Habits

Pare Down with the Declutter Habit

Posted on by aram.admin

It’s a fact of life that without constant vigilance, clutter creeps up in our lives, accumulating into piles and closets and drawers and shelves so that it can overwhelm us.

One of the best things I’ve done is simplify my life and pare down the clutter.

How do you pare down when you’re overwhelmed by the piles? Where do you start?

As with anything, you should start small, and start simply.

Just pick one spot. Spend 10 minutes. Make a dent in the piles.

And one spot at a time, one day at a time, create a zone of zero clutter that expands to cover your entire life.

Create the declutter habit, and your life will gradually become simpler.

Here’s how to do it:

  1. Create space. The declutter habit doesn’t need to take up a lot of space in your day — you don’t need to devote an hour to it — but you still need to make the space. Just 10 minutes a day, but when will you do it? In the morning? After work? Midday? Pick a time, block off 10 minutes a day, and commit to doing that daily.
  2. Pick a spot. Now just pick a small flat space in your home or workspace. A part of your countertop, a tabletop, a shelf, part of a closet floor, part of your living room floor, part of your desk’s surface, a drawer. It doesn’t matter where you start, just pick something.
  3. Pile it up. Clear everything off the small, flat surface, and put it in a pile. This pile is like your to-do list — you’re going to work through things one at a time until you’ve finished the pile. Work by picking one item off the top of the pile — no skipping items!
  4. Decide one thing at a time. Pick off one item, and decide whether you really love and use it. Have you used it in the last year? Is it incredibly important to you? If not, get it out of your life! Give it to someone else, or a charity, or sell it. Put it in a box for that purpose. The keep pile should be small. Make quick decisions, and move on to the next item.
  5. Create homes. Take everything in the keep pile and create a home for each item — a place where the item will go from now on. Designate that spot carefully in your mind, and tell everyone else where that home is, so they know. Now always put that item in that home, always, so you never lose it. If it’s important enough to be in your life, it’s important enough to have a home. Note that you can find a home for items elsewhere — it doesn’t have to be the space where you’re decluttering.

Your new space should be pretty clear, with just a few keep items in their homes. Isn’t it lovely! Celebrate this wonderful little oasis in your life, this reward for 10 minutes of deciding what’s important.

That’s what decluttering is: taking time to decide what’s important enough to remain in your life. It’s not about getting rid of everything, or emptying your life completely. It’s about figuring out what matters to you. And then getting rid of what doesn’t.

Leave Yourself Wanting More

Posted on by aram.admin

I think most of us have a tendency to do as much as we possibly can. But doing less might be better.

When we go to a great restaurant, we want to try all the dishes, eat as much of the delicious food as we can. And we leave overstuffed, sometimes painfully so, and our waistlines expand.

When I go for a run, often I’ll want to run as far or as hard as I can … and then I’m exhausted, and less likely to want to run tomorrow.

When we go on a trip to a new country, we want to see everything, do as much as possible, and that leaves us exhausted.

When we work or read online, we go from one task to the next, continuously, quitting only when we’re spent, well past what might be healthy for us.

How can we counter the tendency to want to do as much as possible?

Leave yourself wanting more.

The other day I went out for a run, and I really wanted to push myself to my limit. I let that desire go and did a moderate run, leaving some gas in the tank. The next day, I wanted to run some more, and I did. Today I’d be happy to go for another run, though maybe I’ll do something else instead. It’s sustainable and will make the habit last longer.

If you sit down for a meal, don’t try to eat as much as possible. Eat less. Leave the table wanting a little more. It won’t kill you. This is something I’m working on myself, but it takes practice. The result, though, is that you feel healthier and your waistline thanks you.

When you travel, don’t try to see everything. See a few things, and take your time. Leave the new city knowing that there’s more to see that you are leaving for next time. Leave yourself wanting more.

When you’re on the computer, shut it down before you’re done with everything. You’ll never be done with everything, and shutting down early means you’ve reserved some of your mental energy for other pursuits offline. You’ll be raring to go tomorrow. You won’t be as spent.

Let’s do less, and leave some in reserve. And enjoy the less that we do even more.

The Case for Replacing Exercise with Play

Posted on by aram.admin

The Great White Whale when it comes to forming new habits, for most people, is exercise.

Along with eating your vegetables, meditation, getting good sleep and quitting smoking, exercise is probably the most important habit change anyone can make.

And yet, most people struggle with creating a lasting exercise habit.

The solution is to replace the “exercise” habit with play.

Remember what it was like to go outside as a child? I do, because I watch my kids every day. They run around, pretending they’re warriors and wizards, ride their bikes like they’re flying, swing like they’re about to take off for the stars.

Kids don’t care about what they “should” do … all they want to do is have fun. And so they play.

Your Internet Habits Create Your Reality

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Each of us has a different reality. And we’re creating that reality, and can shape it in many ways.

We tend to think of reality as something external and absolute, like the sun shining down on us on a hot, lazy afternoon. That sun is really there, whether we believe it or not, right?

But as humans, our reality is shaped by what we perceive. So one person will see the sun has overwhelmingly hot and oppressive, the other sees it as an opportunity for a great tan. Another will see it as a huge cancer machine. And still another will think the sun is an angry god to be feared and served.

Those people all have very different realities, even if the sun is objectively the same for all of them.

In that light, whatever you think about and do on a regular basis shapes your reality.

And that’s mostly the Internet (and phone apps), for a lot of people.

If you’re on websites that talk about how horrible the world is, and how gays and Muslims and feminists are causing everything to go to hell … then that will be your reality.

If you’re on Facebook looking at your friends’ food pictures or vacation photos, that will shape your reality. If you’re on porn sites, that’s what your reality is. If you follow people on Twitter who complain all the time, that affects your life in a major way.

What Internet habits shape your reality? Is that the reality you want? Can you shape it?

I don’t have any answers here. Just wanted to influence your reality a tad.

Life’s like a box of chocolate

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have always token Forrest Gump for a lovely man. His mama told him that life’s like a box of chcolate, you will never know what you’ll get, I know exactly the feel after all these years. I’ve had a few years of drifting life,  between the different abodes, walked in all kinds of people, I know the life has been never easily, for example, before a minute I was happying for some suprise, but after a minute I will fall in difficulties, life has ups and downs, you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow, so I understand that keep a peaceful mind in any time, and whatever how many people is endeavouring to disarm me, I just need to find where is the sunbeam, then, I will always be fine, at the final, as Forrest said, stupid as stupid does it, surely, tomorrow is belong to the hard working man, I will be a winner.

Why I turn to Buddhism?

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At the very early first, I was an atheist, now I’m a buddhist, you may ask me why, actually they are not confict with each other. People often say that Buddha bless me please, will buddha really appear and help us? I don’t know, but I prefer to believe that actually buddha is always live in our deep heart, however, most of the time, we can’t find him and it’s difficult for us to hear from him, because of too many noise around us.

Every time when I got scared, I will drive my car to go to a very silent temple just about 30 kilometer from my home, I like to sit in a corner and listen to the monks chanting, then my heart will calm down and I can hear my heart voice, what a deliverance not to have to think anymore! So, as my understanding, the real buddha is not the god, buddha is the Wisdom in Essence.

The other thing that I was always question before I converted, the existance of Karma, is it true?

I knew there are many scientific discussions and instances, but no one can jump to conclusions. Until my friend tell me a Zen story, I trust it.

An old zen master ask his little disciple to find a stuff in a very dark room, the little monk went into the dark room without any lightings, and he was found nothing, then he told zen master, “No one is there!”, Zen master asked “Really?” and burning a candle went into the dark room, under the lights, he find that stuff, asked the little monk, “It’s always there, only you can’t see it.”

Is it not so? We are always think that the things are nonexistent, just because we can not see them. How be opinionated! The human should hold the unknown nature in awe and keep to learning.

For these perceptions and cognitions, I decided to convert to Buddhism, ‘cause I know I have to face to face with my heart even if the process is very painful, this is practice, and life is a kind of practice, I know I have long way to go.

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