Zen Habits Radio | Leo Babauta - The Zen Habits Audio Blog and Podcast - Take Your Zen to Go

By Leo Babauta Running a business often is about sales, revenue, marketing, and the bottom line. But it can have soul too. In my new Habits of Entrepreneurs video interview series, I’ve recently published two fantastic interviews with entrepreneurs who do things differently. And they’re incredibly successful at doing things this way. Let me introduce Chip Conley, hotel founder and best-selling author of Peak, and my friend Jesse Jacobs, founder of Samovar Tea Lounge. Chip founded a series of eclectic, beautiful boutique hotels in San Francisco more than a decade ago, and survived the collapse of the dotcom bubble. He became a best-selling author and in 2012 gave 165 speeches (!). And in this short video, he shares how surrender is a part of his daily routine. You can watch the full 40-minute interview with Chip by subscribing to the Habits of Entrepreneur series. Jesse Jacobs on Business & Mindfulness In this interview, Jesse shares how he incorporates mindfulness in his daily life, and in running Samovar Tea Lounge. He also shares how tea can help create a mindful life, and much more. Watch the short clip above, or get the full interview.    

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.’ ~Thich Nhat Hanh By Leo Babauta The end of procrastination is the art of letting go. I’ve been a lifelong procrastinator, at least until recent years. I would put things off until deadline, because I knew I could come through. I came through on tests after cramming last minute, I turned articles in at the deadline after waiting until the last hour, I got things done. Until I didn’t. It turns out procrastinating caused me to miss deadlines, over and over. It stressed me out. My work was less-than-desirable when I did it last minute. Slowly, I started to realize that procrastination wasn’t doing me any favors. In fact, it was causing me a lot of grief. But I couldn’t quit. I tried a lot of things. I tried time boxing and goal setting and accountability and the Pomodoro Technique and Getting Things Done. All are great methods, but they only last so long. Nothing really worked over the long term. That’s because I wasn’t getting to the root problem. I hadn’t figured out the skill that would save me from the procrastination. Until I learned about letting go. Letting go first came to me when I was quitting smoking. I had to let go of the “need” to smoke, the use of my crutch of cigarettes to deal with stress and problems. Then I learned I needed to let go of other false needs that were causing me problems: sugar, junk food, meat, shopping, beer, possessions. I’m not saying I can never do these things again once I let go of these needs, but I let go of the idea that they’re really necessary. I let go of an unhealthy attachment to them. Then I learned that distractions and the false need to check my email and news and other things online … were causing me problems. They were causing my procrastination. So I learned to let go of those too. Here’s the process I used to let go of the distractions and false needs that cause procrastination: I paid attention to the pain they cause me, later, instead of only the temporary comfort/pleasure they gave me right away. I thought about the person I want to be, the life I want to live. I set my intentions to do the good work I think I should do. I watched my urges to check things, to go to the comfort of distractions. I saw that I wanted to escape discomfort of something hard, and go to the comfort of something familiar and easy. I realized I didn’t need that comfort. I could be in discomfort and nothing bad would happen. In fact, the best things happen when I’m in discomfort. And then I smile, and breathe, and let go. And one step at a time, become the person I want to be. ‘You can only lose what you cling to.’ ~Buddha A Month of Letting Go If you’d like to practice letting go, join my Sea Change Program, where we’re doing A Month of Letting Go in December. We’ll be focusing on letting go of distractions, possessions, false needs and more. In Sea Change, you’ll get a few articles on this topic, along with accountability in our forum, a live webinar with me, and reminder emails. Join us here: Sea Change Program. photo credit: L-T-L

By Leo Babauta Do you ever have one of those days when you just can’t seem to find focus? When you fritter away your time on nothingnesses, distractions, wandering without really doing something important? Or one of those weeks? I have those days regularly. I can find myself “working” for several hours, but at the end of those several hours have nothing to show for it. I feel like I’m floating around, with no anchor, no focal point. So how do we find focus? Take a step back. Back away from the browser and the phone, and give yourself a moment’s space to think. What do you really want to do right now? What’s most important? What kind of person do you want to be? Maybe you have 5 things you want to do. Pick one. Subtract. Once you’re clear, you need to clear everything. Bookmark all your tabs (Cmd-Shift-D in Chrome), quit the browser if you don’t need it or close all open tabs if you do. Close all programs you don’t need. Have only the window/tab open that you absolutely need. Now sit there with your task. Dive in. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted. You’ll have the urge to go check something. That’s a nice urge — just watch it and smile. Don’t act on the urge. Just smile. Now go back to what you chose to do. Do it for 10 minutes, however long you feel is pushing the boundaries of what’s comfortable for a little bit. Then give yourself a nice reward: a short walk, some stretches, checking the thing you had the urge to check (but only for 5 minutes), meditation, read a book, or have some tea. Now go back. Repeat. With a smile. photo credit: Nina Matthews Photography

By Leo Babauta The tendency of our lives, businesses, art, is to keep adding: more furniture, clothes, gadgets, tasks, appointments, features to websites and apps, words to our writing. Continual addition isn’t sustainable or desirable: Too many things to do means we’re always busy, with no time for rest, stillness, contemplation, creativity, time with loved ones. Overwhelming customers with choices means they’re less likely to make an actual choice. They’d prefer that we curate the best. Too many possessions is clutter, visual stress, cleaning, maintenance, debt, less happiness. Too many tasks makes it harder to focus on any one thing or get anything done. Too many things we want to learn means we never learn anything well. Subtraction is beautiful: it creates space, time, clarity. Subtraction is necessary: otherwise we are overburdened. Subtraction can be painful: it means letting go of a child. Subtraction is an art that improves with practice. Subtraction can be practiced on your schedule, task list, commitments list, possessions, reading list, writing, product line, distractions. What can you subtract right now? photo credit: Ludovico Sinz [Cane Rosso (busy!)]

By Leo Babauta Most of us deal with jealousy in some form, and when it comes up, it’s never pretty. It might be jealousy when your girlfriend seems interested in someone else, or when one of your best friends becomes close with someone else, or when your parents give a lot of attention to your sibling, or when other people are having more fun than you. Why do we get jealous? What harm does it do us? How do we overcome it? I’ll admit that I get jealous, and the me that gets jealous is not my favorite self. I don’t like myself when I get jealous. So what do I do? I watch myself. I see it happening. I acknowledge it. And then I give myself a hug. Let’s look at little deeper at jealousy first, and then go over what we can do about it. What is Jealousy? Jealousy is simply an emotional reaction to a past wound. It gets triggered when something in the present reminds us of what hurt us before. We fear abandonment. Our parents get divorced (mine did), our spouse cheats on us, our best friend leaves us. And so, because this hurt us so much, we remember it in our hearts, and it becomes incredibly difficult to forget it. It becomes a part of us, this wound, this fear. It surfaces at times when it’s not helpful. It starts to control us. And so this wound becomes a controlling factor in our lives, and we become the worst selves that we can be. We don’t want that. Let’s learn to be our better selves. How to Heal the Wounds and Overcome Jealousy Jealousy works because it happens without us realizing it’s happening, or without looking deeper into what’s happening. It has an unseen power over us, because it’s unseen. So first we have to see it. Recognize when you’re jealous. Don’t look away. We don’t like to acknowledge the bad parts of us, because then we’re admitting we’re not always great. But it’s important, because if we don’t, it has more power over us. So recognize it, acknowledge it. Then realize that it’s an old wound from the past. This is your old self that’s gotten hurt, and because of this, your old self is scared, angry, anxious. Afraid of abandonment. Angry at others for threatening to abandon you. This is perfectly OK. It’s completely understandable to be hurt when someone violates your trust. Your old self is justified. But that’s in the past. You need to give your old self a hug, and say that it’s OK to grieve, but also acknowledge that you need to let go and move on and grow. It also helps to realize that the past wound only happened because you had a self-centered view of the universe. You took your parents’ divorce, or your spouse cheating on you, as a judgment of you as a person, as an abandonment of you after they judged you and found you lacking. That’s not true, though. They left for reasons of their own — they were afraid, they were dealing with their own issues of abandonment and jealousy, they weren’t mature enough to commit, and so on. The reasons they left had nothing to do with you, and if you realize that, it might hurt less. Heal the wounds with compassion. Then grow. How to Grow Let’s heal the wounds and then become our better selves: Don’t act on jealousy. When you recognize it, pause, watch the fear and the urges to act jealously, and just sit and watch it. Don’t let jealousy rule your actions. Take some time away from the action if needed. Imagine your better self. What’s the person you want to be? Do you want to be jealous, or would you rather be secure in yourself, confident, happy, and happy for others? Imagine this better self, then act consistently with that self. Relieve your suffering. When you act in jealousy, it hurts others. It hurts you. This doesn’t feel good. Learn to see the suffering you’re causing, in others and in yourself. And realize that’s not how you want to live. This suffering is entirely caused by acting out of fear. Instead, act compassionately — with compassion for others but also yourself, by letting the fear go.

By Leo Babauta I’m continually trying to create new things, from new blog posts, to books and courses and novels, to new ventures. And as I create these things, I’ve been watching my creation process, hoping to learn about how it works. For most creators, I think it’s just this Black Box of Creativity, where cool things come out but it’s not clear what you need to put in, or what the hell happens inside the black box. It’s a mystery. Except it doesn’t have to be. Creativity is a powerful tool to help anyone, from the parent trying to find new things to inspire his kids, to the small businessperson looking for a new direction, to the writer or artist stuck or feeling uninspired. So in this post, I’ll briefly explain how creativity works (as I’ve observed it), and then share some tips on how to do it. How Creativity Works When you come up with a new idea, where does it come from? Does it just come out of the blue? Are you a genius that has created something from nothing, godlike and mysterious in your ways? No. It’s not a completely new idea — it’s something new created from one or more old things. Creativity is the taking of old ideas, and remixing them in new ways that is individual to the creator. The raw materials are out there for anyone to use — look at the ideas all around you, in the online world and in the real world as you walk around each day. There are millions and billions of these ideas, and you can remix them in new ways. They say there are no new ideas, but the truth is, we can use old ideas in new ways. Let’s look at a few brief examples: Zen Habits was invented as I studied Zen concepts of mindfulness and presence, along with the ideas of productivity, simplicity and creating habits. I combined them all in various ways to create my approach to life that I share here, and am still remixing these and other ideas in different ways each year. Zen itself is a remixing of ideas of Chán Buddhism from China with the Japanese culture, and Chán Buddhism is (essentially) a refocusing of the ideas of Buddhism on meditation as the key path to enlightenment. All of these remixing and refocusing of ideas were gradual and evolutionary rather than sudden creations. Twitter was invented by a number of people, each of whom contributed ideas that shaped the social network, but at its base, Twitter remixed the ideas of text messaging with blogging and other existing online social network ideas. You can see how creativity works — take existing ideas, and remix them, often multiple times in a process of evolution as new ideas come into the mix. So how do we do it? Well, there’s no one way, but below, I’ll offer some ideas. How to Do It What follows are some ideas I’ve found to be important in my experience: Create time for solitude. In interviewing others, I found that solitude is the No. 1 creative habit of highly creative people. If you’re immersed in online distractions and other busy-ness, you’ll never have the space to consider the ideas you’ve gleaned from elsewhere, or think about how to remix them. So while connection is important (see other steps below), time for solitude is just as critical and often forgotten. Search for interesting ideas. What are other people doing? Don’t read about the ideas of others so you can compare yourself to them and feel bad, but simply for the cultivation of interesting ideas. They’re all over, in blogs and online magazines, to the people you meet every day who are doing interesting things, to the friends and family you interact with regularly. Read a lot, observe more. Keep an idea file. As you find interesting ideas, throw them into a text file. You don’t need to ever use them, but just keep notes. You can review this every couple of weeks, and see if anything sparks something for you. Reflect on ideas, apply them to your field. Are you a novelist? Can you take ideas from your favorite books, like magical realism or suspense devices,

By Leo Babauta Have a powerful reason — when things get difficult, “because it sounds nice” or “to look good” aren’t going to cut it. Start tiny, with a simple but unbreakable promise to yourself to do one small thing every single day. Watch your urges, and learn not to act on childish whims. Listen to your self-rationalizations, and don’t believe their lying ways. Enjoy the habit, or you won’t stay with it longer than a week’s worth of sunrises.  

By Leo Babauta When you’re feeling resentful or angry about something, it’s worth stopping to consider why. This morning, I woke up to a dirty kitchen, and as I do most mornings, I started cleaning it up. Washing dishes, wiping counters, putting dishes away, and so on. I do this a lot. And I found myself feeling resentful. Why didn’t other people clean this up? Why am I the one who has to clean it up all the time? And I watched my resentment. And I saw at its root a feeling of entitlement, that everyone should do things the way I want them to do it. A feeling of wanting to control others. A feeling that others should be what I want them to be. I’m at the center of the universe, and everyone else is a supporting character in my story. Of course, that’s not true. They are their own people, and don’t want to be controlled, and want to live how they want to live. I’m only a supporting character in their lives. So I could have tried to force them to act my way. Better: I could teach them to clean up after themselves, to pitch in and be good members of our family. But what I did instead this morning is assumed that I am a servant, and that it is my job to clean the kitchen. It’s my job to serve my family. The effect is that I released the idea that they should serve me, that they should do things my way. And instead I did the work without complaint, lovingly in the service of my loved ones. I’ll still teach them, because that’s my job too, to serve them by showing them the best ways to live life. But I won’t do it with the resentment, only with the love. photo credit: recompose

‘So if we love someone, we should train in being able to listen. By listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of another person.’ ~Thich Nhat Hanh By Leo Babauta While the idea of being more compassionate is appealing to many people, what stands in the way is that we get irritated by other people, often actually strongly disliking them. How can you be compassionate with others when they irritate you, rub you the wrong way, make you angry? It’s difficult. I have a hard time with this fairly often, so I’ve been studying it inside myself. What’s really amazing is how much we get in our own way. My “self” is the thing that stands in the way of true compassion, I’ve been learning. And my “self” is almost always putting itself in the center of the universe, demanding things, and becoming angry when it doesn’t get what it feels it deserves. I’m really blown away by how much I think about myself, and how often I believe (without admitting it to myself) that I deserve to be treated a certain way, that others should act the way I want them to act. Watch Your Selfish Thoughts Try monitoring those kinds of thoughts in your own head: When someone irritates you, your “self” is angry because they aren’t acting the way you want them to act. You think you’re entitled to quiet, entitled to being treated fairly or with respect, entitled to have the world behave the way you want it to behave. When someone doesn’t clean up after themselves, you get irritated because you think you’re entitled to everyone acting the way you want them to act (being clean and considerate). When someone gets in your way or cuts you off in traffic, you get irritated, because you think they should not be in your way. Maybe everyone should watch for where you’re going and clear a path? When someone else needs help, you think first about how it will affect you, rather than how it will affect the other person. When something unexpected happens at work or in your personal life, you think first about how it will affect you. When people are talking, you think about how what they’re saying relates to you, how you’ve had a similar experience, what they’re thinking of you. There are many other variations, but you get the idea. These are self-centered thoughts. I have them all the time — way more than I would have believed before I started monitoring them. It’s natural for us to have these self-centered thoughts. When we are kids, we believe we’re the center of the universe. When we grow up, we mostly still believe this, and it’s probably a self-defense mechanism to create a universe where we’re at the center of it, entitled to what we want. But it gets in the way of compassion. Let’s see what happens when we remove ourselves, get out of the way. Selfless Compassion Compassion starts with empathy — imagining putting ourselves in the mind of another person, and imagining what they’re going through. We are probably wrong about what they’re going through, because we can’t know, but without this imaginative process we can’t have compassion. Once we’ve empathized, and feel their suffering, the second half of compassion is wanting to end that suffering, and taking action to ease that suffering in some way. So empathy is incredibly important, but if we are thinking about ourselves first, and only ourselves, we can’t empathize. We must get ourselves out of the way, and think of the other person. When we think about how we should be treated, what we want, how something will affect us, we cannot also be thinking of the other person and how something will affect them, how they should be treated, what they want. So to empathize, we must get out of the way. Be self-less rather than selfish. How do we do that? Honestly, I’m still learning. The first step for me has been to become aware of my selfish thinking. And it happens all the time. The next step, when I recognize this selfish thinking, is to pause,

By Leo Babauta When we learn song lyrics, we don’t just look at the written lyrics and know them, nor can we listen to a song just once and immediately sing it. Learning the lyrics of a song is a process that often goes something like this: Listen to the song, maybe look at the lyrics if you want. Try singing the song a second time, but mess up a lot; when you mess up, you hear the correct version and so you know you messed up and know the correct way at the same time. Repeat Step 2 a bunch of times, correcting as you go, learning more each time. Try singing it without the song, and realize there are still holes in your knowledge. Listen to the song again, filling in your knowledge holes. Repeat Steps 4 & 5 until you can sing the song perfectly on your own. For some people, this process comes faster than for others, and needs less repetition, but the process is usually something like this. Other people don’t repeat some of the steps enough times to really get the song, but the process remains true — it’s just they only do part of it. So this is how we learn lyrics. How do we learn habits? It usually goes something like this: Create a habit plan. Try it. Fail at some point. Feel bad about it, feel like we aren’t disciplined. Give up. If we compare it to the lyric-learning process, we can see that with habits, we give up at Step 2! Other people try a few more times, but they’re really only at Step 3 or 4. Barely anyone persists until they finish Step 6. The key is to keep repeating until you finish Step 6, and you have it down. Use other people who do the habit right as your example as you’re learning. Compare what you’re doing wrong to what they’re doing right, and correct yourself. And keep repeating, filling in your knowledge gaps, until you get it right and can do it on your own without help. Then go sing your song.

By Leo Babauta In the quiet morning hours, or as I fade off to sleep at night, I cuddle up with a good novel. This book is my world, my quiet time away from the din and discordance of the everyday world, but it’s also a way to explore the world in imaginative new ways. There’s nothing that beats it. I get lost in worlds wholly created by an author, imagined but containing truths about life, incisively commenting about life, reproducing it in beautiful new ways, putting me in the mind of another human being, grabbing my heart and dragging it through the thrill of falling in love or the dull numbness of divorce or the fear of being found out, giving me the power of flight or omniscience or magic, confessing about guilty deeds and crimes and affairs, taking me into richly reimagined periods of history, helping me time travel and space travel and regular travel into new lands, showing me how other people live in helplessness, in slavery, in squalor, in power and luxury, in prostitution and presidency, making the mundane seem magical and the magical seem possible. This is why I read. Reading has been shown to make us more empathetic people, but it also helps us learn to sit still for longer without distractions, and gives us a break from the pull of smartphones and the online world. Reading is one of my favorite habits, and though once in awhile I slip away from it, I always come back. Leo’s Book Recommendations If you’d like to read more fiction, here’s a list of some of my favorite books to get you started (in no means comprehensive): Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett (start with this, but all of her books are great) City of Thieves, by David Benioff Motherless Brooklyn, by Jonathan Lethem (start with this, but all his books are great) The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer (all his stuff is great) The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery (then, Gourmet Rhapsody) Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood (all her books are excellent) Shibumi, by Trevanian The Discworld Series, by Terry Pratchett The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, by Douglas Adams I also love books by Kurt Vonnegut, Nick Hornby, Kazuo Ishiguro, Haruki Murakami, Raymond Chandler, William Gibson, Stephen King and John D. Macdonald. Tougher but great books: One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov Don Quixote, by Cervantes Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald As for non-fiction books … this list is a bit old but I still like the books here. Form the Reading Habit If you’re interested in forming the habit of reading more, join my Sea Change Program, where we’re tackling the habit with our Read More habit module in November. The module will consist of: A simple plan to follow — 5-10 minutes a day A few articles during the month to help you implement the habit Reminder emails every day (if you want them) to help you stick with the changes An accountability group in the Sea Change forum to keep you on track A live video webinar in the middle of the month Five tools that will help you stay on track with this new habit, for $10 a month (we have a different module each month). Sign up for the Sea Change Program here.    

By Leo Babauta The focus of my life in recent months has been living mindfully, and while I don’t always remember to do that, I have learned a few things worth sharing. The first is a mindful life is worth the effort. It’s a life where we awaken from the dream state we’re most often submerged in — the state of having your mind anywhere but the present moment, locked in thoughts about what you’re going to do later, about something someone else said, about something you’re stressing about or angry about. The state of mind where we’re lost in our smartphones and social media. It’s worth the effort, because being awake means we’re not missing life as we walk through it. Being awake means we’re conscious of what’s going on inside us, as it happens, and so can make more conscious choices rather than acting on our impulses all the time. The second thing I’ve learned is that we forget. We forget, over and over, to be awake. And that’s OK. Being mindful is a process of forgetting, and then remembering. Repeatedly. Just as breathing is a process of exhaling, and then inhaling, repeatedly. The third is that mindful living isn’t just one thing. It’s not just meditation. Nor is it just focusing on the sensations around you, right now in this moment. I’ve found mindful living to be a set of very related tools, perhaps all different ways of getting at the same thing, but each useful in its own regard. I’ll share them in this post, and hope that you’ll consider each in turn. Why You Should Care Why bother to spend the time learning these tools? Is it just for some ideal of living a peaceful, stress-free life? No. A stress-free life doesn’t exist, but these tools will definitely make you more prepared to deal with the stresses that will inevitably come your way. But just as importantly, they’ll help you overcome the fear of failure and fear of discomfort that’s holding you back, that’s keeping you from making positive changes in your life. These tools will help you launch your new blog, start a business, write a book, put out your first music album online, find your purpose in life, become the person you’ve always wanted to be. This is what I’ve found. I’m certain you’ll find these tools just as useful. The Toolset This list, of course, is not complete. It’s a collection of things I’ve been learning about, and am still practicing, things I’ve found useful enough to share. Meditation. Meditation is where mindful living starts. And it’s not complicated: you can sit still for even just 1 minute a day to start with (work up to 3-5 minutes after a week), and turn your attention to your body and then your breath. Notice when your thoughts wander from your breath, and gently return to the breath. Repeat until the minute is up. Be Awake. Meditation is practice for being awake, which is not being in the dream state (mind wandering into a train of thought, getting lost in the online world, thinking about past offenses, stressing about the future, etc.) but being awake to the present, to what is. Being awake is something you can do throughout the day, all the time, if you remember. Remembering is the trick. Watch Urges. When I quit smoking in 2005, the most useful tool I learned was watching my urges to smoke. I would sit there and watch the urge rise and fall, until it was gone, without acting on it. It taught me that I am not my urges, that I don’t have to act on my urges, and this helped me change all my other habits. Watch your urge to check email or social media, to eat something sweet or fried, to drink alcohol, to watch TV, to be distracted, to procrastinate. These urges will come and go, and you don’t have to act on them. Watch Ideals. We all have ideals, all the time. We have an ideal that our day will go perfectly, that people will be kind and respectful to us, that we will be perfect, that we’ll ace an exam or important meeting, that we’ll never fail. Of course,

By Leo Babauta I can’t tell you how many people want to make a big positive change in their lives, but are afraid to make the leap. They don’t want the discomfort, don’t want to leave what they’re comfortable with. From losing weight or getting healthy to quitting a job you hate to learning something hard, most people would rather stick to what they know. I’m here to make a rather drastic but effective suggestion: burn down the farm. Let me tell you a story about a farmboy, in a distant galaxy: Luke Skywalker grew up on his aunt and uncle’s farm, but wanted to make a big change (go to the Imperial Academy) but his uncle doesn’t want him to go. Later Luke makes a startling discovery, and is invited by a Jedi master to leave his planet and help the rebel alliance. (Bear with me, I’m almost at my point.) But Luke is reluctant to leave. Luke goes on to adventures in strange worlds, and becomes a changed person in the course of these events. The change he dreamed of is far surpassed. But his fear of discomfort, his fear of changing his ways and leaving behind what he’s comfortable with, almost stopped him. How did he overcome this fear? He returned home to find the farm burned down, and his aunt and uncle dead. That was horrible and painful, of course, but at this point, Luke had nothing comfortable to return to. He went on his adventure, in strange worlds. I’m not encouraging you to literally burn anything down. Nor to slay anyone, of course. That probably shouldn’t have to be clarified, but for the literal-minded, I have to say it. What I’m encouraging you to do is leave behind the comfortable. Find a way to make it harder to go back to what you’re used to than to go forward into strange, exciting, but uncomfortable new territory. I quit my day job not long after I discovered that Zen Habits was my calling. I moved my family from the comfort of our hometown (Guam) to San Francisco, which was hard for all of us, but ultimately led to growth. We gave up our car and now walk and use mass transit. I tossed out all the junk food from our home when I wanted to eat healthier. I’ve made public announcements about running a marathon, becoming vegan, unschooling our kids and more. Those are just a few examples — the possibilities are as numerous as the stars of a distant galaxy. Burn down the farm, nonviolently of course. Get rid of the possibility of comfort, so that the scary journey you want to take is your best choice.

By Leo Babauta I just got back from a trip to Beijing and Shanghai, and really loved how light I traveled for 8 days. It was the least amount of stuff I’ve taken on a trip of any length, and traveling has never been less tiring. When you have very little on your back, it’s less draining. It’s faster and funner. I thought I’d share my latest travel setup, in hopes that it’ll inspire a few of you to try the joys of traveling lightly. My Setup This setup is unique to me, so I don’t recommend that you copy it … but that said, I’m sharing it so you can possibly get a few ideas and see how light travel is possible. The backpack. I traveled the entire time with just a tiny backpack, no luggage or roller bag. The one I used is the Goruck 15L Shadowruck, which is just 15-liters in volume and only 0.27 lbs. (!). It’s super light. It’s tough. Not much room in it. Perfect. No laptop. The most significant change I made to my setup this trip is to travel without my 11-inch Macbook Air. This tiny laptop is only 2.38 lbs., but traveling without a laptop is a huge change in weight. I was only going for 8 days, so I did my writing before I left. This wouldn’t work for many people. If I had to write for a longer trip, I could find an Internet cafe in most cities and write there. The iPhone. While I resisted getting an iPhone for 6 years, in June Eva bought me the iPhone 5 for Father’s Day. So I’m now a part of the smartphone masses. And I embraced it on this trip, carrying only the iPhone, no laptop or camera. I did my reading, Tweeting, email and other work on here. And of course used it to document my trip with sweet photos. Also included: the charging cord. Clothes: I favor workout clothes, because they are breathable, washable, comfortable and dry fast. So I wore the Ascent Pant, which looks a little dressy and is light and breathable. And a Precision T. AndExOfficio boxer briefs. I packed: another Precision T, two more boxer briefs, some workout socks, workout shorts, and a long-sleeve workout T-shirt. Just in case, I also packed a thin, lightweight Nike rain jacket (I didn’t need it this trip). Just in case it was cold, I also packed a beanie. Toiletries. Deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, nailclippers. Food. Just in case, I packed a handful of fruit & nut bars, and some raw almonds. Other. I also had a couple of notebooks and pens, for writing, my passport, earbuds, a travel towel, a sleep mask, ear plugs, and a universal travel adapter. Total weight: under 8 lbs. Questions and Answers Q: Why travel without a laptop? A: I liked traveling without all the weight. And I tend to use the laptop too much when I travel, so I thought the restriction of not having a laptop would be good for me. If I needed to write, I might have found a foldable keyboard for the iPhone, or used an Internet cafe. Q: How do you travel with so few clothes? A: I simply wash them in the shower, wring them out good, and hang them to dry in my hotel room. I didn’t need to wash the pants, though they’re easily washable (as opposed to jeans). If you wash underwear, a shirt and socks on most nights, you only need one or two changes. Q: Why workout clothes and not cotton? A: I love cotton. It’s just heavier, and it gets smellier, than the workout clothes I pack. And it takes longer to dry. And wrinkles more. So the clothes I brought solve all those problems, and they’re very comfortable. Panel: How To Deal With And Create Change On another note, I invite you to join me, Matt Frazier of No Meat Athlete, and Jesse Jacobs of Samovar Tea Lounge, for a great panel discussion we’re holding at Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco next week (Oct. 29) from 8-10 p.m. If you’re interested, get tickets here: How To Deal With And Create Change — Tea, Tips & Talk photo credit: peretzp via photopin

By Leo Babauta Something that we struggle with daily, that eats us up and causes stress and anger: annoying people. You know those people: they cut in line, are rude to you in the office or at the restaurant, cut you off in traffic, talk loudly about obnoxious things, play loud music when you’re trying to concentrate, interrupt you, and so on. These offenses are violations of the way you think people should act. And so it burns you up. Don’t worry, I’m the same way. If you just keep letting these offensive people get to you, you’ll always be mad or annoyed. Life won’t be very good. But it’s something you can learn to deal with. I have to admit I’m not perfect at this, but here are three strategies I use that are helpful: Get Big. I learned this one from Zen teacher Robert Thomas, who uses “Get Big” as one of his slogans that helps him to be mindful. Imagine you’re a 2-year-old toddler, who can’t have a toy or some ice cream right this minute. This problem is your entire universe, because you have no perspective, and so … you throw a fit. This is the world of a 2-year-old (I should know, I’ve had 6 of them). But as adults, we know that this is a very small problem, and in fact there are lots of other things the 2-year-old could do to be happy. Sure, that’s easy for us — we have a bigger perspective. But when someone offends us, we have a small perspective — this little offense is the biggest thing in the world, and it makes us very angry. We throw the equivalent of a 2-year-old fit. But if we get a bigger perspective (Get Big), we can see that this little thing matters very little in the bigger picture. It’s not worth being angry over. So remind yourself to Get Big, then widen your perspective. Float Down the Stream. When I drive and other drivers do rude things, I often get angry. Then I remember a trick: I imagine myself floating down a stream in a raft, and the other cars are just twigs and leaves floating past me one way or another on this stream. They don’t have to treat me a certain way, because they’re just twigs. And so I serenely float down this stream, not worrying about how the twigs float around me (though I try not to hit them, because, you know, safety first). And in truth, this is how life is — other people aren’t trying to offend you, don’t even worry about you most of the time. They are just twigs floating by. Be nice to the twigs though. Give Them a Mental Hug. This little trick can transform the way I feel about someone who makes me angry. Let’s say someone has just said something rude to me. How dare they! Don’t they have any consideration for my feelings? But of course, in this reaction, I’m not having any consideration for their feelings — only mine matter. And so I try to empathize with this rude person, and realize that they’re angry, or scared, or both. They are being rude as a coping mechanism for their fear. And so, mentally (and once in a while physically), I give them a hug. I have compassion for this scared person, because I too am often scared. We’re the same. We need a hug, some compassion, a little love. Try one of these three tricks the next time someone makes you mad or offends you. And then smile in serenity, armed with the comforting knowledge that, like me, you are superior to the rest of the world.