Happy Blogaversary!!!

At a performance in February

One year ago today I published a post on this blog for the first time. I believed that it would be an experiment and I anticipated adventure. I am pleased that I have managed to post at least once each month for all but two months. Honestly, though, I'm feeling frustrated.

I feel as though I haven't moved much at all. Then, again, I guess it depends on where I look. I'm still doing the same work and living in the same place but I have successfully transformed how I eat, lost 20 pounds, kept off 16 for six months, and I have made significant progress with my 400 things project. I still intend to celebrate everything.

I am (still?) standing at a crossroads. Which way I go is not entirely up to me. Perhaps that is what feels so uncomfortable about it. Three weeks ago I was fully mentally prepared to move out of New York city, to find relief from the relentless circle I run in trying to keep ends met.

I adore this city. This time last year, the thought of leaving it was unbearable. Three weeks ago I was tired of constant debt and some of the harsher parts of living here (the spit on the sidewalks is really annoying me, for some reason) and I am considering that there are places in this country where one can have a lovely one-bedroom apartment for under $700.00 per month and get fresh oranges for less than $1.00 each.

I have been thinking that I could live on something like $10,000.00 a year and pay off my student loans in five. The loans are currently about $153,000. Paying that off in five years means paying at least $30,600 per year or $2,550 per month. With the loans paid off, I would be free to get on the road and live the nomadic life I have dreamt of for the past year.

I am working on how to achieve this goal. This, actually, is the frustrating part: Realizing that I cannot realize my dream for an untethered life until I have paid off that loan. I wonder, too, why I cannot have the lifestyle I seek while paying off the loans.  I am exploring ways to achieve that, too. A lot can happen in five years.

I do know that paying off these loans is a pre-condition to fully living the lifestyle I seek. When I have overcome the burden of those monthly payments I can take my trailer and Ger and dog and guitar, haul everything with a diesel-powered Chevy truck and travel the country singing my songs and selling my CDs and writing about it.

This dream is an unfolding road with unforeseen twists along the way. And, when I really think about it, frustration is good. It is energizing; it inspires movement. For that I am happy.

Doing Nothing

It is I 

I have a confession to make. I've been avoiding my blog, circling it as though it were a dangerous wild animal, looking at it sideways, pacing before it. I had a fabulous experience that I could have been blogging about. I finished a 30 day Bikram Yoga Challenge. That's pretty amazing! I started on December second and finished just in time for New Year's Eve on the thirty-first. It felt so good to end the year with another major accomplishment under my belt. Why, then, wasn't I blogging about it?

I'm thinking as I write and I'm realizing that perhaps I was actually rebelling against the driven over-achiever's culturally embedded imperative to always be producing. Without planning it, without acknowledging it, even, I took a break.

In the middle of the Bikram Challenge I started thinking about the next challenge. I needed to have something in place so that I didn't fall into idleness and wreck my goals for lack of planning. I had ideas. A jump rope challenge, a plank challenge, trying out a new style of yoga. It turns out that when I finished the Bikram Challenge, I was finished. I felt no motivation to jump into the next thing.

It has been nearly a month since I have done much of anything. Only now do I realize just how much I needed the down-time. I feel so much more creative and effective. I'm brimming with ideas for my classes (the new semester starts next week) and I have a couple of articles in the works. Yes, I know. Of course. Duh. Everybody knows this. Knowing is only a tenth of the battle.

This break was not my choice, really. I was scheduled to teach a class over the winter session at the institution I serve. The class was cancelled and I found out (due to my own distracted state) too late to line up another gig. I spent a few days panicking and then decided that I was not going to wind up wandering the streets. I had resources; I would use them. And then, uneasily, fretfully, I allowed myself to rest.

Although I have pretty much stayed on course food wise (no dairy or gluten but more carbs and fewer vegetables than I really should do), I've only worked out once since I finished the Bikram Challenge. I planned to make a bunch of videos and even set up my studio. I recorded myself singing one song, took a couple of pictures (see above and below) and that was it. I spent the rest of the time on marathon Hulu sessions and Facebook. I enjoyed being snowed in during the Great Polar Vortex of 0'14. Occasionally I left the house. Last week I started busking again. I'm going to need the money to cover what my savings don't cover until I get my first paycheck sometime in mid February.

Really resting is still new to me, believe it or not. United States culture has a prejudice against resting anyway (the local word for it is "lazy") but at least the tradition of a taking a vacation (inhumanely short though it might be) does exist. Thing is, my family, being from overseas, never caught on to that tradition.  My parents were both students and then both working. We never took an actual family vacation and I never learned how to truly give myself a break. Generally speaking, I work pretty much non-stop.

That ends this year - with one caveat. Next time I will be better prepared so that I can take a month off without worrying about my bills. I will be deliberate about it. I plan to have no plans. Doing nothing is highly underrated. Try it if you can.

Dress Shoes

New York City's first real heatwave of the year coincided with my heroic (and ultimately futile)  effort to get a New York State driver license so that I can register my new camper (which I still have not met).  Three trips to the DMV in one afternoon (on foot) and I still don't have a New York driver license. It turns out that the document California sent me is not the right one. I have ordered the necessary document - which will come in another seven-to-ten days [Update: Just found out that it is really 4-6 weeks.  I weep].

In the meanwhile, I discovered that I would not be getting any classes to teach for the summer and that final paycheck for the semester that I was counting on?  Well, I had counted wrong.  There went my main source of income and rent for the month of June. And July.  And August.  This was an unexpected but totally affirming example of why I am doing this life-style re-design. I do not want to be up a certain very smelly creek without a paddle (or even a canoe, really) ever again.

Part of my happy lifestyle design thing is creating streams of income that allow me to be independent and to travel. I didn't expect to dive into being my own income making factory quite this quickly but, who says life has to be convenient.  I've taken stock of my stuff and my skills and this is what I've come up with.

First.  I have a computer, video camera and shooting/editing skills.  I'm currently working on a sizzle (best of reel/EPK* type thing) for a band.  If you are in a band, have a small budget, and need a simple video, hit me up. My terms are very reasonable.

Second. I have a guitar and an amp, a mic and a chair.  This is all one needs to go out and literally sing for one's supper.  If you're in NYC and happen by the uptown side of the one train at 59th Street/Columbus Circle, check out the music.  You might just find me there.  Please be generous!

Third.  I have a sewing machine and a few self-taught skills.  Here is where some serendipity happened.

My mom happened to send my sister and me an email with the subject heading "Shoes"!  I'm still not sure what that had to do with the email she sent because she didn't say anything about shoes in the message.

My sister thought my mom was asking us to help collect shoes for the 120 or so kids she and my dad provide food and clothing for in South Africa (more on that in another post - they need your help and by that I mean go there and actually help).

Being a consummate entrepreneur, I wrote to my sister suggesting that, instead of sending shoes to South Africa, we collect money and buy the shoes there.

My sister pointed out that finding a place to get the shoes might be an issue so I fired right back, suggesting that we make the shoes.  I thought we could teach the older kids and so that they could learn entrepreneurship and earn some income. A quick Google search turned up easy patterns for making shoes.

I loved the patterns I found and I thought, I'd like to have those shoes! My mind went wild with the different designs I could create and the materials I could use. My aim is to make and sell 100% vegan, 90% recycled hand-crafted flat shoes.

I had spied my sewing machine buried behind some boxes when I had sold my chair to Jasmine. One long subway ride and a snug fit into my grocery cart later, I had my sewing machine at home. Check out my shoe video. For this shoe I have recycled an old dress that I can no longer wear.

Neat, huh? A quick call to a used tire business and I have access to all the discarded tires I can use for the soles. I'm trying to get over there next week. And I'm taking orders!

In the meanwhile, a big mediation came my way and I will likely be teaching a class in July after all.  It constantly amazes me how these things find a way of working themselves out. Life is good.

*EPK stands for Electronic Press Kit

What Makes You Itch?

Whenever I feel that, perhaps, I am the adopted spawn of Don Quixote and Sisyphus with this Happy Lifestyle Design stuff, I watch this video. A Facebook friend shared it with me. Someone named Angelina Smith posted it. It is my meditation.

Sometimes I forget that when I was pushed off the cliff five years ago, I discovered that I could fly! So, when I worry about how my rent for August will arrive or whether I'll ever be able to see a dentist about this tooth that is bothering me or whether I'll ever pay off these darned school loans, or whether I'll ever get this van or birth the sustainable farm/service retreat/entrepreneur incubator I am dreaming of, this little video helps me to remember what I already know to be true: It will come.  It always does.

The British philosopher, Alan Watts reminds us to ask the earth-shattering question, "How would you really enjoy spending your life?" Get that? How would you enjoy spending your life? You have permission to do that! We are taught the opposite. We are taught that one does not have permission to do what one enjoys but, rather, that one must do what is necessary to be successful (code for "materially wealthy"), no matter whether getting to "success" sucks the very joy from one's existence. Alan Watts calls this stupid. What a relief to hear this and to know it to be true. How would you really enjoy spending your life? Dream a little. Keep on dreaming. Dream bigger. Take that first step . . . and then the leap. It will come. It always does.

Why am I doing this Part II (aka The Prey that Got Away)

I have written a blog post about intentional happiness lifestyle design.  That post presents one aspect of why I am making the lifestyle changes that I am. This post presents another aspect of my decision.

Do you remember The Social Contract? Jean-Jacque Rousseau? The treatise on the relationship between the people and the government? Rousseau focused on the sources of political authority which he credited to "the people" rather than to a monarch who ruled by so-called divine right. His work revolutionized politics in Europe and significantly influenced the American Revolution.

There is another sort of social contract that threads the fabric of every society. It is an economic contract. In the context of capitalist industrialized societies, that relationship mainly lays between corporations and people. Basically, the corporations (i.e. the shareholders) own the means of production (sound familiar?) and the workers produce the products. The corporations sell the products and (here is the social contract part) distribute the profits between themselves and the workers. The corporations have a vested interest in the welfare of the workers, the workers have a vested interest in the welfare of the corporations. That's how it is supposed to work.

Then there are the banks. The banks make it possible for the corporations and the people to conduct business: Purchase and sell assets, finance large investments, store their money, and so forth.

There are rules and regulations that govern the transactions within this economic contract. They are intended to curb excess, prevent abuse, and prosecute it when it does happen.

The United States enjoyed a period of relative prosperity during the Clinton Administration. This got certain people thinking, hey, there is no limit, let's milk this thing for all it is worth. So they got rid of the rules, went hog wild, and then, eventually, as should be expected, it all came crashing down.

My issue is this: in the aftermath, the corporations and the banks (well, the people who run them, really) have made no effort to uphold their end of the economic bargain. It is much worse than that. They have coerced ordinary citizens (via the government) to pay to fix the mess that they made. Below I have posted an excellent video made by the political economist (excellent combo) and Brown University professor, Mark Blyth that explains this all quite nicely. (By the way, I find his accent super sexy.)

In the beginning I totally accepted the financial crisis hype, believing that allowing the banks to fail would lead to unbridled disaster. I believed that the bank bailout was unavoidable and prudent. Perhaps it was. However, the aftermath is unconscionable and I find myself growing more unwilling to participate in this nonsense.

So, I ask myself, what can I do to make big banks and multi-national corporations irrelevant to my life?

For me the answer lays in arranging my life in a way that has as little to do with mass consumption as possible. So, in addition to changing my life for the sake of living in the now and maximizing my happiness, I am also minimizing the stranglehold that consumerism has had on my life.

Imagine being free from worrying about money and the constant, grinding, soul obliterating obsession with the means of obtaining it and, rather, having one's needs met via direct exchange with other human beings. Imagine a life where what the "too big to fail" banks do has minimal impact because money is not the central mode of exchange.

Again, I am not doing this because I don't believe in industry and the economies of scale. I am doing this because our banks and corporations have not only betrayed and abandoned us to the wolves, they have become the wolves and they are feeding on us. Many argue that they always have. Fine. Whatever the case, I choose to be the prey that got away.