One Red Hot Country Mama!

In March 1987 Monk Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a little book (the latest on Amazon is 115 pages and only 5.8 onces) called Being Peace. The main idea of the book is that instead of violently fighting for peace in angry peace demonstrations, people should simply find peace within themselves. It would then pass on like a virus. Similar to Ghandi’s message of "You must be the change you want to see in the world" – the peace of one willful person could perhaps create a chaos-theory like effect that resonates around the earth.

So – as a daily meditator, and secular spiritual seeker, I practice "being peace" in my daily life with varying degrees of success. Even though I read the book years ago, I still think of the concept all the time. Of being what you want the world to be, instead of demanding from the world the things that you want. Even though I am wording it a bit aggressively, think about it – people do it all the time. Imagine living your life in this framework: I want respect. Be respect. I want happiness. Be happiness. I want love. Be love. I want the world to be at peace. Be peace.

Now, I am trying to save for a decent down-payment on a mortgage while running my little marketing start-up. So – on top of being happy, being respectful, being peace etc. etc., I have to also practice being cheap. For example, tonight I made my own bread crumbs for my chicken dish with my bare hands instead of buying them from the store. This is amazing both because I am not going to a restaurant for my chicken and because I am thinking about the cost of ingredients. Being cheap in a lot of ways is being the change that I want to see in the world – since it is consuming less is environmentally sound.

Tonight I went out for tea – which was the most frugal thing I could think of. And – on the way I looked at all of the stores and restaurants – all begging for me to buy something – magazines, candies, drinks etc. etc. I looked at all of the chocolate things at the Starbucks asking to be bought. The chic brown boot and hat combination a woman was wearing were giving me clothes shopping ideas. People in warm restaurants eating fine foods and in bars sharing drinks, made me want the same. Day-dreams of the cute red car I want right now instead of my dented black VW were hard to suppress.

The flowers on the sidewalk outside of the store were beckoning me with their beauty – and dammit, I failed my little cheap mission and ended up getting some beautiful pink tulips to brighten up the apt – but $4.99 plus taxes isn’t bad compared to the car I am lusting after. I am understanding more and more about why people call shopping an addiction – one our whole city, country or even world is hooked on but no government wants to hold us back because consumer spending is so important to the economy. Well, maybe they want to hold us back if we are defaulting on our mortgage… or going bankrupt – but that is still the exception (I hope).

Yes, it is hard to be cheap in Toronto, the heart of Canada’s consumer economy – and I am sure it is the same in cities across the world. But if more of us practiced a bit of being cheap and stopped buying all that deliciously sexily attractive but unneeded stuff and gave the extra to loved-ones, investments, charity, the future, more free time, new creations etc… it could make quite a difference in the environment… and in lives. 

VW Golf – black and white
Originally uploaded by Sigurdur Birkir.

This morning, after meditating, stretching and eating a healthy breakfast I was on my way for an early arrival at work when found that my car had been broken into. I tried putting my key in the lock, but it was tampered with – the vandals left a gaping hole where my lock used to be. I calmly checked:
- the ignition – no sign of further tampering
- my change for coffee – full amount accounted for
- my leather attache case from my sister- it was fine

Unsuccessful thieves – they must have called it a day before they had even finished the job. It surprised me since the car was in my underground garage, of my very secure building in a safe neighborhood in Toronto, one of the safest large cities in North America. I did nothing risky, I did everything right but I was still broken into.

I was at the VW garage and dealership for three hours watching images of poor Anna Nicole Smith, reading a business book and perusing the latest Jetta diesel models on display, then left several hundred dollars lighter and dutifully went to the office. And so it went. I went to work like a dutiful little lamb to begin paying the bill unfairly created by these unsuccessful thieves.

The Athenians used to believe that when they got sick, they were being punished by the Gods. That meant that they were hurt two-times – one for feeling regretful for what they had done, and two for actually being sick. I used to believe something similar – if I lived up enough to what I believed to be right, somehow I would be protected from the things that go wrong in life.

If I was
- smart enough
- loving enough
- hardworking enough
- disciplined enough
- compassionate enough
- healthy enough
- had enough of a sense of humor about things
…somehow I would build an impermeable shell around myself, protecting from painful and expensive happenings. These are my own versions of good but you can insert your own bullet points since this seems to be a common belief. But, how does that work? Who metes out the rewards and punishments? Since I don’t believe that cancer victims, people born in third-world countries and victim of crime "deserve it", there has to be some allowance for randomness.

So – if living up to your own values does not leave you impermeable and safe, what is the point to living up to them? It is the satisfaction of having lived up to them of course. Does that sound like too small a prize?