Chop Wood, Carry Water

by Jamie Shane

  This type of choosing travels with you out into the world. Once you have discovered the ability to follow your choices through their entire course, you find that you almost always do it. And not just in matters that have to do with your yoga. From plastic bags, to incandescent bulbs, to beef, to air conditioning, to TV programming, your small choices have great effect on not only you and your life, but on all of our lives.

  I can’t tell you what choices are smart for you. I know what choices help create the world I want my family to enjoy—and I hope you can learn to do the same.

  It all starts with a simple choice to make better choices. No big deal at all.

  17

  I find it disturbing when the citizens of the world’s leading democracy fail to vote. Seriously. This is a basic right that people all over the world only dream about, and here we sit apathetic to our great fortune. It is a shame when this is a result of sheer laziness or ignorance. But it is a sin when it is neglected out of a sense of powerlessness. As in: “Nothing I vote for will be heard anyway, so why bother speaking up?”

  No matter your political affiliation, you must admit that this is a rising sentiment. Many Americans feel that their opinions—their votes—are being ignored by those in power. But instead of firing up a revolution, most sit down and shut up to just ride out the tide. Perhaps it is the hope that we will land on a better beach than we left that keeps us quiet. Perhaps it is genuine fear found only in post 9/11 America. I don’t know.

  But I do know this: Whether or not you cast your ballots in the boxes, you do vote every single day of your life. Those little slips of green paper in your wallet are the most powerful ballots out there. Where you put them—where you spend them—constitutes your opinion. And, believe me, where the green ballots go, those in power will follow.

  Our current government has taken an incarnation that most people alive today have never seen. The great social movement of the early twentieth century has all but been repealed. We are no longer dealing with a government for the people, but a government for the corporations. And if you see that, you can see how to get around it and make yourself heard. What matters to corporations? Money. What do you have? Money. Even if you only have a little bit of it, you still have it. And they want it. We have to demonstrate our wishes by taking our money away from those who do not represent our ideals. We have to change our spending habits to really vote.

  Outraged by commercial farming and pesticides in your food? Don’t buy commercially manufactured produce or meats. Shop local and organic every single time. Get your friends to do it. Talk about it in your community. Cast your green ballots in the organic box and watch the machine begin to turn in your direction.

  Disgusted by big oil? Don’t sit in your monster SUV and complain about it. Drive less. Carpool. Take the bus. Trade in your gas sucker for a hybrid, or pester GM to bring back the electric car. Put your money where your mouth is and watch the nearly desperate auto manufacturers turn their heads and listen.

  Worried about the rising costs of healthcare? Don’t wait for the government to handle it; they never will. Take care of yourself. Eat well. Exercise. Learn about additional healthcare solutions like yoga, massage, acupuncture, ayurveda, herbalism. Educate yourself about your health so that the trip to your doctor is a truly needed stop, not a knee jerk reaction. When the demand falls, so do the costs.

  Terrified for the environment? Why wait for those in power to acknowledge the problem? Solve it yourself. Give up plastic. Walk where you can, or take a bike. Change your light bulbs. Open the windows and turn off the A/C. Every dollar not spent is one that the corporations want back. They will change to get it.

  This is the new America. Don’t wait to hope yourself heard the second Tuesday of November. Walk the walk by casting those little green ballots where you want to effect change. And then add insult to injury by showing up every single voting day as well.

  Big problems are not somebody else’s problem. We all must solve them—one dollar at a time.

  18

  The Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Even if whatever you do seems small, it is very important that you do it." Take a minute to ponder that. What does it mean to you?

  To me, it means that we are not powerless. It means that we are all connected in a way that has the power to affect the world. Not everyone can be the president, or the leader of the United Nations. Not everyone can be Gandhi. And we don't need to be.

  Each and every one of us has the unique ability to make our world a better place. By making only the smallest of adjustments. Making the smallest of sacrifices. Changing, if even minutely, the way we think of and perceive our position within the social order. You do not have to be powerful to effect powerful change. We, the little people, can change the course of human existence with the smallest acts of human cooperation. Now think on that.

  Some of the most powerful creators in the world hail from the tiniest, most innocent of packages. Seeds, ideas, kindnesses, words, children. Each of these things, if ignored, can come to nothing. Alone, they are too small to be profound. Or are they?

  One seed connected to the Earth can generate hundreds more, enough to feed a family. One idea connected to a strong enough voice can cause revolution. One kindness connected with love can change a life. One child connected to truth became Dr. Martin Luther King. Given the opportunity, something small and potentially insignificant can alter the very heart of life in this world.

  This connection is within you. It surrounds you. It is you. Every small thing you do to help magnifies in the world into a powerful force. One small thing inspires another, and another, and then, next thing you know: freedom for an enslaved people, an end to hunger in Africa, no more energy crisis. It is possible if you believe it to be. It is possible if you participate. No matter how small your actions, it is very important that you contribute.

  It is far, far too easy to believe that we can do nothing. That our lives are too small to affect the world. That we have no voice. That we are powerless in the face of monstrous corporations and big government. Calling for a social course change can feel like towing an ocean liner with a rowboat. But a thousand rowboats — now that's a different story. Real change starts in peace, at home, in your heart. It starts from the smallest of actions and the simplest of intentions.

  Ride a bike. Plant a garden. Shop at the farmer's market. Turn your air-conditioning off and your fans on. Eat less meat. Take cloth bags to the grocery store. Pray. Help someone simply because they need it. Talk to a stranger. Be a friend. Share something even if it is only an idea. Send $5 to New Orleans. Live simply so that others may simply live.

  Great, great things come from small packages. Even greater things come from small contributions. Add all the smalls together and you get something large. Huge, even. Something more powerful than the mountain of apathy that shadows us. If we all chose to do just one thing, the tide of our paradigms would shift. The human condition would shift with it.

  Think I'm naive? Then let's all remember that Gandhi toppled an empire with salt.

  19

  The older I get, the more I realize that a happy and prosperous life comes from the ability to be both flexible and aware. Not unlike a good meal, a great friendship, or a successful marriage, a healthy life is full of myriad components which all shift and jive in the quest for equilibrium. Being flexible and attentive helps one ride these changing tides, mastering the art of life’s ebb and flow.

  Now, when we talk about ebb and flow, we are not talking about ‘go with the flow’. That colloquialism refers to a simple attitude. Ebb and flow stretches out over the whole big picture of your life. It is part of the nature of your existence and refers to the greater energies that fuel its course. And your ability to guide them.

  For instance, while there are a great many people who take to yoga like fish to water, practicing it diligently and faithfully their whole lives, there are an equal number of students who come to it for a while, love it, and then just fade out. Thei
r energy for it is pronounced for a time, but then recedes until they have fallen from the practice altogether. Maybe something else takes its place. Maybe baby steps of inattention took it out of focus long enough to be lost. Who knows. But this is how ebb and flow works. Energy comes, energy goes. And while it cannot be completely controllable, it is manageable. You can, for the most part, decide how you want to ride the tide.

  Since your life is full of so many independent pieces, it is only natural that your attention will shift between them. We are forever determining with small decisions what it is that is truly important. And while our interest may constantly wax and wane, it never really abandons that which we hold essentially dear. Our personal ebb and flow remains within the boundaries that we determine. And these boundaries are constantly in motion, being realigned as we introduce new interests into the mix.

  This creates a tricky edge between surfing comfortably and getting inadvertently beached. Sometimes, we take on so many projects that we have to let a few of them tumble onshore. It is a wise person who can take a real mental inventory of their life and say, “Yep. That’s the one. Sorry, bud, but you’ve gotta go.” Conversely, it is very sad when a simple inability to manage our interests takes something enjoyable (and helpful) —say yoga—and tosses it out of reach. Without a healthy sense of balance and a mindset of right discretion, stuff like this will happen. You will forever be losing things. Think about it now. What activities have you loved and lost? Did you let them go, or did they slip away?

  That devil, Time, takes a bad rap for our losses. But it’s not really his fault. If we truly love something, if we respect it and want it to be a part of our lives, nothing can make us abandon it. We humans are stubborn that way. It is not a matter of time, but a matter of focus and flexibility. It is cultivating the ability to see when something in your life is being a time-hog and redirecting the flow in a more healthful and balanced way. If you never take stock of what you are putting energy into, you will never be in charge of how it is expended.

  Of course things will always come and go. But it is the happy individual who knows when to steer and when to ride.

  20

  A girlfriend of mine always leaves me saying, “If I don’t see you soon, the clock ate me.”

  It’s a charming turn of phrase, and for her, accurate. But it always makes me want to rush into her house and office with a hammer and smash all of her clocks like some odd revolutionary liberator, unsatisfied until all vestiges of the oppressor have been destroyed. It’s not my place, and I know it, but it chagrins me to see such a generous soul slaved to such an arbitrary device.

  And she is not alone. Did you know that Americans work more hours per week than almost any other Industrial nation in the world? Welcome to the land of the free where we are leashed to our jobs by clocks, wireless devices and emotional obsession. It has gotten so expensive to live, and been hammered at us for so long, that most Americans believe they must work like slaves to capture the elusive Dream—without ever questioning what sacrifices that Dream demands from your Life.

  Your time on earth is not infinite. Therefore it is extremely important to spread it around. Your time is more valuable than whatever your boss pays you for it. Your hours of unpaid time are the most precious and real. They are the ones that feed your essence, not just your belly. It is an old cliché, but an apt one: Nobody ever looked back on their deathbed and wished they had spent more time working.

  The majority of us do make our basic livings tied to the clock. That is a situation that simply is. But how much of our identity we sacrifice to our livings is a situation that we create. The American dream may seem like the ideal of achievement and liberty, but the quest for it can create an existence of anxiety and servitude. To the clock, to the boss, to the company, to our mortgages, to our insurance companies, to the government, to the hundreds of little things that we ‘need’ to be ‘successful’ and happy. At what point do you simply say, “no, thanks,” create your happiness from the little things, and start to buy back your time?

  Yogi Bhajan says that most anxiety is a result of your sense of achievement and your sense of timing coming into conflict. What else is the chase of the Dream but believing that we have to have achieve X within timeframe Y? Whether that means seeing eighteen clients before four o’clock, or being a major executive by the time you reach thirty, attaching your sense of personal achievement—personal worth—to the American timeframe is asking for trouble.

  Things happen when they happen. Sometimes things never happen at all. Pushing like a maniac to achieve something with no respect to the capriciousness of the Universe or to your own limitations is only going to make you unhappy. I have learned that God has his/her own watch and ultimately, no matter how hard one tries to make it otherwise, we all dance to his/her beat. So it is best just to take a big, deep breath, relax and try to find the groove.

  Of course, yoga helps. A juicy fiction novel helps. Taking one day a week to turn everything off—cell phone, blackberry, computer, TV—helps. Dining with your friends and family helps. Looking around and being pleased with what you already have helps. The secret to living the dream is to allow it to happen as it will, making small, focused pushes now and again that jibe with the rhythm of your life.

  You might find the type of success you always dreamed about. Or you might find another brand of it entirely. Either way, you take the teeth out of the clock.

  21

  I fear there are few things left in the American lifestyle that are inviolate. Times change, things change, cultures change, and most importantly, people change. What would have once been thought of as an untouchable ideal by our grandparents has been modernized and commercialized by our parents, then abandoned out of hand by ourselves.

  This kind of erosion has left the door wide open for Madison Avenue to create an alternative ideal of what the American lifestyle ought to be. Personally, I think it is time to hit the breaks on that kind of subtle slide and say, “No, this portion of my life will not be manipulated.”

  So let us talk about one of the few American habits that is still sacred. It’s hangin’ on by a thread, but it still breathes and mutters with life. Let us talk about the Great American Summer Vacation.

  Ahhhh….summer… vacation….Do you remember what that means? Or have you moved so far away from it that the thought is only nostalgia?

  For some it is the same every year—off we go to Nantucket to rent our little beach cottage and relax. For others it varies—what do we want to do this year? And for a sad few, it is only a far off dream long since abandoned to childhood. But the idea of a few weeks off to do anything other that what we do every day still resonates strongly in the American psyche. I hope it stays that way.

  I guess what I am doing here is encouraging you all to take some time off and take a true vacation. Give up the idea of Busch Gardens and Disney World; Do something you have never done before. There is an idea brewing in our collective minds—one planted there by the aforementioned Evil Empire—that claims all vacations are a pricey amalgamation of airfare, hotel, restaurants and entertainment. This may be starting to convince some of us that a vacation is an expensive one-track-idea. That the only brand of vacation fun is what we see in the media. But that is patently untrue.

  Not all vacations require soup-to-nuts expense. Not all vacations are about lounging on your duff by a pool or beach. Not all vacations are about stuffing your face with over-priced food that your hips will regret later. Not all vacations are an obligatory visit to Grandma’s house. This world is a big, beautiful place. This country is a big, beautiful place. This state is a big, beautiful place. And they all abound with interesting things to see and do and learn that don’t cost an arm and a leg or involve Travelocity.

  It is time to resurrect the old fashioned American summer vacation. Go camping across the nation—some campsites cost as little as $6 and really teach you what it means to look at the stars. Visit Washington, D.C.; The monuments and the Smithson
ian are completely free and an enlightening testament to the American spirit. Take a motorcycle ride along the back coastal roads of Maine. See some ‘little theatre’ in a small town. Go to a yoga class in your former hometown regardless of the style. Eat in a foreign greasy spoon. Paddle a canoe along a strange and unknown river. Take the time to show your children the fields of Gettysburg. Visit the Statue of Liberty or walk Boston’s Freedom trail. A vacation that isn’t centered around being ‘entertained’ is incredibly nourishing to the soul. And much easier on the wallet.

  If we refuse to let the Vacation be manipulated for a manufactured ideal then we can all afford to take one. Even if it is only for a few precious days.

  And that, friends, is the true pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

  22

  Your yoga mat is a strange and wondrous space.

  A simple strip of sticky rubber, your yoga mat has the potential to become a sacred space. It is a home of sorts, grounding and liberating. It is a place of discovery. And, as such, you just never know what you are going to find. Or what is going to find you.

  The practice of yoga asks you to move within, to wake up and see. Most of us were never asked to do that. We were taught to look outside, to seek external sources of happiness: money, lovers, status. We were told to make something valuable of ourselves in terms of social identity. We were not taught to make ourselves valuable to ourselves. But as we move into yoga, this is exactly what we are asked to do.