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Declutter Your Mind…Declutter Your Life

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Photo by: Paola K; Kyoto, Japan

I’m sitting right now in my favorite place in the living room: At my writing desk, gazing at the wonderful forest that happen to be right in front of my house. I took a small break to observe my surroundings: I like to see my living space tidy, clean, organized… nothing should be out of place. That gives me a good feeling, you know? Like a feeling that things are going well.

Disclaimer: You don´t want to see the same living space I am describing now when my kids are home; that would give you a complete different picture; more like a war room, a place that just got hit by a hurricane…. but that’s another story.

I think everybody can get inspired and motivated when surrounded by harmony, cleanliness and good distributed space.

The practice of decluttering or also known as minimalism, is a movement that started back in the 1950s in the Arts but only became a popular lifestyle trend a couple of years ago in the western world, when our friend Marie Kondo became worldwide famous with her book “The magic of order”. I could see the Youtube channel exploding with new Youtubers trying to get their share of the pie of fame by showing off the implementation of the “Konmari methods” in their own closets and living spaces.

Marie Kondo’s promise behind motivating you to get organized and throw off your old stuff, is that if you live in a tidy place, you will have more time to do the things you really love and also you will achieve peace of mind. In other words, her philosophy is: Tidy up your place so you can tidy up your life.

I actually loved the idea and as many others, I happily went on to try her methods to see if it worked for me…. until it didn’t.

Turns out, I struggled to even make time for the suggested decluttering rituals; First of all, the KonMari method suggest that you take at least four to five complete days of your life to perform the radical decluttering exercise. I read the book a couple of years ago, but I still recall the fundamentals: First of all, you have to classify all your stuff in five categories: Books, clothes, documents, miscellaneous (here can get as wide as the wind…) and sentimental objects.

The second step is to dedicate a day for each category to actually start the decluttering process. Let’s say today is the book day (would be a hard one for me). I have to collect all books I have in all the rooms and once I have all piled up, then I have to start the Konmari ritual: Take one by one and ask them… do you spark me joy? For practical reasons, you should be able to respond with a quick “yes” or “no”; but I know myself… for every book I recalled a story starting when I bought it, or who gave it to me… how I was feeling that day, and if the book was a great read or mainly shitty….by the time I end my evaluation, already twenty good minutes passed by. Next one… another 230 to go… good luck!

There were other easy days for sure. Like when I had to get rid of “miscellaneous”. It was not that hard to say goodbye to those extra pair of napkins, or those old computer cables from old laptops that I kept for no reason. Those things definitely do not spark me joy…

After my own KonMari experiment, I felt really great. The house was tidy, it had a more minimalistic look, and I felt compelled to keep it that way forever and ever. But then like an alcoholic fall back on the bad habit, after one day being sober he says to himself “this feels great, never again” and the next day someone offers a beer and basically until there came the good intention.

The days passed and the usual chaos started to come back. The beautifully arranged, rolled up clothes organized by colors started to mix again following happily the second law of thermodynamics (basically following the law of mess). The minimalistic feeling started vanishing as we got new(!) stuff, hey, don’t judge me so quickly, who can say no to summer sales?

I saw with my own eyes how the hard five days of work spent in applying the Konmari method vanished like those sand grains diluting in the vast ocean.

So, what happened?

Clearly, a lack of discipline. The commitment to keep everything orderly and spotless.

It didn’t work out, because I applied an external solution to an internal problem. The issue was not with the Konmari method, or any other method I could have adapted. The real thing is that I had to do the decluttering inside first.

Is a well-known fact: Life as we see it with our own eyes in the physical world, is nothing but the manifestation of our life as it is inside of us: our thoughts, our mindset, our consciousness of life.

My house cannot look permanently organized, clean and in well shape if inside of me I am a chaos. If my thoughts run from one side to the next; if I cannot even finish a sentence when I am jumping out to the next thing; when I say I will go jogging for 20 minutes and I end up sitting at the sofa eating nachos and watching tv.

So, I decided to challenge the KonMari method and start the other way around: First I took care to declutter my mind, my thoughts… and that alone will make the work “in the outside”. I trusted that if I manage to keep my thinking straight and clear, it will be reflected automatically in my environment.

This time the method didn´t disappointed me. I can happily report a great improvement on my home and my life in general, the moment I became self-conscious of my own thinking pattern.

Here is the Paola’s method of minimalism and decluttering (from the inside out):

  1. Understand who you are. Not just superficially, but profoundly.
  2. Observe your thinking pattern; Are your thoughts in chaos?
  3. Decide to think the minimalistic way: One thought after the other. It takes effort and conscious decision, but it can be done
  4. Get rid of endless sources of information and focus in getting your information from few specific places; for the rest, make the conscious decision to discard it.
  5. When a thought manifest itself as a serious command of action, do it
  6. Be consistent with what you think and what you do
  7. Repeat … many times over
  8. Build the discipline of having an orderly life
  9. Do small steps, but everyday

Voilá! Maybe you will not see results the first days, but I assure you, if you can manage to bring order in your thoughts, recognize your intrinsic values and live in a coherent and harmonious way with yourself, the rest (ehem…the chaos in da house…) will solve by itself, because you will no longer accept that kind of living style in your life.

And what happens if you prefer to live life the chaotic way?

¡Nada mi amigo! as long as you keep having fun 🙂 besides, everybody needs a bit of chaos once in a while, right?

***

PAOLA KNECHT es una coach certificada en liderazgo, transformación y desarrollo personal,  autora de The Success Mindset: Take Back the Leadership of Your Mind y Un Mundo de Ilusiones.Puedes obtener más información en my-mindpower.com.

My Last Day on Earth

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Today I woke up as usual.

After the morning rituals of washing my face and cleaning my teeth, I kept gazing at the window. It’s a new year. Another fresh morning. The snow was falling from the branch of a nearby tree. I kept gazing outside, at the whole spectacle; the sunrise appearing at 08:15hrs… hovering the sky with the wonderful pink and yellow colors, penetrating the clouds which split the greyish dusk with the morning lights.

Suddenly a thought came to me, as I was about to start my day.

What if today would be my last day in this world?

What if death is waiting for me on the other side of the sky, at sunset?

I confess, it’s a scary thought. More often than not, I prefer to avoid the topic of death in my mind and try to live as if I would be around forever. I like to plan my days, weeks, years ahead. I love the “to do” lists and the certainty of a long future.

But what if for once, I decide to face the fact that I will die, to value much more what I have today, instead of losing all my present time planning a tomorrow that I’m not sure it will come?

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, confessed to have made himself the following question every morning for 33 years: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And when the answer has been No, for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something”.

January is normally the time of the year that I start to make resolutions for the year ahead. I use to plan meticulously all the goals I want to achieve. I put milestones and deadlines to each of my resolutions. I still believe this is valuable when you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve and those actions are followed truly by your heart. But how many of those valuable actions we really end up doing?

How many times we procrastinate what we really want to do, in favor of following someone else’s desires and benefits?

How much time you have lost in doing tedious and irrelevant things during the day… day after day, waiting for a “free time” when you will finally allow yourself to go on with living?

When faced with the truth of death… everything except Love, becomes irrelevant.

If this would be my last day on Earth… I would go straight away to kiss and hug my loved ones, telling them how much I love them. I would value every single minute of what is left of my life to enjoy them to the fullest. Hold them so tight it hurts.Forget all the nonsense egoistical thoughts and stupid misunderstandings.

I would go out to the free air, run through the forest… hug every single tree and say thousand times thank you, thank you… you have given me so much. I barely paid attention to you during my life except for this very moment.

I would run around and play in the snow, like a little child. Laugh all I can, with all my strength. Travel as far as I can to see the sunset at the sea.

I would disobey orders. I would wear off the ridiculous mask. I would hug everybody. I would render honor to our Creator, which I believe, made us perfect and divine. I would only live with the pure consciousness of following my heart and my values. I would not be afraid anymore. If the fear of death was the thing that hold me back from being who I am, what the heck does it matter now, that I’m about to die?

What a liberating feeling, to live as if you are about to die.

If I am going to die tonight, I don´t want to be locked down at a cave physical or mental, just waiting for my death to arrive. I want to be free!

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than it be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet”- Jack London

I wish that you live everyday of this 2021, as if it would be your last!

Reflexiones de Año Nuevo: En Busca del Sentido

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“Es difícil encontrar la felicidad en uno mismo, pero es imposible encontrarla en cualquier otro lugar”- Arthur Schopenhauer

Este año está por terminar. Como es costumbre ya, me gusta reflexionar sobre lo que este año trajo a nuestras vidas, cuáles son las lecciones que nos deja para seguir creciendo.

Está más que claro que no fue un año común para la humanidad.

Cosas que nos parecían totalmente normal en nuestra forma de vivir en sociedad de pronto se vuelven una fuente de miedo e incertidumbre; como si surgiera de la nada un peligro invisible que se propaga entre más queramos convivir, entre más nos aferremos a volver a la normalidad que conocemos.

Pero mi propósito no es hablar sobre esta nueva normalidad; tema que ya conversaré en un post futuro. Hoy quisiera reflexionar y compartir con ustedes algo que me ha ayudado a alcanzar una profunda paz y a mantenerme positiva y firme a pesar de los pronósticos (muy a menudo desalentadores) que nos venden en las noticias. Se trata de re-encontrarse con uno mismo y conectar de nuevo con el sentido de la vida.

Cuando vivimos sometidos a un estrés perpetuo, y ante situaciones de incertidumbre durante un tiempo prolongado, algunos de nosotros tendemos a sentir de pronto un vacío existencial.

Ese vacío se siente como un estado de tedio- es una sensación que oscila entre aburrimiento y estrés. Al no ver con claridad qué es lo que va pasar en el futuro inmediato, nos podemos sentir un poco paralizados- sin ganas de hacer grandes planes, y de buscar nuestra motivación con la certeza, o al menos la esperanza, de que las cosas sucederán tal y como lo esperamos.

En este tipo de situaciones, es cuando más necesitamos reconectarnos con nuestro interior;  cuestionar de nuevo esas preguntas difíciles, que a no todos nos gusta pensar a consciencia: ¿Cuál es el motor que nos mantiene con vida?; ¿Qué es lo que nos hace levantarnos cada mañana?, Si no podemos controlar nuestro destino o las situaciones que nos suceden, entonces, ¿Cuál es el sentido de la vida?

Enfrentarnos con estas preguntas no es nada fácil; como tampoco lo es tratar de responderlas. A veces, quisiéramos encontrar una respuesta abstracta universal que lo justifique todo. Tal vez es mas fácil darle esa responsabilidad de responder y dar sentido a nuestras vidas a fuerzas externas que parecen menos vulnerables que nosotros.

Yo soy de la creencia que la existencia humana no tiene un sentido colectivo que sea la absoluta verdad para todos. Creo que cada uno de nosotros tenemos un fin único, una misión que cumplir, que no puede ser reemplazada por nadie más. Las circunstancias únicas de nuestras vidas nos hacen aptos para responder ante la vida como solamente uno mismo puede hacerlo; nadie más puede vivir la vida de alguien más, ni una persona puede nunca reemplazar a nadie más. Eso nos hace seres únicos e irrepetibles.

¿En dónde empezar entonces a buscar, o re-encontrar ese sentido?, ¿Es algo que puedo definir como individuo o viene de otra parte?

Coincido con Victor Frankl,padre de la logoterapia, tercera escuela Vienesa de la Psicoterapia, quien propone que el sentido de la vida no es algo que se inventa por uno mismo, si no que uno mismo lo descubre. Según la logoterapia, hay tres maneras de descubrirlo:

1) Realizando una acción

2) Aceptando los dones de la existencia, como el amor

3) A través de dignificar el sufrimiento

En cuanto a la primera propuesta, las acciones concretas y cotidianas pueden llegar a completar el sentido de nuestra existencia cuando asumimos la responsabilidad y la consciencia de que los frutos de aquellas acciones van a definir quiénes somos y cuál es la huella que dejamos en el mundo. Como diría Frankl “Un hombre que se vuelve consciente de su responsabilidad ante quien lo guarda con todo su corazón, o ante una obra por terminar, nunca será capaz de tirar su vida por la borda”.

Como segunda modalidad, aceptar los dones de la existencia significa tener la capacidad de admirar la belleza del mundo y dejarse llevar por los sentimientos más sublimes que nos ofrece esta vida; siendo el amor el más poderoso de ellos. El amor es la vía única para poder llegar a conocernos profundamente y conocer a los demás.

La tercera modalidad, sucede cuando hay que enfrentarse a situaciones devastadoras, irrevocables y cuando no tenemos ningún poder de cambiar las circunstancias, como una enfermedad grave o la muerte de un ser querido. En estas situaciones la vida aún ofrece una manera de poder ejercer un valor personal supremo: Aceptar el sufrimiento, darle un sentido. No se trata de dejarse llevar por el sufrimiento o rendirse ante él; más bien se trata de ofrecer una respuesta que dignifique la existencia; es una actitud; una manera de responder ante la vida.

Un famoso dicho popular describe bastante bien esta última modalidad: “si la vida te da limones, haz una limonada”

Al final de cuentas, la libertad interior de elegir que hacer ante cualquier circunstancia, es algo que nadie te puede arrebatar, y precisamente esa libertad interior es la que confiere a la vida   intención y sentido.

Nosotros somos los arquitectos de nuestro destino.

Deseo que el próximo año, aproveches el potencial de oportunidades que se te presenten para seguir adelante con tu proyecto único de vida. Son precisamente esas cosas que consideramos cotidianas: Los amores, los proyectos, obligaciones, amistades, nostalgias y sueños, los que completan el sentido de nuestras vidas.

“Lo que un hombre necesita no es vivir sin tensión, si no esforzarse y luchar por una meta que merezca la pena”- Victor Frankl

¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

Vivir Una Vida Con Estilo

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Desde que era niña, me gustaba observar a las personas. Las veía con atención mientras hacían sus actividades comunes. Me gustaba ver cómo algunas caminaban de distinta manera- algunas muy erguidas y la mirada al frente, como si estuvieran felices de enfrentar lo que se encontraran en el camino- otras caminaban más bien cabizbajas, con la mirada perdida en el piso. Cuando observaba a las primeras me inspiraban cierta confianza. Cuando veía a las segundas, a veces, pensaba: Se ven tristes ¿Será que se les perdió algo y están tratando de encontrarlo?

La vida, este viaje que emprendemos juntos como humanidad, me parece excitante, es como ir en una rueda de la fortuna; unas veces estamos en la cima del mundo, todo nos sale bien, acumulamos éxitos… y otras veces, estamos en el fondo, nos sentimos desdichados, sufrimos pérdidas, nos sentimos en un hoyo sin poder ver qué es lo que sigue, si alguna vez volveremos a subir o nos quedaremos para siempre en el fango.

Cuando se termina el paseo en la rueda, terminamos dándonos cuenta que al final, la experiencia de vida es una acumulación de las dos partes: La cima y el fango.

Lo interesante es preguntarnos, ¿De qué manera estamos viviendo esos momentos, tanto los buenos, como los malos? ¿Qué actitud está rigiendo nuestros pensamientos, emociones y al final, nuestras acciones?

Seguramente has escuchado que cada persona tiene un “estilo” de vida. Ese conjunto de hábitos, decisiones y pensamientos que dominan nuestra vida diaria, es lo que llamamos tener un estilo de vida en específico.

También lo escuchamos continuamente en el mundo comercial donde el Marketing va dirigido a personas que tienen un cierto “estilo de vida” y son aquellas a las que las compañías eligen como presa de enfoque para vender sus productos o servicios:

¿Quieres tener un estilo de vida saludable? Compra el programa de dieta XYZ! ¿Eres de aquellas personas que aman el deporte y la aventura? Compra nuestra bicicleta de montaña doble XX o suscríbete a nuestro programa fitness ultra maratón!

Perfume Sultano, especialmente creado para las mujeres sofisticadas y elegantes.

¿Quieres estar IN y no estas en redes sociales? Olvídalo, si no tienes Facebook, no tienes vida, eres un Freak.

¿Y tú, qué estilo de vida tienes? Derrochador, minimalista, deportivo, consumista, vegano…hay categorías infinitas en nuestra sociedad.

¿Eso es todo?, ¿Tengo que definir mi “estilo” de vida eligiendo qué cosas comprar o usar para poder pertenecer a algún lugar o para ser alguien?

Con el tiempo, me di cuenta que tener un estilo de vida, es algo más que simplemente consumir determinadas cosas o actuar de determinadas maneras; que el estilo de vida en realidad viene de algo más profundo.

La buena vida, o el estilo de vida, no tiene que ver con cantidades. Tiene más que ver con una actitud, un acto, una idea, un descubrimiento…. pero sobre todo, con una búsqueda.

El buen estilo de vida es una búsqueda continua de esas experiencias que te dan una verdadera alegría de vivir; es una búsqueda que mantiene vivo tu deseo de convertirte en una persona de valor profundo, que busca una realización trascendental.

El tener, o el hacer por sí mismos, no representan vivir la vida con estilo. Como diría Jim Rohn:

“Al final de cuentas, ¿Qué es la riqueza sin carácter, la industria sin arte, la cantidad sin calidad, la empresa sin satisfacción y la posesión sin felicidad?”

¿Quieres tener un estilo de vida extraordinario?

Entonces desarrolla una extraordinaria sonrisa, piensa de forma extraordinaria, desarrolla una un interés extraordinario por los demás… desarrolla una mentalidad de logro extraordinaria… eso lo cambiará todo.

Espontaneidad v.s. Rutina…¿Aliados o Enemigos?

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No podemos negar que nos encantan las rutinas. El hombre es rutinario por naturaleza. Está en nuestro DNA.

Desde hace mucho tiempo atrás me he preguntado porqué tenemos tanta obsesión por las rutinas… ¿Porqué son tan importantes para nosotros? ,¿Porqué nos gusta convertir nuestra vida en repetidos rituales?

De alguna manera creo que es una manera de darle un sentido a nuestra vida. Vivir puede ser algo bastante escalofriante, cuando no tenemos un “plan”. Creo que detrás de todo esto, está nuestro miedo a la incertidumbre; Vivir al día, sin planes ni dirección, puede ser aterrorizante para muchas personas.

En algún lugar leí que la estructura de la sociedad es una barrera a la espontaneidad, y de hecho incrementa la probabilidad de que concedamos nuestra autenticidad a respuestas robóticas. También vemos a la repetición y a la “disciplina” y la “constancia” como algo positivo: Toda la fundación de nuestras actividades humanas está basada en la repetición.

Nos levantamos casi siempre a la misma hora. Desayunamos las mismas cosas. Tomamos el mismo tramo al trabajo. Trabajamos en lo mismo por años y años. Repetimos los mismos rituales una y otra vez: festejar cumpleaños, bodas, aniversarios y eventos religiosos. La vida pareciera correr en ciclos: Lunes a Domingo, las mismas 24 horas cada día. De la primavera, siempre sigue el verano, después el otoño y al final el invierno…antes de empezar de nuevo con la primavera. El sol pareciera que siempre sale del oriente para ocultarse de nuevo por el occidente. Nuestra vida pareciera acoplarse bien a esta aparente vida en ciclos.

En alguna parte del camino, se nos ha olvidado algo importante: Ser espontáneos. Como lo mencioné previamente, pareciera que la estructura social en la que vivimos, no nos permite expresarnos totalmente en libertad. Desde que tengo memoria, siempre crecí en un mundo inundado de reglas. Hasta el más simple acto de despertar, ya venía dictado por una cierta hora. Mis papás me ponían el despertador, para “obligarme” a despertarme a cierta hora, así que pueda vestirme, desayunar e ir a la escuela siempre a la misma hora. Una vida dictada al compás del reloj. Hay una hora para dormir, ciertas horas para trabajar, y ciertas horas para comer. El no seguir las reglas siempre traía consecuencias negativas.

Del otro lado de la moneda, también escuchamos aquí y allá que tenemos que ser auténticos y actuar de acuerdo a nuestros deseos. Toda la publicidad hoy en día se basa en esa promesa. Vive tu autenticidad, expresa tu propia personalidad… compra este teléfono/coche/casa/refresco… y sé tú mismo! Compra todo de las mismas trasnacionales globales. Hello, ¿Me perdí de algo? Toda una vida siguiendo reglas monótonas en todas las áreas de mi vida y de pronto me salen con que tengo que ser auténtica…consumiendo las mismas cosas, las mismas marcas globales para las masas… ¿Qué es todo esto?

Ser espontáneo… lo que pienso de ser espontáneo, es simplemente, seguir el compás de la vida… la música de la vida, a mi propio ritmo. Es simplemente actuar en el momento presente, sin preconcebirlo ni teniendo alguna intención específica. La acción auténtica que viene de adentro, no requiere ninguna regla, ni opinión ni condición.

Simplemente seguir el ritmo de la vida. Escuchar el compás del corazón. En nuestro camino por este mundo siendo seres humanos, se nos ha olvidado la palabra derivada de Seres…“Ser”.

Ser espontáneo es simplemente SER.

No tengo que pensar de una cierta manera, ni consumir ciertas cosas, ni seguir las mismas reglas que otros para expresar “mi autenticidad”. No estoy totalmente en contra de las rutinas, siempre y cuando las elijamos de forma consciente. Desarrollar nuestras propias rutinas que nos ayuden a expresar nuestro ser auténtico es algo maravilloso. La rutina y la espontaneidad no tienen que ser dos polos opuestos, siempre y cuando realmente actuemos desde nuestra forma más pura del ser, escuchando nuestra propia voz.

En todo este bullicio, simplemente quiero volver a SER.

La espontaneidad es la música del alma, la inspiración última del Todo.

What is the big deal about habits?

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Photo by Plush Design Studio from Pexels

Habits are a trending topic nowadays. Everywhere you look, you get confronted by a lot of advertising encouraging you to get the “good habits” and to stop the “bad habits”.

You can find hundreds of books in the bookstores or Amazon: “Habits for success”, “Atomic habits”, “Every single day, get smarter, better and faster by changing your habits”… the list is endless.

I can feel the obsession, the promise behind. We are longing for efficiency in our lives. We want to achieve more and better. We don´t want to deal with chaos, and uncertainty. We like the orderly World that habits create for us.

But, what is really behind developing habits?

When we look at the definition of habit according to the Cambridge dictionary, it says: “Habit is a settled or regular tendency to practice, especially one that is hard to give up; Something that you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it”.

Doesn’t matter if we consider the habit to be a good one, or a bad one. We are conditioning ourselves to follow a pattern; to put a system in place, so we can just play it out during the day, and so that at the end of it, we can run the to do list in our heads and say: “Checked, checked, checked”.

It rings an alarm inside me. Why do we want to become more unconscious of our activities?

I cannot deny it. I personally loved to plan and create schedules of my days. I have been a fan of creating routines to make easier my life. I liked to listen for advice and implement routine habits that experts, doctors, neighbors, and best seller authors recommend for a “Successful, healthy and longing life”, although I cannot really say it really worked for me. There was always this feeling of something missing. My days looked perfectly in order, but I am still longing for something else.

One of my most precious activities is to take a walk in the forest regularly. One day, while I was walking, I stopped for a moment to observe the forest itself: So wildly beautiful. Trees from all highs and shapes, forming together a beautiful green scenery; Birds signing and passing by, the sound of the water flowing from the river. The smells of the wet soil. The whole thing looked chaotic in a way, every element of the nature just doing it´s thing, with no apparent order; But somehow it looked all to be in harmony, and extremely beautiful. Suddenly, a thought came back to me: Am I creating a prison for myself?

We humans like structures, and we like to have a logical explanation for all the things we cannot understand. But at the same time, we love freedom. We suffer immensely, the moment we feel our freedom has been taken away. It is a funny paradox: We long for happiness and freedom, but at the same time, we create a little prison of our own, by attaching ourselves to imposing patterns to live our lives.

We set up our alarms to wake up everyday at the same time. We impose ourselves an exercise and meal routine, to remain healthy. We go to work at the same time, taking the same way every single day. We set a schedule even for enjoyment, to make sure we have time in our calendar to experience some sort of pleasure: Have a dinner with friends, travel, go for yoga, go for a walk… it might feel at the beginning like by establishing habitual patterns, we are getting more efficient with our time and with our energy and achieving more. But looking closely, on the longer term it looks more like imprisonment.

Whether is going to the gym, or smoking that cigarrete every morning; It has the same effect in our minds: It is an unconscious act. We stopped listening to our body and our inner senses. Our body, is no longer self-sufficient, it needs to be told what to do and when. We became slaves of our own logic.

I love a quote from a famous Indian guru, that I heard some time ago, and still remains in my mind everytime I reflect about this topic. In his talk, he asked to the audience: “What is more efficient, a manicure garden, where everything is perfectly taken care of, or a forest, which no one takes care of, and that looks like a mess?” If the manicure garden stops getting taken care of, after one month it is finished. But the forest, it stays alive forever; Million years can pass and it will still be there, so it is at the end far more efficient because it is self-sustained. Maybe to our eyes, it looks like a chaos, but is it really?

What if it´s the other way around? What if we have been wrong, thinking that we need structures and systems in place, our little prisons where life works perfectly and orderly, and this will lead us to happiness? What if there is another way to live? What if we could just be conscious to our own body and mind, and just do what it is necessary?

Life is for expansion, not for imprisonment. What we call “chaos” out there is nothing more than happenings in the world that we just don´t understand, because we cannot find any logical definition to it. Maybe, chaos is not inefficiency, but just a lack of understanding.

I felt like getting a hit in my head with a brick, looking at my own life. This new way of looking at life, made me question: What is the kind of life I want? Do I need to become more efficient? Or to become more free? What makes me more happy?

Being conscious, is being really alive. We know we are alive, because there is certain consciousness of this life, we feel it and see it. Why should we try to automatize ourselves with unconscious habits, so that we can get more things done, if we will not experience life consciously and intensely, like it should be? Are we here to act as a robots, achieving and accumulating stuff? Aren´t we here for living in the most conscious, intense and beautiful way as we can? If our life is limited and just last a brief moment compared to the life time span of the planet, and the cosmos, then why do we want to miss it?

My resolution is simple: Aim for a life self-sufficient. Aim for freedom, by listening the authentic needs of body and soul. Live the life as more conscious as you can possibly be, intensely, joyfully, and in the present moment. Because this is all there is, and will be. The rest, may be just an illusion. If you are conscious, there will be no such things as “habits”. You will do what is right for you, here and now.

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Adversity is your best teacher

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I heard the word «Adversity» first time when I was a child, watching the Disney cartoon Mulan. Towards the end of the story, when Mulan just left the Imperial Palace with the great ovation from the croud for having rescued China from The Huns invasion, the Emperor watches her leaving with attention and turns to the Military Captain to tell him «The Flower that blooms in adversity, is the most rare and most beautiful of all».

Somehow, this phrase got stuck in my little brain back then, being only a little child. I asked myself: What is the meaning of adversity? How can a flower which grows in such difficult conditions, be considered more beautiful than the others, that had a more easy life, and better chances for blooming more beautifully?

Over the years, I came to understand- slowly, but surely, why. Adversity has a bad reputation. We don´t like to deal with difficult situations, with sad moments. Although they are innevitable, we humans try to avoid them, by neglecting them, or covering them with other superficial blankets, so we can just pass through, with the less pain possible. We try to cover the Sun with the finger, as we say often.

But if you look closer to the suffering, turns out, there is some richness on it, some invaluable treasure, that cannot be tasted at the moment, but only when your are in the middle of it, at the center of the turmoil. When you experience a loss, or a truly painful situation, you are left there, alone. You have fallen. You have nothing left to lose. There is just nakedness, ripped and unconfortable Truth. This is the Truth about yourself. There is nothing left, but you. And at that precise moment, something beautiful happens: You discover yourself.

Since there is nothing to lose, nothing really matters. You start to act with true authenticity, and with the humbleness that comes when starting back from Zero. You go back to being a child again. Playful, you are not afraid to take risks, you keep falling, like when you learned to walk, but you keep getting up. You develop a character of a warrior. Since you are not distracted with so much noise around you, you can see what is truly important.

When we analyse history and those people who did remarkable things for our World and our Humanity, most of those people came from an adverse environment. They went through physical disabilities, rejections from society. They were the anarchist, the lonely, the bullied. The classic example, is the German young long-haired teenager high school dropout, who in 1890 went to Italy to wander on the streets of Pavia, after his german teachers had told him that he was a hopeless thing, which never will amount to anything. His questions destroyed the discipline of the classroom, so he would be better off out. Indeed he did, because he had all the time and freedom to wander around and let his mind come back to those questions that intrigued him. His name was Albert Einstein, and his questions and observations changed the World.

In our modern World, things are not as they were in the past. Thanks to sophisticated technology and vast efficiently arranged food, water and thousands of other commodities and supplies, we have developed societies that do not need to worry anymore about subsistance. We have, to an extent, such an easy life, that we have became accustomed to it. Confort and easyness became the normal. It became so easy to accumulate stuff, that we don´t know any other way to live. We lost contact to the nature. We lost contact to our spirit. We lost the essence of beauty on the simplicity, and we let pass everyday the miracle of life. To the point that a material loss make us suffer to an irrational extent. The loss of a beloved one, becomes a devil tragedy, an event so unfair, as if someone somewhere out there would be moving us pulling out stringes, like marionettes, enjoying our suffering.

I come to believe however, that adversity can be a very valuable teacher. It maintains the balance of a well lived life. With the adversity, you keep growing, you keep fine-tunning the truly remarkable and beautiful humanity in you. We can enjoy with much more intensity the good things that happen to us. We can truly delight ourselves with the sour-sweetness of life. As a popular saying goes «The sweet never would taste so sweet without the sour».

I am forever grateful for all the bad things that had happened to me. Without them, I would not be the person I am today. Every single pain I went through, has been worth it, because I keep waking up every morning, with air in my lungs, with beats on my heart. With the Sun touching my skin, I feel amazed every single day, of the beauty of life. I observe the nature and consider it as something divine, something so pure and so simple, so essential. Adversity created the beauty of the world, and will forever be the catalyst of change, and the seed of life.

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