.” – Martin Luther

“Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.” – Samuel Johnson

This one is really hard to achieve because we learn to consume at a very early age. Need and want are sometimes inseparable in our minds when it comes to how things make us feel about ourselves. Sometimes the desire for something is so overwhelming we become obsessed by it and we often don’t stop to discover why, we just work blindly to achieve it.

When I was a kid my family went for a day hike one weekend. When we got back my brothers and I noticed a little blue sports car parked next to our van that had not been there before. I asked my older brother what it was and he said it was a Porsche. From that day on I wanted one so bad it hurt. I know that sounds stupid but I had got bitten early by the sports car bug.

As I grew up an obsession grew and on a regular basis I’d browse the car classifieds in the newspaper and in time online, constantly imagining the car I’d buy someday. A few times I scraped together enough money to buy a used Porsche but talked myself into waiting for a better car. Over the years I spent a lot of time thinking and dreaming about the day I’d drive it home.

Finally when I was 38 I bought one. It was used but seemed to be in very good condition. But the day I drove it home it broke down. The dealer paid for the tow and repair so there was little financial damage but the experience sent a powerful wake up call into my head. Sitting on the side of the highway in a dead Porsche waiting for a tow truck helped a bit too. After a few months I sold it.

Looking back I realize that I learned an important lesson and the money I lost almost seemed worth it. Inside me there must have been some unmet need I was certain this car would fulfill. One thing is for sure, my crazy obsession had taken on a life of its own and most definitely distracted me from making progress in other areas. On the bright side at least I learned this important lesson before turning 40. This has given me few more useful years to refocus on the things that really matter. It’s also opened me up to looking at all my consumer desires with a different set of eyes.

I suspect that understanding deeply buried desires is probably the hardest thing for any of us to do. Wanting less or at least understanding why we want so much can unburden us in many ways. In my case I wasted a lot of time, energy, and money on a car that in the end proved to be more dream than car. Had I gotten a grip, and gotten over it sooner, I could have made a lot of progress on other more productive things. Although its arguable that until we learn this lesson the hard way we have to continue living the mistakes. That may be true of a lot of things.

In any event, at least for me, wanting less has become one of the most freeing decisions I’ve made. It continues to be a daily challenge but it pays me back dividends in time with my family and time for the things I like doing.

Exercise

• Make a short list of the things you want most. For this exercise limit this list to tangible things.
• Sort the list from most important to least important.
• Next to each item put an approximate number of years you’ve wanted it as a point of reference.
• Start with the least important things and write down why you want it.
• Move your way up the list.
• The goal is simply to open your eyes. Don’t try to talk yourself out of wanting these things, simply try to understand why you really want them.
• Once you begin to uncover your real unmet needs try fulfilling them in ways that don’t include obtaining things.

Impacts: Mind, Work, Money, Community

“Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.” – Henry David Thoreau

I was first introduced to Joseph Campbell in my teens and like many people the whole concept of following your bliss seems like a good idea. As an idealistic teenager these words really took root and I’ve pretty much lived with that concept floating around my brain ever since.

But since I rarely accept anything at face value, even words so wise, I found myself altering the philosophy to fit my needs. I found a follow my nose philosophy seemed to work better for me. Bliss was often a bit elusive and it seemed more logical to simply follow my nose, (curiosity, interest, ideals), and keep my bliss in sight on the horizon as I took steps in that general direction. This approach just seemed more practical and actionable. I also took comfort in that by following my nose I would eventually be lead to my bliss.

The other side effect of following my nose was that it gave me permission to screw up and even get a little lost from time to time. I don’t think that’s a bad thing since we tend to learn the most from our mistakes and that everything we do in life, good and bad, builds the person we are becoming. To regret your mistakes is like regretting who you’ve become and regretting taking the risk to find your bliss. By trusting your nose and accepting your mistakes you immediately empower yourself to continue moving forward no matter how bad things get.

So far this approach has served me well, taking me through several good and bad jobs and situations but at each step my goals have gotten closer. Looking back I can’t honestly say I regret any step or decision because they have all added up to landing me where I am today. I have made mistakes that I’m terribly sorry I made but I also know that I’m a better person today because of them. This knowledge also gives me the strength to let go and continue forward.

The main reason I’m suggesting that this personal philosophy will increase your personal freedom is because it will always move you closer and closer to your goals. You’ll never feel stagnant; you’ll be constantly looking for the next thing, and open to taking calculated risk. The only big disadvantage I’ve run into is that over time I conditioned myself to expect new challenges to present themselves regularly, which can lead to boredom and disinterest in work. Buy you could also look at this as an advantage since it acts as a catalyst to propel you to the next challenge or find new ways to innovate in your current job.

If you adopt following your nose or following your bliss as a personal philosophy you’ll find yourself becoming more proactive in your career and life. You’ll find yourself begin to move forward and put an end to stagnation. You’ll find yourself more optimistic and happier. Just be prepared to stick it out for the long haul because like most real things in life instant gratification doesn’t happen for anything of real value.

Take Action

• Try to calculate risk better. Make pros and cons lists and really think through decisions before making them.
• Watch the PBS special “Power of Myth” with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell.

Exercise

• Goal: Point your nose in the right direction.
• On a piece of paper make a list of things you like doing.
• On a separate sheet of paper brainstorm jobs that let you do that stuff. When brainstorming let yourself be free to write anything down.
• No search for some of these jobs online. Don’t limit your search to your location, you’re just trying to open your eyes to opportunities. Remember you’re looking for a dream job not one you’d be qualified to do today.
• Once you find one look at the qualifications. Start a third list of things these hiring managers are looking for in candidates. Continue to look at more jobs and begin to rank the job qualifications with hash marks. This will give you an idea of the most important things.
• Now look at your list of job qualifications. Point your nose in that direction. This is a list of requirements you can choose to place on yourself. You can also think of them as goals. At the very least they are steps to take on the road toward a job or life you will enjoy.

Impacts: Health, Mind, Community, Money, Time

“An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.” – Charles Darwin

Most people use some sort of mind altering drug from alcohol to caffeine to cocaine. Some are legal and some are not but they all help get us through the day. They also treat the symptoms and not the causes of our discomfort.

For example coffee in the morning helps us get going. A beer after work helps us wind down. Both are simple chemical methods for changing the way we feel and they make it easier for us to avoid the real issues. Coffee helps us make up for the late night, unbalanced diet, or bad sleep. Alcohol helps us take the edge off stress and helps us forget our troubles temporarily. Both are legal. Both can create long term health problems. Both are addicting.

When we choose to avoid intoxicants two things happen immediately. The first is that we’re faced with dealing with the stuff they helped us avoid. The second is that we’re faced with the physical and mental reality of an addiction. But once these initial hurdles have been overcome and replaced with something better you’ll find that you’re saving money, time, and feel much better.

The bigger the problem the bigger the payback in personal freedom. By the same token every step in a positive direction is a good thing. Don’t get discouraged if cold turkey isn’t your thing either, simply try cutting back. Most addictions are part physical and part in our heads. The stuff in our heads is often harder to overcome so try replacing it with a positive replacement.

Take Action

• Every time you take a sip, drag, snort, puff, poke, chew, whatever, ask yourself one simple question… “do I need this?”
• Get professional help if you’ve got a real problem.
• Try adding a quick walk first thing in the morning instead of coffee and TV.

Impacts: Community, Money

Literally make some electricity from renewable energy sources and push it back onto the grid. I know this one might sound a bit hair brained to the uninitiated but it’s actually easier to do that you might realize. Before the power grid existed everyone who had electricity made it themselves. Americans have been innovating in this space for generations.

If more people invested in the equipment needed to generate some electricity and began contributing power to the grid, less power would need to be generated from burning stuff. More people would learn that conserving electricity saves them even more money and doesn’t significantly reduce the quality of life. The grid wouldn’t disappear it would simply become decentralized. Power plants would eventually be shut down as more and more people added electricity to the grid. Energy companies would probably still exist but as the keepers of the infrastructure. Our dependency on carbon based fuels would be reduced and the cost of energy would drop as well as the cost of generating electricity.

The most reasonable option today is solar photovoltaic panels. These panels can be mounted to trackers that follow the sun for maximum efficiency or less visually obtrusive alternative can be used like photovoltaic shingles that look almost exactly like normal roof shingles.

Another fairly reasonable option are wind turbines. Not all wind turbines look like giant propellers or water pumping windmills from the farm. Some actually have a much smaller visual footprints and can even be used in urban areas without attracting much negative attention.

If you live near a year round creek or river and have some water rights to it you might find it possible to divert a small portion of the water to run through a small hydroelectric turbine. This is actually one of the best ways to generate a lot of electricity because these turbines run day and night and as long as the water flows. Hydroelectric systems can also be less expensive to install than comparable photovoltaic systems simply due to their efficiency and reduced technical complexity.

Making your own energy reduces your dependency on another external force. It reduces everyone’s dependency on carbon based fuels. It changes the way we all think about electricity, efficiency, and conservation. The positive impacts are not always immediate but in the long run it tends to pay off big.

Take Action

• Learn more about grid tied photovoltaic solar systems.
• Join other Americans at We Can Solve It and help end our addiction to carbon based fuels.
• Research the tax benefits to grid tied photovoltaic solar systems at irs.gov.
• Learn more about other alternative power systems like wind, micro-hydro, passive and active solar systems at homepower.com.
• Learn more about vehicle to grid (V2G) systems and how they can act as a battery for the grid at rechargeit.org.

In the summer of 2007 I had one of those Ah-HA moments we all have from time to time. The only difference with this Ah-HA moment was that it inspired me to write a book, change jobs, begin building a tiny free house, and rethink my values, lifestyle, and future. But the most important thing I uncovered was a simple way for anyone to immediately achieve more time, more happiness, and more success.

This website is a blog and a book. I recently decided to publish my first book as a blog first and then offer it in print through the self-publishing website Lulu.com. This blog will remain online after the book is in print. This unusual business model for publishing a book is in itself an experiment and might prove to be a financial mistake, but it feels like the right thing to do.

Do It Yourself Freedom is already mostly written but it needs a final edit and has been sitting on my back burner for too long. To break free of this block I’ve decided to publish one section at a time after a careful proof read. I think I’ll be done publishing the book online before the end of March 2009 and offer a printed version by the end of the year.

If you’d like to get updates pushed to you simply subscribe by email or by RSS. I started publishing the book online on August 27, 2008 and you can see my progress in the Table of Contents.

Impacts: Health, Community

“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Gardening has many indirect positive side effects on people that often go unnoticed. It is an activity that provides benefits far beyond the food you grow. Gardening gives you back time to think, it teaches patience, it makes you feel more connected to your surroundings. If you garden with other people in a community garden, it can become an activity that builds community.

People that garden experience less stress and better health. The fresh food a vegetable garden provides certainly contributes to this but it is more likely the mere act of spending time outside, moving, working, thinking, relaxing, that is the real benefit.

Take Action

• Plant one plant, even if it is in a pot.
• Pick plants that are easy to grow.
• Pick plants that produce something you can eat or use.