How to quit stalling and begin finishing.

“One day, I'll open up a coffee shop.”
“One day, I'll fight human trafficking.”
“One day, I'll move overseas.”

So, you’ve got dreams. A lot of people in their 20s and 30s are dreamers. Who cares? The world doesn’t need your dreams; it needs your action. It needs your life to matter. And so do you. How do you begin? Start.

Dreaming is stalling

The first girl I ever asked out was a cheerleader named Katie. It took me months to work up the gall. Finally, one night after school, I walked up to her and did it. I had envisioned the conversation for months, practiced it for weeks. But when it finally happened, it was a completely different ball game.

After she said yes, Katie walked away. Then, she turned around and said with a smile, "It's about time." Ever since, I've been hearing that phrase each time I begin to pursue a passion.

As it turns out, starting isn’t the same as dreaming. The two are quite different. Although the latter may lead to the former, dreaming can be overrated.

Certainly, it's important to give yourself permission to dream and to discipline yourself with goals, if they work for you. But there is an underlying deception in all dreams that is downright pernicious: it looks like you're working when you're not.

You only have so much time. Why not spend it where it counts the most—on doing, not talking or thinking about doing. On starting, not dreaming. Why waste your time waiting? Do something better and far more productive. Begin.

Choosing to start is scary

What holds people back from living their dreams? In a word, fear. They are afraid of failure. Afraid of looking foolish or getting embarrassed. So they don't even bother with getting started. They sabotage themselves before they begin. All because of fear.

Here’s an important lesson: The fear never goes away. Whether you start or not, it’s always there. People who do great things will tell you this. You will always question yourself, always wonder if what you're doing is worthwhile. So you might as well get off the couch and have something to show for it.

All decisions are intimidating. That's what deciding is all about. The word “decide” in its Latin root actually means “to cut off.” Which is appropriate, because deciding is the art of cutting off all other possibilities. Deciding to start is no different. It will hurt a little. If you're not feeling uncomfortable, then you're probably not challenging yourself.

Deciding is hard, especially for those in the early stages of life. We've been given so many opportunities, so many choices. We get paralyzed because we don't know where to begin. Opportunity cripples the ability to choose. We hesitate, question, doubt. And then, we get stuck.

If you wait, you fail. That’s what I did. For years, I wrote essays on my computer and told my friends that one day, I would be a writer. But the truth is I never believed it. It wasn’t until I started calling myself a writer—started sharing my writing and pursuing publication—that I began to live it. Now, on the other side of a book deal, I can see that everything I did up until that moment was just stalling.

Every time you hesitate is a moment lost to the forces of resistance, the powers that don't want you to begin. Because these enemies know if they keep you distracted with dreaming, you are no threat to their system. And the best part is you don't even realize it.

It's not enough to dream

So many people think of today as practice for tomorrow. But it’s not. This is your life—today. It’s not a dress rehearsal for the future; it’s all you have. That’s why they say, "seize the day"—you can’t just plan to seize tomorrow. Every day, you have this choice: to wait to be asked, or take hold of your life. Those who make a difference are the ones who jump in. They sacrifice safety and comfort for the satisfaction of doing work that matters. Sure, they take a few hits in the process. But it's a small price to pay for a life that means something.

Everyone was made to create something—to build a family, start a church, write a song, found an organization. And all of that begins with a decision, not a dream. It requires you to start, not imagine. You weren’t born to simply follow orders. You were created to be creative, to imagine new possibilities and explore uncharted territory. Whether you realize it or not. This goes for plumbers and entrepreneurs and baristas alike. The legacy you leave hinges on your ability to choose. 

At the risk of sounding like Eminem, remember this: You only get one life. Don’t miss your chance to make it matter. Stop stalling with resolutions and dreams. And start something today—anything. 

Keep starting. Every single day. Until you finally finish something. Then, start all over again.

Jeff Goins is a writer who lives in Nashville. His upcoming book, Wrecked: When a Broken World Slams into Your Comfortable Life, will be released this fall.

mood: scared, but hopeful!

Oh my God... I just came out of a terrifying lecture.

We're in a burning building and we're too afraid to leave it and too scared to get near enough to put out the fire.

There's nothing that scares me more than climate change, and what the future of this earth is going to be. Right now, I don't think life on earth has a future. Except maybe those anaerobic organisms that produce methane gas. Well.. the earth once had an atmosphere almost completely made up of methane and other "toxic" gases. I'm guessing most of you probably won't read much further than this. You know what I'm talking about, you've heard it all before... Nothing's going to change anyway. Right? Why should you be the one to take a risk and try to put out that fire?

Well, someone has to do it. Actually, we all have to do it. There's a lot that can be done that won't change our lifestyles much. But we are going to have to go further than that. There is not enough lithium for everyone to have a lithium-ion electric car--and even if there was, bringing that much extremely toxic substance into the oh-so-thin biosphere of life would probably end up killing most living things (no exception to us) in short order. There is not an endless supply of things to consume. And that is what humans literally do--we consume. We create products that at the end of their short lives leave nothing worth using. We extract more resources than can be sustainably replenished--to make garbage. Don't think that I'm lying. It's a statistic that 99.9% -- 99.9% !!! -- of the stuff we buy ends up in the garbage within 3 months. And so.. we go out and buy more. Cause there's always more, right?

No one else is changing their lifestyle, so why should we change ours if we're all going to die anyway? People will either say that, or they'll choose to hide their heads under the sand and ignore that everything about climate change is based on fact. It's based on the best science. It's based on what's happening in the world now. And I've got to tell you, what's already happening now is scary as shit.

You know how we all use plastic bags all the time, and all that plastic packaging surrounding almost everything we buy... You know how plastic is built to last.. right? Well, it does last. Billions of years. It doesn't break down. It separates into tiny little particles. Tiny little particles which are now filling our oceans. And they are absorbing all the other toxic materials around them. Good thing--then it's not in the water, right? Think again--fish, aquatic life.. they all eat those particles and bits and floating bags thinking that it's food. They find dead fish, dead sea-birds, thousands of dead turtles, floating on the ocean surface. And when they bring them up to do autopsies, you know what they find? They have ingested so much plastic, that their entrails have become blocked. Food cannot pass, nutrients cannot be assimilated through their digestive systems. Animals get sick and die. Populations of sea turtles are seriously threatened and declining.

And we all love things to be clean, right? Disinfected, germ-free. Well, this is already a problem for us, because with so little to fight off our immune systems are weakening, and germs are becoming resistant to the disinfectants (and antibiotics) anyway so that we'll always need stronger, more toxic products. Well, all those organo-chlorines, where do they go? They dissolve into our water. Sounds good.. but not so much so for males. They act as an estrogen. Which means… alligators, fish, amphibians with no male parts, or two male parts, or both parts, or no reproductive parts at all. Not exactly great for the survival of a species, especially when quantity and quality of sperm are seen to also be diminishing. It hasn’t been linked yet, but this is also the case in humans—men in their 20s today have 20% lower sperm counts than 30 years ago. But maybe that not so bad—human population needs to go way down. There’d be nicer ways of doing it of course, that might leave us still able to reproduce at the end of it.

Every action we take has so much more impact than just its cost in dollars. Some actions are positive. Most are negative. A lot could be neutral if we “took care” of the action properly after it was begun. Everything we buy, and everything we do, impacts other people and other animals, indirectly or directly. Buying a shirt from china has a far larger impact than just the cotton taken to make it. There were workers not being paid fair wages, there were planes and cars to ship in between different factories and finally to it’s destination, there was energy used from whatever sources to run that factory. Beyond that, there were the plants that grew from the ground, taking up nutrients and making them into useful substances for the rest of life on earth.

Think about that for a second: everything we have to eat, and I mean to consume beyond just food, comes from plant-power; from the sun. Humans currently consume 70% of all that plants produce. We’ve only left over 30% for all the rest of life on earth. And that amount is diminishing each and every day. And think about this: what we take the land for, what we use it (and abuse it) to produce, is generally only for human benefit. It needs humans to maintain (a cow could never survive in the wild) and it is humans who will consume it. Many of these things could not be used by other creatures, even were it made available to them. We are removing the biodiversity of the earth, piece by piece; taking apart the plane as it’s flying and hoping it won’t fall from the sky. All life on earth is interconnected. Take away one piece and all the others are affected.

We need to start viewing the Earth as our home. People need to take responsibility, and allow humanity to reach it’s full potential: As the protectors and Guardians of the Earth. We only get one Earth. One chance. We don’t know of any other planet that can support life. And if any life forms from another planet were ever to discover Earth… well, I hope they would find either us living happily and in harmony with the earth, or the remains of a civilization which had become great. Not the bones of a civilization driven to death by consumptive greed and war when so many billions of people will be displaced by the rising sea levels and won’t be able to meet their basic needs. When people can’t meet their own basic needs… they tend to fight other people, kill other people, for those rights: the rights to food and water and the rights to live. These should be rights to anyone and everyone—we need to make provisions for that, because the Greenland glaciers are melting faster than anyone ever thought possible, and at this point it’s already unstoppable. Arctic ice is disappearing. If the Antarctic melts sea-levels will be 80 metres higher. And that’s just the Antarctic.

I don’t know what else to say. I think I’ve covered most of what Mark Brian (?) talked about. He’s the director of the Office Sustainability here—I’m proud to say that the U of W will meet Kyoto protocol requirements! I’m only sad to say that that 6% (reduction from 1990 levels) isn’t enough even if it were everybody acting on it, to stop climate change where it is now. God—I pray we get strong, binding agreements in Copenhagen! I pray to the earth and the whole of humanity because if we set ourselves down a path of destruction I don’t think there will be a God to save us.

One last thing is that not only do we need to take responsibility for ourselves, and for what we take out of the earth and where we put it back—North America, Europe, Australia, all the 1^st world countries… We’re the “grown-up” ones. Not because we have more but because our technology, our education, is so far ahead of the other countries. We need to act as parents and take care of developing countries like our children. Right now we exploit them like slaves, even though slavery is illegal in each of our countries. And they exploit themselves, craving the high of over-consumption and fossil-fuel addiction that we have. We have to lead by example, and because humans are such genius creatures we need to provide them and ourselves with the solutions to the problems, the alternatives and technologies, which already exist in so many cases. Why resist change? It’s coming, one way or another.

Check out “The Natural Step”. I’m not sure why it’s called that, but it’s based on all available science and it has the 4 conditions the we need to take as steps to survive sustainably (that means for us to survive longer than maybe the next generation or so as a species) on the Earth. www.thenaturalstep.org/the-system-conditions

At the end of all this… well, I hope no one will call me a “hippie”, or a greenie”, even an environmentalist or any of those names which should be great complements but have become so demeaning, because they allow others to dismiss and ignore what we say. What we are saying is fact. It is science. Don’t turn your heads or your backs, because it will catch up with you.

I don’t know if people will change their ways. I don’t know if we will change fast enough. I hope that we do, because I think we could reach a greater potential than anyone alive now could even imagine. I pray that we do become the true guardians of the Earth. She is our mother, she gave us life, we must take care of her into her old age and keep her as bright and healthy as we can manage. There are always those sisters and brothers who become too engrossed in their lives and leave the care to their siblings—but let us do it!

If anyone actually got to the end of this… or at least read most of it… please leave a comment, because I honestly congratulate you :).



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So anyway… on that note, I’m really going to try to start doing my part, much more so than I have been. I want to change, because if I do something I know at least it will fulfill my spirit, that if the earth reaches too soon her demise it won’t be my fault. I’m not sure quite how I’ll do it. But the information is out there. Every day, I am going to try to change one thing about the way I am living now. And I’ll do my best to convince those I know and love to change wherever possible, though it may not always be convenient. If you actually want to do something—want to but need help with something, anything, ask me! I’ll try.

To start off:

1. No more driving alone (even with Amiera). Or at least, down to once a month or less, because occasionally there really is no other way. But my bike is sure going to see a lot more use! There’s no way on earth it would be sustainable for all 6 billion people on earth to own a car, so really bikes and feet are the only sustainable options. We are running out of oil, even when they say there’s about 9 billion barrels left in the earth, because you have to realise it would use up more than it would produce to extract about half of what’s left. When it comes to resources, people really should consult resource specialists… not economists, leave them to what they know! Oh, and by the way—Stephen Harper forgot to attend the second half of his economics class. You know, where they talk about externalities and spill-over effects… and how the world isn’t perfect.

2. Okay – buy nothing packaged in plastic. (or that is made of plastic and going to break or get thrown out!) This is going to be a toughie. No plastic bags at the checkout, no cookies, no granola bars, bringing my own bags for produce and bulk. I’m going to do my damn best on this though. God, there’s gotta be nothing worse. So I’ll be baking a lot of cookies and making my own granola and maybe even bread lol.. agh and cereal.. I don’t know how I’ll do that. Well, as I said, I’ll do my best. If there must be plastic, let it be recyclable! If anyone’s interested maybe I’ll start making bulk cookies & granola bars and if you also want to help by avoiding the packaging you can buy them from me :). Just bring your own container lol. I’ll probably be sewing up some produce and bulk bags too, so if you might want some let me know. Depending on how much material costs I’d probably sell them for 2-4$ a piece? (big & small sizes)

3. Seriously. No more shopping. Except food and absolute necessities. So my clothes might start looking old and out of fashion but I’ll just have to deal lol… there’s value village and salvation army if I really need a change where at least the clothes are getting reused and I can donate my old stuff. Hm old sweaters would make good mittens… And other clothes could be re-constructed too. Gosh I would love to be able to really indulge my creative side and learn a lot more lol…

4. Chop down computer time to friends, school, environment stuff and… when necessary? And don’t buy new electronics unless you absolutely have to!!! *Sigh*. I think I might miss my comp sometimes but there are better things in life lol :P. Hm. Oh yes, I was thinking how even though we’re on hydroelectric electricity here, even that has carbon emissions up at the plant and we are totally destroying our northern river systems :(.

5. I’m sure there’ll be more… that should be more than enough to get me started in my new place (moving in December 1^st!!)

Anyway, this is too long, I’m not checking over spelling or anything lol—I’ve got an assignment on water to get to work on! But if anybody's got tips on editing this I'm thinking of starting a climate change blog... someplace or other.

Tired of Clinging, Richard Bach

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all - young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks at the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, 'I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.'

The other creatures laughed and said, 'Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you shall die quicker than boredom!'

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, 'See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!'

And the one carried in the current said, 'I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.'

But they cried the more, 'Saviour!' all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Saviour.

-- Richard Bach, from "Illusions"

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Tell Me Your Story, Dan Gottlieb

It came to me in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago, four words that could change the world:

Tell me your story.

These four words could have an impact on everything from global conflict to personal well-being. All we have to do is ask others to tell us their stories and then be quiet. Oh, one other thing: While you are listening, try to imagine what it would be like - and how you would feel - if it were your story. That's called empathy.

So just ask people for their stories, listen, imagine, and feel - sounds naive, doesn't it? Stick with me here.

First, saying these words will change you. Listening to others is an act of emotional generosity, and there is ample evidence that generosity stimulates the brain's endorphins - natural antidepressants. [...]

Second, this little exercise will change the person whose story you've asked for. Socrates may have overstated the issue a bit when he said, in modern translation, "an unexamined life is not worth living," but we humans do have a fundamental need to be understood for who we are. Think of how full we feel when someone looks in our eyes and says she wants to know how we experience our lives.

In today's world, social networks are shrinking. The number of people who report having no intimate friends is increasing. Simple eye contact, along with a caring "tell me your story," can go a long way toward diminishing someone's feelings of alienation and aloneness. I've spoken those words to kids of all ages in all kinds of neighborhoods. Most thank me for asking - and say that no one has ever done so before.

Third, beyond diminishing alienation and increasing a sense of connection, these four words can have a biological effect on both parties. According to Herbert Adler, a psychiatrist at Jefferson, compassion in the doctor-patient relationship actually changes each person's biological healing system. And if that happens in those relationships, it happens in other relationships. It literally promotes healing.

(...) Try it with a neighbor you don't know very well, a relative with whom you've had a misunderstanding. Try it with a street person and see what happens to both of you.

Just four words. We could start a movement.

--Dan Gottlieb 

Peace is Not the Ultimate Answer, Andrew Cohen

It continually amazes me that the majority of spiritual seekers from the most affluent countries on our small planet seem to be looking for one thing above anything else: Peace. Peace? Why on earth would the luckiest people to have ever been born express their spiritual aspirations through questing for relief and release—for peace? Why are we looking for a way out of the challenge of human existence? I mean, has our lot in life really been that bad?

[...]

So why, then, are we still looking for a way out when we look to spirit? I understand that just because many of us have been graced with a high standard of living, it doesn't mean we don't suffer at an existential level. But I wonder if we haven't fallen into the habit of giving undue significance to our existential angst.

[...]

It just doesn't make sense that the experience of relief and release from the very process that produced us should be the goal of the luckiest people who have ever been born. Why not? Because the very energy and intelligence that gave us life, that produced us, needs us lucky ones to take responsibility, to wholeheartedly participate in the life process in a deeper and more authentic way than most of us ever imagined possible.

As long as the focus of our spiritual aspirations is relief and release rather than a much more profound relationship with life at the deepest level, we will never be of much use to the energy and intelligence that created us. To put it in theological terms, we will be letting God down, because we will always be seeking for a way out rather than wholeheartedly engaging with the life process, with other human beings, with our own highest potentials. As long as we are seeking peace above all else, we will never know what it means to live at the very edge of the possible. In order to be truly available to the energy and intelligence that created the universe, we do have to transcend our angst-ridden separate selves. But the motive for doing so is not so we can abide in a state of peace and freedom beyond the process. Our motive is to become passionate and egoless vehicles for its own ongoing evolution.

--Andrew Cohen, from WIE Magazine

Truth is Alive through Alertness, Osho

Your truth can be alive only if it comes through alertness, not through precepts and principles. Each moment, you have to be alert in order to be true. Truth is not a principle; it is something born out of your alertness. Non-violence is not a principle; if you are mindful, you cannot be violent. But, that is difficult. You have to transform yourself.

It is easy to live according to principles, rules and regulations. Then you need not worry about being more alert and aware; you can follow the principles. Then you are just like a railway train running on the tracks. Those tracks are your principles. You are not afraid because you cannot miss the path. Really, you don't have any path; you have just iron rails on which your train is running. You will reach the destination, you need not be afraid. You will be asleep and the train will reach it. It is running on dead paths.

But, practice says that life is not like that, it is more like a river. It is not running on iron rails. The path has not even been charted before. As the river flows, the path is created. The river will reach the sea, and this is how life should be. Life is like a river. There is no pre-charted way; there are no maps to be given to you which are to be followed. Just be alive and alert, and then, wherever life leads, you go with full confidence in it. Trust in the life force. Allow it to lead you towards the sea.

Just be alert, that is all. While life leads you towards the sea, just be alert so that you don't miss anything. If you are alert, this life will be bliss. The very movement of the river is bliss in itself. Passing through the valleys, through the rocks, falling down from the hills, moving into the unknown is itself bliss.

The river is not simply going to meet the sea, it is "growing" to be the sea, and this is possible only through rich experience, alert experiences, moving, trusting. This is the human search. Of course, it is dangerous. If rivers could be run through predetermined paths, there would be less danger, fewer errors. But the whole beauty of aliveness would be lost

--Osho

inspired people creating positive change

A Low Impact Natural Home

I love this wholesome natural home, built “mostly from imagination, optimism, and rubbish!” Simon, who built it with the help of his father-in-law and some friends, did away with “the cocktail of carcinogenic poisons that fill most modern buildings” and instead built a natural home into a hillside, which he describes as a “low-impact woodland home”. 

The frame was constructed with Oak tree thinnings of the surrounding woodland. Straw bales make up the floor, walls, and roof for nice and easy insulation. The roof is a plastic covering under mud and turf.  Much of the home is from salvaged scrap wood, large pine pallets from a nearby worksite that were due to be burnt!

Simon and his family enjoy the rounded curves of this “hobbit home”; he feels the curves are natural, whereas rectangular rooms feel box-like and slightly claustrophobic in comparison.

Simon doesn’t judge people for their square homes though! “I would make no claim that what we are doing is any better than anything else,” he explains, “I’d only say… this is what is working for us. If any of it can provide an inspiration for others to follow the path of what feels right for them then hooray!”

This sort of building adventure is not only for the highly experienced builders. Simon did not have much experience building before starting this project. “My main relevant skills,” he explains, “were being able-bodied, having self belief and perseverance and a mate or two to give a lift now and then.”

Simon likes the ideas of permaculture, living in synergy with nature through buildings, food, waste, and water systems that work with nature instead of against it. 

Was it easy? Not exactly, but surely rewarding: “Looking back there were times of stress and exhaustion, but definitely no regrets and plenty of satisfaction,” he says.

Check out his web site; it was created to inspire and assist people who want to create similar low impact, highly functional homes, just as he was inspired by people before him. “The more people who do,” he says, “the more inspiration and support there will be for the next ones, as we owe ours to those who came before us.”

Here are plans of the house and the step-by-step building process.

As for planning permission, he directs us to Tony Wrench’s take on the issue. Links and resources that helped him are here.

His advice to people contemplating a similar venture: “Start from ‘what do I need? And ‘what do I have’, not ‘what can I buy?’ or ‘what do other people do?’”  Do a permaculture course or read a book. Be inventive, try things out, do things the easy way. Look in skips (dumpsters). BE BOLD!”

When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

The Gaps on Your Resume, Kimberley Patton

My students say to me sometimes, as they apply to doctoral programs or jobs in parish ministry, "How shall I account for the two, or the ten, missing years on my resume How should I explain the gap?" And how I wish I could always answer them, "Tell the truth. Say, 'I took in a child whose mother was in prison and sang her to sleep every night while she cried. I worked the night shift in a rifle factory. I battled an addiction, and I won. My husband was crushed by a boulder that fell in our own backyard, and I tended his grave. (...) I fled to Caledonia. I fled to Paraguay. I lived in a monastery in Thailand where I came to see that all things, all things, are empty and undeserving of our outrageous attachment to them. (...)

These are all true stories of the things my students have done during the "gaps" in their resumes. These experiences are how hearts are broken, and re-made; how souls are forged; how we become human beings with credible beliefs about existence itself.

The gaps on the resume are the abysses into which we fall from time to time, and in the process, fall into the hands of the living God. (...)

Looking deep into the religious traditions of the world, one learns that we need not fear these initiations, these times of breaking apart. The soul cannot grow or change without them. What the human ego or the human body experience as traumas, the soul instantly recognizes as opportunities to shed what is no longer needed. When the heart is broken, the soul is released from its prior constellations. It begins the ancient process of dissolution, dismemberment, and new life. The soul rushes toward rebirth. This is not a comfortable process. But it is a normal one.

Tears are the holy water of the broken heart. "All through history," writes Clarissa Pinkola Estes, "tears have done three works: called the spirits to one's side, repelled those who would muffle and bind the [simple] soul, and healed the injuries of poor human bargains."

--Kimberley Patton