The Necessary Art of Subtraction

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?

Jealousy & Suffering

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 â€" 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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 â€" with compassion for others but also yourself, by letting the fear go.
4. Let go of your attachment. You are holding onto a past hurt, and are hurting your current self because of it. Learn to let go. Practice letting go. It gets easier as you practice.
5. Be less self-centered. When we are jealous, we think the world revolves around us. My friend shouldn’t be getting so close to that person â€" doesn’t she know that I’m more important? My spouse shouldn’t have fun without me â€" don’t they know that I’m the only one they should care about and have fun with? No one should go on amazing trips and go to fun parties without including me. And so on. Of course, the world doesn’t revolve around you (or me), and so once we remove ourselves from the center of everything, we can expand our heart to include everyone, not just us. Be happy for others. Feel their pain and fear and anger and jealousy too.

Jealousy isn’t something you can just get rid of immediately, like an old coat you don’t want anymore. It’s a wound that needs healing, a hurt that needs compassion. Moving beyond jealousy is a set of skills you need to learn with practice, and a trust that needs to be earned with time.

The Future of Blogging

In other news, join me today (Tues. Nov. 19, 2013) at 2pm Pacific for a live Google Hangout, as I join the folks at Fizzle and other friends for a show on the Future of Blogging.

Join us here today.

How Creativity Works, & How to Do It

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 â€" 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 â€" 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 â€" 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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, and put them into yours somehow? Whatever your field, there are ideas from within your field, and other places, that could possibly be applied to what you’re doing. Take a few moments, maybe in the shower or on your commute or on a daily walk or run, to think about how you might apply these ideas to your projects. Then write them in your idea file â€" you don’t have to do these new ideas, but if they really excite you, consider it.
5. Iterate on what you’ve come up with. Remixing a couple of ideas in new ways isn’t the end of the process. You might find new ideas to add to the mix. You might remix the same ideas in new ways. The process continues for as long as you continue to stir the pot, and could get better and better, so don’t give up on your stew.

Self-Discipline in 5 Sentences

By Leo Babauta

Have a powerful reason â€" 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.

Make It Your Job

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.

Developing Selfless Compassion

‘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 â€" 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 â€" 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, and try to put my mind in the mind of the other person, to empathize, to try to understand what they’re going through. To feel their suffering, and then to want to end it.

And then ask, how can I end that suffering?

Get yourself out of the way, so that compassion becomes possible.

Habits of Entrepreneurs: Jennifer Pattee of Basic Training

I’m happy to share the latest video interview in my Habits of Entrepreneurs series: Jennifer Patee, founder of Basic Training in San Francisco. Jenn started Basic Training in 2008 with the idea that the best workout program is the one you actually want to use. And so she has turned working out into a social, fun, incredible experience that people keep coming back to.

You can watch the short-version of the video below (about 3 mins) for free or get the full version (nearly an hour), along with show notes, by subscribing.

In the full video, Jenn shares her amazing personal story that got her from unhealthy to healthy … thoughts on keeping people coming back to work out consistently, working out in a healthy manner, making health and fitness social, running and eating healthy. It’s a great interview!

Subscribe

Also see: Jenn’s campaign for a Pop-up Fitness Hub in Hayes Valley, San Francisco.

Lyrical Learning, & Why We Learn Habits Wrong

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:

1. Listen to the song, maybe look at the lyrics if you want.
2. 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.
3. Repeat Step 2 a bunch of times, correcting as you go, learning more each time.
4. Try singing it without the song, and realize there are still holes in your knowledge.
5. Listen to the song again, filling in your knowledge holes.
6. 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 â€" 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:

1. Create a habit plan.
2. Try it.
3. Fail at some point.
4. 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.

A Month Without Sugar

By Leo Babauta

Life seems sweeter without sweets. Or at least, just as sweet.

If you’d suggested that I’d prefer a life that was pretty much devoid of sweet desserts a year ago, I would have laughed in scorn. I’ve always had a sweet tooth, mostly centered on chocolate but I also love pies and cookies and muffins and ice cream.

But as a part of my Year of Living Without, I gave up sugar in October. And in truth, it was fairly easy (with a few harder spots) because I’d mostly been going without sugar for the previous four months or so.

I found that life is just as fun, as enjoyable, as lovely without all the sugar. It’s not as necessary as I’d thought, not as horrible or lifeless without sugar as I’d anticipated.

I set out on this Year of Living Without to learn about my resistance, but the funny thing is that my resistance seems to be much greater when I’m imagining going without something I think I need, than it is when I actually go without it.

I thought giving up coffee would be incredibly hard, but it wasn’t hard at all (except for a few times when the allure of the smell was strong). I thought going without TV would be hard, but mostly I didn’t miss it. No sitting for more than 30 minutes actually was hard, but not because I missed sitting â€" only because I really got physically tired (often from running or working out).

So the resistance comes when we imagine the loss, not when we actually experience the loss. At least, that’s what I’ve been finding so far.

In this post, I’ll talk about a few of my thoughts and experiences going without sugar, and then share what I’m giving up in November (hint: it’s one of my hardest challenges yet).

Going Without Sugar

Some of what I learned and experienced in my month without sugar:

• In the beginning of the month, I was traveling in Europe. Mostly didn’t miss the sugar, but I was definitely tempted when we found vegan gelato in Italy, then various vegan desserts in Vienna and London. Overall, it wasn’t hard â€" most of the desserts we passed weren’t vegan, so while they looked tasty, I’m not tempted to eat them (milk and eggs make me think of dead baby animals).
• Most days of the month, I had no sweet temptations â€" if any sweets were around, they were non-vegan candies or desserts, so I didn’t care.
• The challenge was easiest when I stay home or only go out to exercise or have tea with a friend. Staying away from restaurants or other people’s houses means no temptations.
• Going to a vegan restaurant makes it a bit more challenging, as sometimes the kids have vegan desserts (a vegan chocolate shake was a bit tempting one day) but knowing that I’m not having sugar cuts off the temptation in my mind. So it’s not hard. If I didn’t have the challenge, I’d definitely share in their desserts.
• In the middle of the month, I traveled to China â€" there are many interesting treats there, but mostly ones I can’t eat, so it wasn’t that hard. I think there was some mochi there that I would have loved, but I just didn’t give it much thought.
• One day I bought the kids some chocolate chip cookies that would have been very tempting in the old days (just 6 months ago). But now I don’t have as much a taste of it â€" I think of the harm sugar does to my body, and how it doesn’t make me feel so good afterward, and sugar isn’t as appealing.
• Near the end of the month was my son’s birthday. The coconut pancakes I made for breakfast weren’t tempting, nor was the cake and ice cream later. But Eva made some banana chocolate chip muffins that for some reason I craved. I just focused on my delicious Ezekiel cereal with nuts and berries and enjoyed it, so I was fine
• One day I ate at both my favorite vegan restaurants in SF (that’s more than I usually eat out), and at lunch my friend ate one of my favorite vegan desserts. It was tempting but not too hard to resist, because I told him in advance that I couldn’t have a single bite. I think telling people about my no-sugar challenge helps me stick to it.
• Trick or treating with the kids â€" I was tempted by Reeses peanut butter cups for some reason, but didn’t have any. Other candies did nothing for me.
• When I keep myself busy, sweets aren’t even a thought.
• When I’m tired, my willpower seems to drop, and temptations are harder. When I’m tired and hungry, I’m at my weakest.

November: No Computers/Internet Before Noon

So this month I’ve already had a small failure in my challenge. In November, I’m going without computers/Internet before noon (including smartphones, etc.) … except to write.

So I can use my laptop to write a post or work on my novel, but I can’t Google anything or check email or even read on my computer. No reading saved articles from the Internet either.

What will I do instead? I’ll read a novel (working my way through Joyce’s Ulysses right now) and write blog posts or work on my novel.

However, I missed the first day because I forgot. The challenge for the second day was when I really wanted to look things up, which I’m really used to doing immediately by now â€" instead, I wrote them down to look them up later.

This should be interesting.

Why I Read (+ a Dozen Book Recommendations)

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:

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:

1. A simple plan to follow â€" 5-10 minutes a day
2. A few articles during the month to help you implement the habit
3. Reminder emails every day (if you want them) to help you stick with the changes
4. An accountability group in the Sea Change forum to keep you on track
5. 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.