wingwmn

spreading my wings and sharing random lessons learned along the way

The Design Chronicles #1: Into the Wild

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I’ve hurled myself headfirst into one of the most ridiculous situations I’ve ever been in. I am now attending a 3-month, intensive, full-time Visual Design course. I knew it was going to be a big shift for me, but I wasn’t expecting it to approach the levels of preposterous.

On Day 1, it became very apparent that I was THE throbbing sore thumb of the class. Out of a class of 47, I am one of the few who’s had almost 2 decades of work experience. Most of my classmates have barely had 2 decades of LIFE! More saliently, I am the solitary left brain among a sea of rights. My classmates are all vibrant creatives — furniture makers, fine arts graduates, UX designers, DJs, art directors, architects. I’m the sensible financier. They think in shapes and colors; I spout out numbers (and some words). They Photoshop; I Excel.

A Quick Share of Week 1 

Designers are tasked to solve vague client problems. Such as “I want a classic logo”. Ummm… what does that mean? How does one define ‘classic’? Is it Apple classic? Or Kellogg’s cereal classic? The client is likely going to be uncertain on how to answer that himself.  It is the job of the designer to determine that.

Solving such obscure problems is much like finding our way out of a dark forest. We take small incremental steps forward and feel our way through. We discover.  In design, this is called Prototyping and Testing.

Prototyping. In this phase, the designer roughly sketches out various options (key word being rough). In class, we are normally given 20 minutes to produce 20 sketches. “Don’t be too precious,” they remind us when we focus too much on one particular design.  The key is to quickly come up with a variety of solutions to test.

Testing. The designer then chooses 3 best designs and solicits feedback on them. The client points out the elements that are or aren’t working for him. The designer goes back and refines her idea, then seeks more feedback.

This process of sketching and feedback is incremental and iterative until an optimal solution is found.

Designing our Lives

This design process can be applied to any problem that has no clear answer, or that has a multitude of possible answers. The guys at Stanford’s Life Design Lab teach how to apply the principles when we hit upon the quintessential question, “What do I do with my life now?”  This question is the proverbial dark forest.  As prescribed, we take small steps and feel; prototype and test.  So, for example, if I think I might want to open up a restaurant, I shouldn’t go full-throttle into establishing one immediately. That would be “too precious” – too much investment of time and money on something I am not sure is right for me. I might end up hating it, but will be in too deep to have the flexibility to backtrack.  So I dip my toe in by perhaps first working in a restaurant, or talking to restaurant owners, or doing weekend catering.  And I reflect and consider before I dive.

This design course is my weekend catering. It’s a prototype of my long-standing unexplored interest in visual design. It is short and rough. I don’t yet know where this will take me. So far, I’ve had my ego crushed and my mind expanded.  It is a lot of hard work and yet I’m having the time of my life. So the jury is still out on what happens from here. I may realize that I may not have the skill nor the interest to ever decipher Helvetica Neue from Gotham fonts. Or, I may realize that I do, in fact, have a hibernating baby bear of a right brain.  I will discover soon enough.  After all, that is the point of this spectacular absurdity.

Sacred Space

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London

It is 4:30 in the (very early) morning. It’s absolutely silent other than the hum of the radiator; dark other than the glow of the kitchen light. The autumn chill is clinging to my back.

I’m up before the household, the city. I’m up before the sun. Up before the news. Before my mind can form doubts and checklists.

These have been my mornings (although not necessarily always this early) for as long as I can remember.  Since college, I’ve somehow made it a habit to get up at least 3 hours before my day officially starts. (Lately, in the busy-ness of packing, moving and deciphering next steps, I’ve needed larger swaths of time). This period has become my non-negotiable.  My “sacred space” –  to listen, to ground, to discern. A space where, as Joseph Campbell describes, I can find myself over and over again.

Everyday, I sit in silence. Then I have tea and read. Or write. Or just continue to listen to what my life/gut/soul might be whispering.

Sometimes, nothing happens. Other times, the world in all its splendid worth-the-eyebags wildness does.

“The soul is like a wild animal — tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek.”
–Parker Palmer

 

New York, the Buddhist

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London
“New York will always be here, and [will] never care,” a friend texted.

Another friend, in a separate conversation, intimated, “When you leave New York, the void left will instantly be filled by endless other New York incidentals — MTA delays, work frustrations, other friends . . .”

After silently recalling that quote about not needing enemies when you’ve got friends like these, I thought about the Buddhist lesson in non-attachment these guys were inadvertently imparting:  you’ll miss out on the promise of what is in front of you if you don’t learn to let go.  New York knows this all too well.  Things slide off New York like teflon. Fiery arguments provoked in the subway are shaken off a minute later with a shrug of the shoulders. Extraordinary dates kindled each night fade off under no-follow-throughs. Transformative conversations transpire and vanish between strangers who will never see each other again. New York is bu.sy.  It keeps moving. It doesn’t dwell, doesn’t cling. What is important, though, is when it is there, it is there.

As I took a bite (literally and figuratively) out of everything the city offered, New York was there with me. The romance between us was intense.  It educated me, then it partied with me until I had no more party left to give. It extricated preconceived biases out of me. It stoked my corporate ambition then drained me of all of it. It bombarded me with creative inspiration, and assaulted me with new aesthetic sensibilities. It beat organized religion out of me and crammed in place a solid home-spun spirituality. It wrung out of me love and hurt I never knew I had. It squeezed independence out of me, and pounded me with solid support. And it etched out for me the finest group of friends one can only dream of. New York put this very sheltered island-girl through its furnace and spat out something unrecognizable 15 years later. Then yesterday, as I was made to realize, it gave her a good-bye squeeze and turned right back around to dealing with its endless New York incidentals.  Youch.

So fine, New York.  It’s a deal. You go back to relishing the best blue skies on the planet, the bushy-tailed newcomers, and your majestic efficiency. I’ll concentrate on my current incidentals and feel the feels of this upcoming adventure. No jealousy.  And when I return, we can continue this insane love affair.

Meanwhile, feel free to drunk text once in a while. I really won’t mind.

 

Journal Series #3: Creative Imagination

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In my efforts to drastically downsize, I’m ‘digitalizing’ my journals. That’s millennial speak for “rereading 15 years worth of notebooks and manually typing notes and highlights into my laptop”. Here, I share some of the notes – to digest the arc that is my life, to share a giggle, and most importantly, to satisfy my sister’s general inclination to snoop after I’ve thrown the physical journals away.

August 2002
(Fifteen years ago to the month.  First week in New York as a student)

“You’ll never know. When you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he may be in the hallway waiting to pounce. Buy a portable toilet for your bedroom. Charge it to my account.”

– Mom, when she learned I had a boy as a flatmate

Creativity and imagination runs in my blood.  I am confident of, and comforted by, that thought.

The Psychology of Purging

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I am having a slight issue with things. Getting rid of some of them, to be more specific. When I first started purging, I tossed and flung stuff away like it was nobody’s business. I donated 80% of my wardrobe, and boiled my stuff down to things I liked.  I was a vocal advocate for cleaning out. It was easy and liberating, I pontificated. Like skimming off unwanted fat.

But now, I’m scraping bone. And it hurts.

So apparently, there is this deep relationship between our possessions and ourselves. Part of being human is the ability to contemplate our identities – who we are, how we fit in, what makes us unique. We individuate ourselves through our provenance and our religion, and also through our relationships, our interests, our qualities, our social status. Having a sense of place in the world underpins our self-esteem and happiness.

Our belongings play an important role in the formation and reinforcement of these self-concepts. They are the tangible embodiment of our identity, defining and reminding ourselves and others of who we are. As adolescents finding our voice, for example, we placed so much emphasis on what we owned. The clothes we wore, the music we listened to, the stuff we carried signaled who we were to our peers. This does not change in adulthood. Our bookshelves, our wardrobes, our cars, our homes — they are the curated stories we want to tell: I am successful. I am an artist. I am a successful artist. I am a loving mother. I am an intellectual world-traveler. “I, a (fill-in-the-blank) individual, am here”.

Purging and Our Fluctuating Identities

Since our possessions are vessels of our selfness, purging can feel extremely liberating. When we go through identity upheavals — end of relationships, change in status, etc. — purging can symbolically (and maybe literally) shed a part of us that no longer serves. We then give ourselves the space to evolve into someone else.

In a limited way, once I threw out my martial arts trophies, my relationship with martial arts shifted from that of stress and needing-to-compete to that of the pure joy of practice. On a larger scale, it was no coincidence that my urge to do a deep purge coincided with my thoughts of changing career. I slowly started letting go of my corporate clothes, my high heels. The act of doing so manifested the internal change that was occurring, and at the same time, boosted my courage to finally effect the change.

In the same way, when we lose possessions that we consider materializations of our current selves, we feel gutted. Like when we are robbed, we feel violated — as if there was an actual intrusion into our deepest selves.

Right now, I am having difficulty letting go of a certain smattering of things that on the surface may seem ridiculous — my martial arts gear, a few pieces of art and pottery, a handful of letters from friends and family. To me, they embody my current “selfhood”: a martial artist, a budding (hopefully) creative, a decent friend and sister. To throw them away would be to pull the rug from under me. Too destabilizing. So for now, I keep.

Purging in the Age of Technology

Luckily, we no longer have to rely heavily on material objects to assert our identity. Technology has helped loosen this dependence. By giving us an alternative way to define and express ourselves, the minimalist lifestyle has become an entirely doable concept. Why buy Egyptian souvenirs when we can post photos in front of the pyramids? Why buy beautiful stuff when we can represent our aesthetics on Pinterest? Why purchase books when we can download them on an iPad and follow authors on Twitter? Why keep mementos of our relationships when we can honor the people (and share memories) on Facebook?

It’s not my place here to talk about the inflation or extreme curation of our online identities. My point is simply: to reveal who we are, we now have more options  available to us than previous generations. And if I may unabashedly admit, this is perhaps why I write on this blog — to honor and give voice to this current, temporary, yet very pivotal version of myself. Instead of accruing trinkets for my hypothetical grandchildren, I write as markings on the wall that this fearful, extremely uncertain, yet absolutely certain self was here.

Sweet Little Manifestations

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Warning: we’re going a little hippie-dippie-new-agey again today.

I’ve never been a vision board type of person. I never understood how an afternoon spent cutting out photos from magazines could change my life. And so it followed that I also never got into the Law of Attraction, nor did I ever feel the celebrated impact of daily affirmations or visualizations. They just didn’t feel very instinctive to me. It seemed almost humanly impossible to maintain “only positive thoughts”. What, then, do I do with all my fears and doubts??? . . . I don’t know. All of it felt too ‘optimistic’. I figured that if I wanted something out of life, I could get it with a little bit of prayer, a little bit of luck, and a whole lot of hard work.

Then a couple of years ago, I stumbled upon Lacy Phillips. I liked her nuanced views on manifestation and was curious enough to attend a couple of workshops while she was in NY. Her approach to manifesting desires is simple and a lot more intuitive to me. No vision boards and mantras necessary.

Manifestation Principles

The core principles of her approach to manifestation are these:

Clarity. We need to be very clear about what it is we are manifesting or calling into our lives. She recommends we write it down and be very specific. If we are vague about what it is we are trying to attract, the universe will send us vagueness. To use Lacy’s example, we shouldn’t say, I want to change jobs but I’m not really sure what it is I want to do next. We need to get clear first.

A couple of related points: One, since we are required to be very clear about what it is we are manifesting, it is recommended that we manifest for a short-term horizon (about 6 months max). Anything beyond that becomes vague since we are constantly evolving. Two and very important, what we are manifesting has to come from our core desires. Not from our ego. Not because anybody else but ourselves is telling us we should want it. Thus, if we are trying to manifest a partner, subconsciously so that we can make our ex feel bad, we can manifest this partner until the cows come home to no avail.

Believe. It is key to truly believe that the subject we are manifesting is arriving. This is not so easy to do, and hence is a core part of Lacy’s work. We all have a ton of insecurities and fears that have developed from our childhood and from society’s programming. These insecurities form subconscious limiting beliefs that make us doubt our ability to get what we want. I want a career change (but I’m too old). I want a partner (but I’m overweight). It is essential to rid ourselves of these blocks — through the use of logic, theta healing, hypnosis or whatever it takes to do so.

Trust. Once we’ve done the work of getting clear and removing the blocks, then we must trust that what we’ve manifested is on its way. This is where taking risks and jumping off cliffs makes us very magnetic. When we jump off cliffs, we are telling the universe that we are trusting it fully.

An important aspect of trust is believing that what we are calling is being delivered in its full form. Thus, we should never settle for half-baked things that come into our lives. These are tests to see if we fully believe we can have everything we ask for. If we settle, we are telling the universe we don’t trust that we can fully have what we want.

I encourage you to dig around her site. It’s rich with detail.

Sweet Little Experiments

To be honest, I haven’t tried manifesting around weighty matters like career and love. Partly because see Clarity above, and partly because a little part of me wants to leave these things to fate. Or faith. But for shits and giggles, I’ve tried manifesting little things, and have come back with amusing stories.

Here are a couple of recent Sweet Littles:

London Apartment.  I’ve signed up for a short intense course in London in the Fall. The classes start promptly and painfully at 8am. It was, thus, very clear to me that I would need to find an apartment close to the school. Several family members and friends very generously offered up their place, but they all live in West London which is at least an hour away from the school.

So, I threw up a request to the universe for a suitable apartment. I didn’t yet know how I was going to find it. But when I visited a friend who had recently moved from the Upper West Side to a flatshare in Brooklyn, she told me that she found the place through a site called spareroom. Not knowing that I was searching for a London flat, she mentioned that the site actually started in the UK. Hmmmmm.

So, I checked out the site that night, and placed an ad that listed out what I was looking for: a quiet, peaceful apartment for a Monday to Friday rental (as I will stay with my sister during the weekends); within walking distance from the school; with a private bathroom; at a (more or less) specific budget.

I received numerous offers — from groups of girls (too sorority party), couples (too awkward), homeowners with beautiful homes and gardens (too far), people who wanted to play tennis during the weekends (too best friends-y), professionals (too shared bathroom-y). Then I received an email from a chap, “I appreciate my apartment is across the river from your school, but it would be a great walk. You or your sister might want to view it”. When I was in London 2 weeks ago, I went to check out the apartment and meet the fellow. The apartment meets all my requirements plus plus (washer/dryer, etc.), is in a lively location along the river and just across the river from the school (which makes for a nice short walk over Tower Bridge (in photo)), and has tons of restaurants and bars around. Chap and I got along swimmingly, AND since he works outside of London, will only be in the apartment on weekends! Ummm helloooo. Check, check, check, check, and double check!

New York Furniture.  Since I am getting rid of most everything I own, I put an order to the universe for a painless process of disposing of my furniture. I was prepared to do one or a blend of the following — sell stuff on Craigslist, leave stuff on the sidewalk (which would necessitate hiring guys to disassemble the furniture and carry them downstairs), and hire a demolition team to take some furniture and put in junk (which, apparently, is also quite expensive).

While I was in London, I received an email from my building’s management saying “We have new tenants for your apartment. They would like to move in pretty much as it is. Are you willing to sell your furniture (down to the art)?” Ummm hell to the yeah!

To the universe, to little experiments, to Lacy, I am grateful.

 

Have thoughts on manifestation?  Let me know in the comments section below.  

The Art of the Chat: An Ode to New York

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Vienna, Austria.  I’m craving a good conversation, and I’ve got New York on my mind. The Viennese, I’ve come to realize, don’t do chats. Viennese conversations with strangers, while perfectly polite, are purely transactional. Ask one question, you get one answer.  (In fact, Viennese conversations with foreign-looking strangers don’t even reach the transactional level.  A woman at the grocery store ran away from me today.  But that’s another story. . .)

New York chats, on the other hand, are anything but aseptic. Ready or not, New Yorkers will weave their personal lives into the most impersonal of topics. Do what you wish out of this unrestrained (often TMI) openness. A recent overheard conversation captures it all:

Waitress: It’s better to drink tepid water.
Customer: What’s tepid?
Waitress: Lukewarm, like i how I feel about my husband.

Ah, New York. So special. 🙂 New Yorkers are open books with anybody willing to listen. Accustomed to being ‘polite’ and respectful of other people’s personal space, most outsiders would cringe at this overexposure. In most parts of the world, the norm for ‘proper’ conversation, particularly with strangers, remains within the boundaries of the “safe topics” — the weather, where we went, what we did. Consequently, interactions are sterile and forgettable. I would add that when dialogue is limited to how great things are going and what achievements we’ve accomplished, the result is boredom. Alain de Botton, in his School of Life series, says that for meaningful conversations to occur, one should have the courage to go beyond the facts, and venture into the uncomfortable territory of feelings, vulnerabilities and failures.

Maybe it’s the small living spaces that force New Yorkers to make a living room (or therapist office) out of the entire city, or maybe it’s a certain loneliness that makes us seek connections. But New Yorkers frequently and willingly dive headfirst into this uncomfortable territory de Botton speaks of.  A woman in my morning commute asked for a tylenol and regaled me with stories of the ex-boyfriend she had met up with the previous night; another woman crossed a crowded subway car to ask for my stylist’s contact details and told me about the fight she had with hers; the cashier at the grocery store recounted the emergency call she got from her son’s school about her son’s antics.

Of course, this rawness does not always lead to pleasant encounters (such as getting kicked out of cabs, or unwanted advances). But if we do not instantly reject these encounters, and instead, remain open to them and what they can offer, this lack of censorship can forge profound connections, even for a tiny moment. Contrary to what we’ve been taught about “polite conversations”, de Botton proffers that people actually appreciate being shown others’ failures and vulnerabilities. This has less to do about wanting to see others fail, and more about wanting to know that we are not alone in our struggles. Knowing “that our own sorrows have echoes in the lives of others” is what connects us.

After a particularly difficult breakup, I took a lunch breather at one of the benches in Rockefeller. A middle-aged man in shorts and sneakers, with elegant salt and pepper hair, sat next to me. After some silence, he casually mentioned he used to work in the area but quit the law profession to try his hand at entrepreneurship. We got to conversing; I prodded a little more about his life. He mentioned his wife had divorced him.  He went through a tough period, he recalled, but is in a much much better place. He then said, “Look it all boils down to this: we all just have to relax. Life has a way of working out.”

If we find the courage to bring our conversations to new depths, we may be pleasantly surprised.  Even in a large, impersonal city such as New York, we are offered countless opportunities to discover that at the other end of the dialogue is a person with the same struggles as we do — of finding an apartment, of finding love, of finding solace, of making it here. Through these meaningful conversations readily available at any corner grocery or park bench, the city becomes our surrogate family. It consoles us, uplifts us, encourages us, makes us feel less alone, and effectively makes itself enormously difficult to leave.

 

I would love love love to hear your thoughts.  Drop me a line in the comment section below. 

The Journal Series #2: Boots

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In my efforts to drastically downsize, I’m ‘digitalizing’ my journals. That’s millennial speak for “rereading 15 years worth of notebooks and manually typing notes and highlights into my laptop”.  Here, I share some of the notes – to digest the arc that is my life, to share a giggle, and most importantly, to satisfy my sister’s general inclination to snoop after I’ve thrown the physical journals away.

Score!! Found some Daisy-isms.

Undated

“Ani, please promise me that if you meet Mr. Right, you’ll pretend to be sweet, gentle and helpless.  No one likes to seduce a boot.”

Did she just call me a boot???  Nothing like mothers to keep you grounded, no pun intended.

The Journal Series #1: Bullet Points

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In my efforts to drastically downsize, I’m ‘digitalizing’ my journals. That’s millennial speak for “rereading 15 years worth of notebooks and manually typing notes and highlights into my laptop”.  Here, I share some of the notes – to digest the arc that is my life, to share a giggle, and most importantly, to satisfy my sister’s general inclination to snoop after I’ve thrown the physical journals away.

Excerpts

2011:

– March – Fly to Puerto Vallarta to look at wedding venues.
– June – Stop wedding planning. Forfeit deposit.

2012:

– Feb – Break up. Again. Final.
– April – Move out.

If I could time-travel back to August 2011 and sit myself down in front of this couple, this is the tough love I would give:

“What is this madness?  You called off a wedding. So tell me, what are you doing still together?  You both know with every fiber of your being where this is headed.  You know in your gut where you want to be.  So what’s happening?  I know, I know. . .

You’re worrying about each other — about hurting each other. Stop.  Please, you aren’t the messiah.  Disabuse yourself of the idea that the other will wilt away without you.  You fell in love with someone strong and resilient.  They’ll be okay.  They’ll probably be even better without you.

You’re worrying about what other people will say.  Stop.  You’ll be gossip fodder for 2 minutes, then they’ll move on.  Besides, this is YOUR life.  Tell them to go get their friggin’ own.

You’re worrying about logistics — about the hassle of looking for another apartment.  Of dividing up your stuff.  Stop.  That is NO REASON to stay.  Hire movers.  I swear, these guys will take all of 2 hours to pack up your life and move you out.

You’re worrying about ever finding anybody else.  — You may find somebody.  Or you may not.  But either outcome should be better than this tortured space you’re in now.  So stop, stop, stop.

Do what you need to do.  Live your truth.  There might be some pain, but I promise you, soon enough, this episode is quite literally going to be just a set of bullet points in your story.”

On Stuff and Stoics

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I am sitting in the middle of my apartment among boxes of things packed away for donation. I am giving away most of my possessions; pointless to own anything as a semi-vagabond. My goal is to fit everything I own into two suitcases all weighing less than 100 pounds (not arbitrary; airline baggage rules).

The process of giving away stuff doesn’t bother me as much as it might have in the past. My relationship with material things shifted massively about 4 years ago. Influenced by the likes of The Minimalists and Mari Kondo, I whittled down my possessions to a fraction of what I owned, saving only the things that “brought me joy”. Joyfully, I coasted along under that guiding concept until one day, I learned that my beloved fragrance I had been using for 10 years was discontinued! The horror! That totally shook me. To the core. (This may seem overdramatic, but most of you will understand the struggle of finding that perfect personal scent. Right??)

Thankfully, I survived that event. And I promised that I wouldn’t allow myself to become dependent on anything material again, especially the things I loved. So now, when I find myself relying heavily on any one thing (a product, a brand, a diet) that could be taken away from me or that I have no control over, I loosen the dependence by giving it up for a while (or forever). This is how I gave up make-up, why I spend periods of time away from martial arts, and why I quit veganism.

ENTER THE STOICS

Granted, I have my quirks. But this unusual behavior is not entirely alien. It is rooted in Stoicism, an ancient Greco-Roman philosophy that was born over 2000 years ago. I first heard about Stoicism in 2005 when I read Alain de Botton’s The Consolations of Philosophy. I was later re-introduced to it by some of my favorite authors/speakers, Tim Ferris and Derek Sivers, who also practice this unusual technique. Founded by Zeno and popularized by prominent thinkers, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca, Stoicism has seen revivals through the ages, particularly during the Renaissance and again in modern times. Many leaders, artists, entrepreneurs practice Stoicism as a way of life.

As a practical philosophy, Stoicism is a set of teachings that help us gain a mastery of ourselves and our emotions. Most of us are helpless victims of our mood swings. We all know it — our moods can be altered in a flash by a single conversation, by traffic, an unanswered text, or shocking news. We have ceded our happiness, it seems, to Fate’s mercy.

One of the central pillars of Stoicism is the use of reason to temper these fickle emotions. Stoics teach that a key to mastering our emotions is to differentiate between the elements we can control and those we can’t, and not to sweat the things that we cannot do anything about. Thus, if Fate deals us an unpleasant hand — be it a discontinued fragrance or a loss of all our wealth — our inner peace is intact.

Expect Everything.  A practice to master this, according to the Stoics, is to expect unpleasant events to happen. Seneca encourages a daily premeditation which begins:

“The wise will start each day with the thought…
Fortune gives us nothing which we can rely on.
Nothing, whether public or private, is stable; the destinies of men, no less than those of cities, are in a whirl . . .”

We need only to look at natural calamities, accidents, shocking events that happen on a daily basis to understand the randomness of Fate. Fate doesn’t distinguish between the wealthy and the poor, the physically strong and the feeble. No matter how big a fortress we build, we are never immune to loss and pain. Hence,

“Never did I trust Fortune, even when she seemed to be offering peace. All those blessings which she kindly bestowed on me — money, public office, influence — I relegated to a place from which she could take them back without disturbing me. Between them and me, I have kept a wide gap, and so she has merely taken them, not torn them away from me.” – Seneca

Practice Discomfort.  Another practical technique advocated by the Stoics is voluntary discomfort. Stoics did not shun a pleasurable life. However, they encouraged a regular practice of poverty and discomfort to temper our dependence on material luxuries, to strengthen ourselves against future misfortune, and to reduce our fear of it.

“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: “Is this the condition that I feared?” – Seneca

Modern day Stoics practice this in various ways. Tim Ferris eats only rice and beans for a few days at a time to practice hunger. Or intentionally wears ugly shoes to practice the discomfort of ridicule. Others sleep on the floor, use cold showers, go without phone or internet, (stop wearing make up, abstain from martial arts, ahem ahem). . . the options are endless. The goal is to strengthen ourselves and remain unperturbed by the shifting external conditions we find ourselves in.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

So, as I sit here among boxes contemplating what lies ahead, I am unnerved by the thought that I will soon possess almost nothing — not a plate to my name and no home address to speak of. For a period, I will be moving from place to place, living under the roofs of generous souls (my sister, my parents, friends, airbnb hosts).

This all feels profoundly antithetical to what we naturally strive for. We spend our lives working hard to build a bastion of safety and comfort, a home where we can feel safe to let our guards down and be our truest selves. I’ve worked for the same things, and I’ve been fortunate to have been able to do so. On a visit to NY, my Mom commented, “Now I see why you’re single. Your life is so comfortable. There is no point ruffling it up.”

That comment gave me pause (not the “single” part. I’ve become immune to that). Sure, it is nice to have a cushy life, but have I become too rigid to withstand any bit of ruffling? Have I become inflexible? And have I become too dependent on this single-girl NY lifestyle for my happiness? The Stoics remind us that life is shifty. This fun, independent lifestyle I’ve built in NY will be ruffled up whether I like it or not. Rents will skyrocket; friends will marry and move to the suburbs; Trump may ruin everything; and even I may get married.  And then what?  What will become of me when things are shaken?

And this is why I feel it is necessary to leave home, this home, even temporarily — to loosen my dependence on NY (or any one place) for my happiness. Yes, it is a grand and strange exercise in Stoicism. But I hope to come out of it with the learned wisdom that the happiness and peace one derives from ‘home’ has nothing to do with the physical structure or city one finds herself in.

 

How do you deal with dependency?  What are your views on Stoicism?  And Stuff?  I would love to hear your thoughts.  Let me know in the comments section below.