Sunday Story...A Gift

Sunday Story…A Gift
Seth Godin in “Linchpin” talks about the gift. The gift of your art. And your art is what you do with emotional content. Are you a waitress? Do you deliver your art with joy and verve and love? It’s art. Maybe you teach math to middle schoolers. Do you bring your joy and zest and playfulness to the classroom? It’s art. Maybe you drive forklift in a warehouse, back and forth, here and there, all day long. Are you smiling, changing the tenor of your workplace, or looking for ways to make your job more successful? It’s art.

It used to be that “art” was painting or sculpting or making music. What if art is everything you do with energy, emotion, and enthusiasm? What if art is what you put heart and soul into…even washing dishes? And it really becomes art when I give it away. As a matter of fact it might only be art when I give it away.

I recently saw a video on the Karma Clinic in Oakland California. Dr. Shah operates the clinic as a gift. Patients can pay it forward but they do not get bills for their treatment. She gives each of them a gift. The gift of health as art.

There are a couple of restaurants in the world that operate as a gift. You eat and there is no bill. You pay what you can; you pay what you think your meal is worth. These places are fairly successful and in ways that exceed any financial considerations. The gift of food as art.

You are doing art every day (I hope). Art fills your soul. Art moves you in ways that were not previously imaginable. When you do your art you are serving a purpose greater than yourself.

And when you give your art away you feed the universe. The recipient is fed, certainly. But you the giver of the gift of art may be the biggest recipient. When I give the gift of my art it comes back to me in large and unexpected way. There is no doubt in my mind the Dr. Shah is going to be very well rewarded for the gift of health she gives away to every patient. And not in the afterlife either. At the very least she will be rewarded knowing she made art and she got it in the hands of the people who really needed it.

So how do we reconcile giving the gift of art to the world and still pay the bills? The electric company, the landlord, or the garbage man are hung up on getting paid for their services. They are not embracing the art as gift idea yet. Dr. Shah has faith that there will be enough generosity to cover her overhead. This is a huge leap…a larger leap than most of us can accept.

For many of you this idea won’t require a huge shift. Do your job in a way that conveys your energy and emotion, your joy and happiness and it becomes art. You won’t need to go to your boss and ask for a raise because you are now treating your job as art and giving your art to everyone you come into contact with. Remember the teachers you had in school who truly loved their jobs and every one they came into contact with? That was their art. They did not get paid more than the cranky old curmudgeon down the hall. As a matter of fact they often got paid less. When you shift from doing a job to making art you won’t necessarily get a fatter paycheck. But because you are doing art and you are giving it freely you might get rewarded.

What if I gave all my lessons for free? When someone said, “how much are lessons?” can I say you get to pay what you can, what you think they are worth? Is this possible? Can I explain to people who are frightened to take responsibility in life to take responsibility for choosing their own payment? Is this the new economic model? Can it even be called economics? Isn’t the phrase “gift economy” a contradiction?

When I give you a gift I have no expectation of reward, not now not later. So how can I explain that I am going to give you the gift of my art but the electric bill still needs to be paid? I am not sure this is possible even if I want it to be. Is it possible to say, “Lessons used to cost $125.00 per month but now I want to give them to you as a gift. You can pay as much or as little as you wish. You can pay what you think this art is worth.”? A serious leap. But then I already have many people on scholarships, reduced and no pay maybe it isn’t such a stretch.

And the real question becomes how giving my art as a gift will change the art itself. Will it become even greater, more passionate, and more powerful after I take the money element away from it? As I write this today I have a pit in my stomach and a joy in my heart. A large part of me wants to shift this in this direction so badly. And another large part is scared to death.

Thanks Seth for starting this path of inquiry. And I hate you for starting this path of inquiry. If any of you have any comments, suggestions, or ideas along these lines, please shoot them my way!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Talk, Talk,Talk

Sunday Story…Talk, Talk, Talk

Last week a friend of mine was told she might lose her job. BUT she was told there was a 95% chance that she would NOT lose her job. She focused on the 5% chance. She lost a night of sleep and a grand amount of tears and stress over the whole non-existent ordeal. Instead of knowing that a 95% chance was the focus, she chose to spend her time and energy on the 5%. Why?

Her self talk led her down this road. She convinced herself that she was going to lose her job and her career and would have to go back 20 years and start all over. She is great at what she does. She is well liked and well respected by both her co-workers and her bosses. There is no way she will ever need to go back yet she boot-kicked herself down a very ugly road.

How is it that 2 people can experience the same trauma and for one of them it is devastating and leads to a life of dissolution and destruction. And the other one finds strength and inspiration and hope in the same horrific events? How can one person in a concentration camp give up and die and another help others to live?

The one true freedom each of us has the ability to choose how we will react, how we will think about any given situation. A large part of this choice is how we talk to ourselves, how we see our place in the world.

If you see yourself as a victim you will be victimized.

If you tell yourself you are ugly you are.

If you tell yourself you are special and precious you will be.

If you see yourself as nothing, so it will be.

If you get up on Monday with dread and a pit in your stomach at the prospect of the week ahead how can you expect to have a great week? Not to mention that you probably ought to find a different way to spend your time!

If you get up feeling heroic you will be a hero.

If you get up and say to yourself I am so grateful for (fill in the blank) you will be grateful.

How often do you get up and start beating yourself up first thing in the morning? The rest of the world can never get you to feel as bad about yourself as you can…after all you are an expert on making yourself feel---you have been doing it all your life!

So what can be done? How can you start seeing the glass as ½ full instead of ½ empty? What can you do to change your mind?

What you say to yourself is critical. You cannot call yourself names and expect the rest of the world to love you.

Here are some concrete steps to change your mind, change your attitude and eliminate the “stinkin’ thinkin’” that might be ruling your life.
1. Develop an attitude of gratitude. When you wake up in the morning start the morning, before you roll out of bed, think of one thing you can be grateful for. Better yet think of 3 things you can be grateful for. No matter how bad you may think things are there is always something you can find that is good. It might be as simple as realizing you don’t live in a 3rd world country with no running water and indoor plumbing.
2. When you look in the mirror in the morning say aloud something nice to yourself. For instance…”I am kind and loving”…or…”I am vital and alive”. If it too hard to say it aloud write it down and tape it to the mirror so you can read it as you brush your teeth.
3. Commit to doing 3 random acts of kindness every day. Things you have to go out of your way to do. Paying the toll for the car behind you. Stopping and connecting with the homeless person panhandling on the corner, recognizing and connecting with the humanity that is behind the struggle that person is living with. It is amazing what happens to us when we do kind things for other people. There is a shift in our soul that takes place when we give without expectation.
4. Turn off the noise. We live in a very noisy world. Television, radio, I-pod, video are all contributing to the constant chatter that goes on in our world. Even if it was all positive (and let’s be honest it is mostly negative) the noise level is constant and never ending. When was the last time you just turned everything off? When was the last time you went an hour without saying a word or hearing a word? Interesting things happen when we get quiet. Commit to a 15 minute stretch of quiet every day…listen to your breath, listen to the rocks move but stop the noise long enough to hear yourself think!
5. Read one thing every day that will inspire, uplift, create thought, and challenge a belief. It could be a quote, a sentence, a verse…there are lots of “365 books” out there. You can subscribe to a service that emails you one every day. Simple and easy.

Stop beating yourself up! Start living the life you were meant to live. Start by telling yourself how great you are because you are great! You were put here on this earth to do amazing and wonderful things. And you are doing them right now. Start realizing just how powerful you really are.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Whose Problem is it Anyway?

Sunday Story…Whose problem is it anyway?

There was a time when I could live independently in the world. I could live off the land and do more than just survive. I am pretty sure that is no longer the case in North America, Europe and some parts of Asia. Maybe in Africa it might be possible. I am not sure. We have changed our world in a way that we are interconnected and inter-related to everyone in the world.

I had a conversation recently with someone bemoaning the lack of “self reliance” in people today. That people just can’t take care of themselves. They expect the world to feed them, clothe, them, take care of them. And it is not the world’s job to do that. The world was not created for your private and personal enjoyment. And although I agree with this premise on the surface it really is not true is it?

I cannot raise cows in my back yard for beef. I might get away with some chickens. I can have a garden and gather produce 3 or 4 months out of the year. So in terms of self reliance I need some help with food procurement. But I am responsible for my own food.

I cannot cure a hide for my shoes; I don’t have the knowledge or the time. I can’t plant cotton to weave cloth for my own clothes. I can’t make a mattress. I need a community to help with those things. But I am responsible for getting the money to pay for them.

Self reliance died a lot of years ago. And although it is still possible to get off the grid, drop out, tune in and be your own person, it is definitely not easy. The days of going out in the woods and living for years on your own are over, at least for most of us in the modern, urban, civilized world. But personal responsibility is not dead.

There is a lot of talk about hunter-gatherer diets. Paleo or Primal diets. Eat like a cave man, provided the cave man had a Whole Foods nearby. We give lip service to living simply and sustainably yet visit Starbucks and Mega-grocery weekly (or daily). We are responsible for how the world looks. If you didn’t go to Starbucks, or Wal-Mart, and I didn’t go, and our friends didn’t go then those places would disappear. They are not disappearing. Our landscape looks the way it looks because we like it that way. We are responsible.

So…how much responsibility should I take on for your life? For your food, shelter, well being? Granted I may be responsible for my own life. But am I responsible for yours? What if you don’t want to work anymore and have no money? Am I responsible to support you? Am I going to accept responsibility if you die?

Only you get to answer those questions.

Does a child dying of hunger affect me? Am I responsible?

Remember when you were told to clean your plate because of the starving children in ______ (fill in the country of your choice). I never got that when I was young…how cleaning my plate affect those kids over there. And why don’t we just pack up these peas and send them over there since I really don’t want to eat them? Children in (name a country) won’t get more or less food based on my consumption.

Or will they? How is my consumption of food, goods, and services tied to people ½ ways across the world? Have you bothered to look at this? Do you really care?

We throw away tons of food every day in this country. What if we responsibly only took what we really needed? Not what we wanted, or desired or, lusted for. Would there be more for someone else? Would the price change so someone else might be able to afford it? Why does a pair of Nikes cost a month of salary in Kenya and only a few hours of work in this country? How it that my responsibility? And what can I do to change it?

That child in Kenya won’t get an education for lack of shoes. Because he lacks education and knowledge he becomes helpless to improve his lot in life. Because his life appears hopeless he may become a refugee, or a criminal, or a beggar on the streets. And when his life becomes more and more hopeless and insignificant all the possibilities he was put upon this earth to complete go unfinished and unrealized. All because he didn’t have shoes.

We could say the same thing about food or clean water. How many great minds have we lost through this terrible attrition? How many ideas that could have affected each one of us never came to fruition? How many Einsteins, Edisons, Gandhis, or Jeffersons have been lost to hunger, lack of education or pure hopelessness?

That is how it affects me. That is why it is my responsibility to help, to connect, to live in a way that may change the world. And in fact the way I live does change the world. Self reliance is a lie. No one can be alone any more. No man is an island unto himself. We are all connected. Our lives are interwoven with each other. We need to give each other a hand up not a hand out.

Do something kind today. Have gratitude for all the things you have. And try to figure out how to share your gifts, skill and talents (not just your money) with the rest of the world. We all need you. We all need each other to be the highest and best we were meant to be.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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