Creating time

The following conversation will be a familiar one:
"Hey, do you want to meet up tomorrow?"
"No, sorry, I can’t."
"Just for an hour."
"No, really, I don’t have time."
Isn’t that weird? How is it possible to not have time? I mean, seriously – isn’t it always there?

As evolution has progressed, human life has gotten busier and busier. We have so many jobs and responsibilities, so many hobbies to do and TV series to follow, so many dreams to chase and emails to send – it seems that there are just not enough hours in each day.

We have started to believe that we lack time. But do we? Just think about it for a moment – all the stuff that you do each day, how much of it is really necessary? All the news you watch and read, the never-ending shopping trips, boring lectures and useless meetings. All the worrying. All the hours on the phone or on Facebook. Aren’t we wasting a big chunk of our time with random crap?

Ultimately it’s a question of priorities – what do you really want to do? Because when you really want to do something, you always find the time. When you are ill and want to get better, you find the time to go to a doctor, even if you are really occupied with work. When you want a career change, you find the time to study; when you crave love, you find the time to date. As Ernst Ferstl has said:

“When we don’t have enough time, ususally we don’t have enough desire.”

Whatever you want to do in life – there is time for it. It just depends on how you spend those precious hours… If you prefer to stay lazy on the sofa when a friend invites you out, that’s fine, but don’t blame the lack of time. Equally, if you prefer to stick to a secure job, don’t blame the rigid working routine for not allowing you to explore the world. Don’t say that you are too busy too cook a healthy meal when you spend all night long watching TV. And if you really want to iron your pyjamas, don’t complain that there isn’t time to read a book.

Whatever it is we like to do – by setting priorities, we create time for it. Whether it’s realizing a dream, having a drink with a friend or simply watching a sunset. Giving importance to what we love, the stuff that really matters to us, and reducing all the unnecessary things that keep us so terrfibly busy.

There is always time. The question is – what do we chose to do with it?

Planting possibilities

What do fears and dreams have in common? They both represent possible manifestations of life. It’s like having the idea for a film – it’s real, even though it may never be realised.

Life is full with endless options. There is no written script, there are no limitations. As they say in India, „Sir, everything is possible!“

Many people argue that this is not true, that not everybody has the same possibilities. An African boy who hardly goes to school won’t have the same chances of becoming a scientist or a rich businessman as, say, an English boy who gets private tuition four times a week. But there is a big difference between chances and possibilities. Chances talk about whether something is likely or unlikely to happen; possibilities say whether it actually CAN happen.

If you want to make friends, but you stay at home all day, then meeting somebody will be impossible. You have to make an effort, you have to create situations that favour whatever it is you want to do. In other words – you have to plant seeds.

Lots of things will grow in any garden, even if you don’t put out any seeds. But most probably nothing will grow that could be of any interest to you. Only weeds and fruitless trees. If you want to be able to harvest something that you want, an apple for example, you have to go and plant that apple tree first. And then you have to wait – because seeds need time to grow.

It’s the same with possibilities – you have to create them. Sometimes they arrive with surprise, like when you suddenly find a full fruit tree in a hidden corner, planted years ago and already forgotten about. But somebody, at some point, must have planted that tiny seed which made the tree become possible. No seed, no tree.

So whatever it is we want to do in life, whatever our aspirations, dreams and hopes are – if we want them to become real, we have to first create favourable circumstances. Planting the seeds of possibilities.

Being patient

Here we are in 2012 – might be an exciting year...

With the economy, environment and even society all moving rapidly in a downward direction and stress coming from all sides, I’d like to dedicate the first blog entry of the year to something we probably all wished for on new year’s eve. Something we all need – good health!

When we are ill, we usually become a Patient and go to a Doctor. But what does it actually mean, being a Patient? And who's a Doctor?

Although the origins of the word have to do with suffering, PATIENT, in common use, means to be able to wait. Of course there are the waiting rooms in each health centre, but being a Patient is much more than that. Looking at illness and the healing process leading to health, patience is possibly the most important remedy for any complaint – giving your body and mind time to rebalance.
While quick treatment is vital in the emergeny room, with pretty much all other problems it’s best to allow for a slow approach to getting better. That doesn’t mean that it always has to take forever, but taking copious amounts of drugs to speed up healing is not really what being a patient is about. The best cure for a nasty cold is still to have three days of hot lemon and bedrest. Everything else might be good for the pharmaceutical industry or your employer, but it won’t provide what a sick organism most needs – time.

Fast-food has become almost a religion, we love fast communication, we value fast transport, fast careers, fast growth. Fast, faster – who’s fastest? What is it with our 21^st century’s obsession with speed? What is wrong with slowing down?

Looking up DOCTOR in the dictionary, this is the first definition that comes up: ‘A teacher; one skilled in a profession, or branch of knowledge learned man.’ 'From the latin docere – to teach.’
This means that when you go to a doctor, ideally you would be taught something – that’s what you would expect from a teacher. The reality looks very different though: Impatient patients give the responsibility of THEIR health to the doctor, who takes on the role of a car mechanic – that is, fixing things.
Despite massively increased wealth and scientific advance, the people on this planet are as sick as they always have been. Just the names of the diseases have changed.
The problem is that, really, we have hardly learned anything yet. And how can we, without guidance from a teacher? And without wanting to take responsibility for our own health?

So the next time you see a doctor, ask for some decent advice on how you can improve your health. If your doctor doesn’t want to teach you anything, find someone else who will. Whether it’s helpful information related to diet or exercise, the power of the mind or what to do with gut feelings – there is so much to learn! All we need is a little patience.

Do what you love

There is a book by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt called “The two lifes of Adolf H.” In it, Hitler is portrayed as a young man who had always wanted to become an artist. When he finally applied to art school, he was rejected by…the Jewish director. The rest is history. Creation turned into destruction. Free thinking into an obsession.

What if Adolf H. had been accepted at art school back then? No world war, no holocaust? Maybe instead a new Picasso? Who knows…

A few days ago I saw a photo on Facebook saying, “The world needs more people who do what they love.” I couldn’t agree more. We have so many people stuck in some job they don’t enjoy, how can anything good come out of that? Despite all material wealth the world is hosting less and less happy souls. Depression is quickly becoming the number one disease of our civilization.

When I talk about this with others, often I get told, “yeah, but not everybody can do what they want.” No, not all the time, that’s true. But there’s a big difference between having a shit day at work, and not liking what you do. If you have a shit day, well, let it be a shit day. If you don’t like what you do, change it!

The beauty of humankind lies in its diversity – everybody is different, everybody likes different things, different partners, different jobs. If everybody chose the career they really wanted, there would be very few jobs no-one would want to do. And if we can send somebody to the moon, surely we could come up with a system and technology so that nobody has to do these unwanted jobs.

What happens when you don’t like your work? Over time, you become depressed. And, possibly even worse, you become dull and lose creativity. Creativity that is so desperately needed to solve all of our problems. To evolve into something better. To change.

By not encouraging everybody to do what they desire to do, sadness and destruction are being promoted. Sometimes more sadness, as seen in the many unhappy faces on the streets, and sometimes more destruction – with the extreme example of Adolf H.

So here’s a call for a DO WHAT YOU LOVE revolution. If you spend more time sad than happy while at work, then what’s the point? A waiter who doesn’t want to be a waiter will be a crap waiter. I have met plenty of people who love being waiters, let’s them do it. Same with car mechanics, lawyers, cleaners, doctors, builders, engineers, teachers, farmers, and so on. Not everybody wants to be a football player, musician or president. I have heard that there are even some who still want to be bank managers…

Whatever it is – chose something you love to do and get inspired! And then share this love and inspiration. Spread happiness! Because the world needs it. And life deserves it.

PS: For additional reading I recommend the chapter of ‘The unsuccessful merchant’ in THE LITTLE BUDDHA. Happy X-mas!

Food and Freedom

So the Mayans, or those who have interpreted their calender, were wrong. The 28^th of October has passed by almost unnoticed. The good news – the world hasn’t ended, we are still here. The bad news – nothing has changed. We are in the same situation, almost drowning in our own shit.

What now? Well, I guess one option would be to put faith into the 21^st of December 2012, the next date of big change. But I’m not sure how reliable that is. Another option would be to start digging away the shit surrounding us. But where to begin? There are too many problems to name. To do so, I would have to stop writing stories and blogs and instead produce a whole encyclopedia of stuff that needs to be fixed.
Nevertheless, to start somewhere, here’s a small selection of situations which have to be changed urgently if we ever want to see a better world.

Food logistics
In a recent conversation with an Ex-Senior logistics manager of the biggest Swiss cargo airline, I was told a nice example of the perversity of the present food trade: Tomatoes, grown in Israel, travel via Zürich to Holland. That’s kind of acceptable. But then, similar tomatoes grown in Holland travel the same route to Israel. All in the name of profit…
We, the customers, promote this absurdity by constantly wanting everything to become cheaper and cheaper. Yet should’t food be about quality? Does it make sense that we fuck up the planet only to get fresh strawberries all year round? And is it fair to exploit farmers in poor countries only so that we can save up for a new tele? After all, why should a supermarket manager in France earn more than a farmer who grows the food which is sold on the shelves? It’s actually disgraceful for the human race.

Democracy
I was really disappointed when I read a couple of days ago that the planned referendum in Greece was cancelled. Finally a head-of-state had come to senses and remembered that the voice of the general public ought to be listened to. Always, not only when there are elections. The Greek situation, being hopelessly in debt and slaved to the Euro, is very serious. We’re not talking about which colour the new office of the president should have. It’s an important, far-reaching decision that affects pretty much everybody living in Greece. Maybe they don’t want to pay huge amounts of interests only to keep a currency that is doomed anyway. But thanks to the influence of Merkel, Sarkozy and the other ‘leaders’, the Greek people have been basically told to shut up again. Is that democracy? Is that what Plato had talked about?

Borders
Here’s a little challenge for you: try to explain to a 6-year old the concept of borders. Seriously. I have tried it and failed miserably. Why? Because there is no logical explanation. Borders are just another senseless thing we created.
Many would argue that if you didn’t have nations protected by ‘walls’, everybody from the poor countries would go to the rich ones. But I think this is a misconception. Almost all the people I have met over the years prefer to live in their home countries. Some might enjoy travelling, but only few want to move to a different country. No matter whether they are from Argentina, India, Senegal, Spain or Germany. Now, if some countries become rich because they steal from the poor, leaving them with hardly enough to survive, surely it’s no surprise if the poor start migrating to the rich lands. So to solve the problem of mass immigration we don’t need passport control, but fair trade!
The worst thing about borders is that we are told that we are still free. Yet trying to create freedom and erecting walls at the same time is like trying to create a baby and putting on a condom – it’s totally counterproductive!

What to do? Maybe we should bomb the big supermarkets, kill all politicians and throw away the passport. Alternatively, we could buy local food, stand up for injustice and invite someone from a different country into our home. Opening doors to new possibilities…

Bring it on!

Waiting sucks! Waiting for the bus, for the weekend, for the weather to change. Waiting for an email or message or the Andalusian postman, waiting to get paid, waiting for a woman, waiting for that big idea which will bring wealth and fame. Worst of all – waiting for things to get better.

Fortunately, we might not have to wait much longer. As I read the other day, all of the 2012 prophets have been wrong. Not so much as to what might happen or not, but WHEN. There was a slight miscalculation of 420 days, which, to be fair, can happen when analysing ancient Mayan scripts… I won’t bother you with details – there are a few sites which explain it all, so if you are interested, do a search yourself. Bottom line is this: the date of the Mayan calender ending is not the 21^st of December 2012, but the 28^th of October...come on, guess....correct – 2011! That’s in 10 days.

It’s probably all a whole load of bullshit – if anything, latest by 2012 we will witness the manifestation of a self-fulfilling prophecy where we just blow up the whole planet because we are too stupid to live together as one species.

However, from what I hear, I must say that I have quite a bit of respect for those old Mayan astronomers. Maybe they were indeed able to come up with a system to forecast certain evolutionary cycles. After all, they didn’t have to deal with text messages, tele and taxforms every day and therefore had plenty of time to spend on more interesting aspects of life.

The Mayans never talked about apocalyptic end-of-the-world scenarios. They simply observed patterns when looking at how the universe changes. The energy of the universe effecting anything that lies within it, the Mayans used these patterns to calculate likely events in the future. More often than not, their predictions were totally accurate.

So, what about the 28^th then? What can we expect? Well, if the bloody date is right, if the Mayans were as precise as their reputation, the 28^th of October 2011 will be the day when we complete our Evolutionary Transformation Process. Sounds cool, ay! But what the fuck does it mean?

Well, I guess it just means that something ends and something else starts. Whatever that is. A time or moment which stimulates change, just like the springtime stimulates growth.

So looking 10 days ahead, everything which has started to change already is likely to gain incredible speed and change even more. That might mean a big war, massive demonstrations or a political breakdown. A natural disaster wiping out half of the planet, a global mass panic caused by a solar storm blowing away all satellites and bringing communication to a standstill, or perhaps the final collapse of the world economy. It could also mean that we suddenly wake up on Friday the 28^th and decide that it’s actually much better to live together in peace and harmony. We might realise that borders are totally self-destructive obstacles no one needs and so we simply get rid off them. Or we might become all englightened at the same time, with hell exploding right next to us. Who knows? Maybe some clever species from out of space will finally have mercy and come down to shake us back into sanity.

I don’t know what will happen. Or when. But when I look at my feelings, and when I listen to what others say and feel, I think it’s pretty likely that fairly soon something very important is going to happen. We can’t keep on accelerating forever.

So, rather than waiting and waiting for things to get better and trying to save the world, something which will probably never happen, I say: “Dear Universe and God of all Mayan astronomers, please bring it on!!”

We are ready for change!

Give

I think most of my life I spend searching for something - the perfect job, the perfect partner, the perfect home. Where are they? Do they actually exist? Can they exist?

It used to be so easy – you took on the job of your Mum or Dad, married somebody from down the road and stayed in the village you were born in. Thanks to globalization and its endless possibilities things look different nowadays. The curse of choice!

Especially in the so-called ‘developed world’, where food and shelter are secured, it seems that new challenges have to be found to justify our presence on this planet. Our strive for perfection gets stronger and stronger, with self-fullfilment becoming our highest goal.

Searching, always searching. The big question is – what happens once we find what we’ve been looking for?

I know very few people who are content with what they have. There is so much desirable stuff out there and so we always feel that we lack something which in turn keeps us from being totally happy.

We want more money and at the same time less material things. More adventure and less risk. More drugs and less illness. More friends and less responsibilities. We hate stress but peaceful times tend to bore us. We are craving security but are constantly afraid of losing freedom. There’s always something we want but can’t have. To sum it up: We are a bunch of truly unsatisfied individuals.

To be honest, I don’t really know what to do about this. One thing which helps though is to shift the focus away from our personal desires. To look around and see if somebody else might need our help. Giving rather than wanting.

It could be a surprise visit to a friend, offering a helping hand, making a compliment or simply sharing an honest smile. Anything which doesn’t involve wanting something which in the end won’t satisfy anyway.

So, once a day, make somebody happy! Perhaps this way, we’ll find happiness ourselves.