The less you do...the less you will be able to do.

[fookisan]

The less you do...the less you will be able to do. I was reminded of this truism back in June when the public pool opened up. I generally swim in the pool during summer time and then just quit for the other 9 months out of the year when the outdoor pool closes at Labor Day. I felt that I do many movement related activities that are just as good as swimming such as weight training, jogging, yoga, mountain biking, cross country skiing, etc. Well, the day after my first day back in the pool my back was pinched as well as my shoulder. Apparently weight training, jogging and mountain biking is not the same as doing the backstroke.

I first leaned of this concept that the less you do...the less you will be able to do from my Mom. One day she got dizzy while bending over. My dad told her that he would bend over for her, so she would not get dizzy. Apparently he did not realize that the less you do...the less you will be able to do. Well, his well meaning help only encouraged more dizziness in Mom since the fluid in her ear that regulates equilibrium and balance would stagnate from less movement. Mom then complained about getting dizzy when she got out of bed. What was her answer? She would sleep in a recliner at an angle so she would not have to lie down and go through the dizziness. The angle gradually kept getting steeper until she had to sleep sitting almost upright. What is my response to all this dizziness? If something make me dizzy I do more of it and make myself even more dizzy.

On a walking trail I met a retired doctor the other day. He was bent over and quite distorted. I talked with him at length about his exercise program. He does plenty of walking - walking bent over which through gravity keeps going in the wrong direction. But he did no weighs training, no yoga or stretching, no work on righting his posture through various other mechanical methods. He was not distorted due to ill, health he was distorted from years of going in the wrong direction with his posture and his life. I planted many seed in him, but do not know if they will sprout. I've noticed many MD's that are supposed to be experts at health yet they fail terribly when it comes to themselves. BTW, what was I doing on the asphalt walking path? I was rollerblading and running my gas powered motoboard. (skateboard) The motoboard goes 30 mph and provides good speed training as well a balance and equilibrium training. (It kills you legs after 20 minutes of standing in the horse stance) I also get some fabulous stares from the local Ohio Valley people seeing a 51 year old with a gray goatee riding it! I tell them I'm from Los Angeles - so that explains it!

As we age we seem to lose many abilities. Now, losing some skills is fine, but losing most of them is not. Personally I have to be mindful of many areas as I like to be as well rounded as possible with my health. I was doing some rock climbing a few years ago near Malibu and did OK after I got warmed up. A year later after laying off all climbing, when I returned to the same place to climb I had knots in my stomach when I first viewed the climb. It looked scary to me, but once I got at it and started to climb, the knots disappeared. This also taught me that the less you do...the less you will be able to do. If I cant get some climbing in I try to pull out the ladder for some 2 story work or climb a tree

This year was reminded this same lesson the first time I got back on the high dive in June. The high dive seemed too high for me, so I stayed off it the last few years. This year I got back on the high dive. I do not do anything to brag about on it, but just going off it was a good improvement for me. Was hoping to do some back flips off the less high springboard, but did not get around to trying them this season. My regular diving improved in any case and At 51, I am grateful for any improvement. Guess I'll just have to dream about the back flips for now.

This weekend starts a local GNCC style dirt bike course opening. It is only opened for 7 days a year for public riding, so I do not get enough dirt bike action in any longer. The 2 places I rode at last year shut down, so have to curtail my dirt bike work. Dirt bikes provide much in the area of equilibrium, balance and speed training. Also provide much physical exertion and when you ride em you will feel it later. Doing wheelies is also great training for an old dog like me. One young neighbor lady came out her house to chase me down the street to scold me for doing wheelies in the street. What is the other option that would please her...a rocking chair and slippers? I hope to be doing wheelies down the street when I'm 80 if I live that long. Tonight when I got out my dirt bikes for the first time in a couple months was reminded of the less you do...the less you will be able to do. My back was sore and wrist got pinched a little when I came down from a wheelie in my backyard. When I go out tomorrow will wear some wrist supports and a kidney belt but will keep on keeping on.

Height training, speed training, balance and equilibrium training many areas to train ourselves. If you aspire to be a mountaineer there is cold training as well as high altitude training as good preparation. If you ski then speed training is good. But speed training on skis is different from speed training on snowboards as I found out last year. And speed training in snow sports is different from speed training while driving a motorcycle. and speed training while driving a motorcycle is different from speed training while sprinting the 100 meters. Cross training is important, but many activities do not exactly replace certain activities, so the moral of the story is do all that you can do, for a day will come when you cannot do it any longer and all you can do is watch. This year will seek out a public indoor pool for the other 9 months cause in addition to doing my weight training, jogging, speed training, mountain biking, cross country skiing, snowboarding and yoga - they are not the same as doing the backstroke.


Take Care,


Dan

 

[rpodos]

When wet, the less I do the more I see.

 

[fookisan]

When wet, the less I do the more I see.

Yes, in the "wet" case you are correct. Here is an old post on VS.

We seldom question if more of a "good thing" is desirable for our supposed happiness in life. The question, that Voluntary Simplicity helps answer, is the question of what IS enough so we may be happy right now in the present. A life of Voluntary Simplicity focuses our attention on the fact that "everything we own take a little piece ~ peace of us." And in doing so, we can let go of peace and life destroying rituals and possessions and replace them with a contented, satisfied and complete life in the present moment instead of a life that revolves around the next thing to be acquired in hopes of satisfying our insatiable appetites. Greed is never satisfied by attainment - it is only satisfied by contentment. This orientation of conscious thought to simplify ones life in whatever activity the individual is engaged in is the foundation of success when it comes to simple living...mindfulness of our direction in life. Voluntary Simplicity is the tool I use to counter this desire to constantly expand my life with more complexities, stress and problems and to live within my comfortable boundaries for a serene life.

Although I started with 12 step programs in 1974 I was not able to enjoy balanced recovery efforts until I joined the Voluntary Simplicity or Simple Living movement in 1996. 12 step programs make up about 60% of my recovery work and 40% of my recovery comes from VS, so personally, I need that mix for successful recovery. The 12 Step programs do actually touch on the VS topic, but I could never see it, I guess it didn't go into enough detail for me. I've read quotes about VS in the 12 and 12 decades ago, although it is not specifically promoted or called VS by the program. I just glossed over the quotes until coming to VS. Once I became super sensitized to VS, these quotes shot out at me and the recovery picture all came together. Here is a quote that can be taken as the 12 Step programs efforts at VS.

........From page 76 of the 12 & 12 of Alcoholics Anonymous........

"The chief activator of our defects has been a self-centered fear-primarily that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded. Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustrations. Therefore, no peace was to be had unless we could find a means of reducing these demands."

I cannot tell you that I have no unsatisfied demands in my life; but, I will say that since joining the simple living movent my unsatisfied demands can now be counted on one hand, whereas in my prior life, I needed a notebook to record them all. I find VS to be a very important state of mind to be in. It shows which direction a person is pointed in with their life. The same way an addiction has 3 roads to go down, so it goes with VS. An addict can be expanding their addiction, freezing their addiction or reducing their addiction. A person suffering from an overly stressed or complicated life can be expanding the complications, freezing the complications or reducing the complications. Thoreau says that we need food, shelter, fuel and clothes as necessities. In modern times, I will add transportation to the list depending on your local. Everything else is pretty much optional. If we have these needs met and are not happy, then their is no end to our supposed needs for that elusive state of happiness that we seek. We all seem to have no shortage of supposed needs or wants as addicts.

VS is not about living low, it is about choices and balance. You get out what you put in with VS. If you do not cut back enough on the complexities that rob you of living life, then all you have is your same complex life back that you started with. If you cut out too many complexities and are unhappy or bored, don't worry, you can always add them back. We suffer from no shortage of stress and complexities of living, especially if you have a family. Life gives us plenty of problems for free. You can even trade the complexities that offer no reward other than more problems for new complexities that offer rich rewards or good feelings. There are no rules other than if you do not do enough you do not get any results. There are no VS police to boss you around and tell you what is right or wrong. We have to decide this for ourselves as individuals. As I have said before, the program is the final judge of your success, not you, not me, not anyone else, whether it be 12 step or VS.

An in-depth discussion and clarification of the term "Voluntary Simplicity" by Philip Slater

All personal solutions to wealth addiction involve one form or another of what has come to be called Voluntary Simplicity. This doesn't not necessarily mean going "back to nature" and does not mean living in poverty and discomfort, although some people may elect forms of simplicity that would be highly uncomfortable for the rest of us. Above all, it does not mean forcing yourself to give up something you really enjoy, out of some pious conviction that it's the "right thing to do." Voluntary Simplicity merely means trying to rid one's life as much as possible of material clutter so as to concentrate on more important things: creativity, human survival and development, community well-being, play.

The key word in Voluntary Simplicity is "voluntary," which means that the giving up of the material clutter is not coerced either from the outside or from the inside. As Andre Vanden Broeck observers, only those who have experienced affluence are in a position to have a "choice divorced from need." The poor aren't in a position to make such a choice-they are stuck with a scarcity that is neither simple nor voluntary.

Nor is Voluntary Simplicity coerced from within, for to deprive yourself out of some ideological conviction is merely to feed the Ego Mafia. The word "simplicity" may have overtones that arouse our suspicions: a vaguely puritan ring, conjuring up images of drab smocks, self-righteousness and flagellation. But if this is in the spirit in which Voluntary Simplicity is embraced the result will most certainly be noxious.

There is an old Zen story about two monks traveling together who encounter a nude woman trying to cross a stream. One of them carries her across, much to the consternation of the other. They continue in silence for a couple of hours until the second monk can stand it no longer. "How," he asks "could you expose yourself to such temptation?" The first monk replies, "I put her down two hours ago. You're still carrying her."

Addiction is internal; if you experiment sincerely with Voluntary Simplicity and find yourself still thinking of money and possessions, your simplicity is a fraud and you might just as well go back to pursuing wealth until you've had your fill of it. To achieve its goal, Voluntary simplicity must be undertaken in the spirit, not of Puritanism or self-flagellation, but out of adventure. All adventurers throughout history have, after all, been people who abandoned comforts, possessions, love and security to seek new experiences in faraway places.

Richard Gregg, who coined the term in 1936, once complained to Gandhi that while he had no trouble giving up most things, he could not let go of his books. Gandhi told he shouldn't try: "As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it." He pointed out that if you give things up out of a sense of duty or self-sacrifice they continue to preoccupy you and clutter your mind. To talk of "denying oneself" is to use the language of despotism. Simplicity is an affirmation, not a denial of oneself.

End of quote

It is always nice to have our own work confirmed by others that have gone before us as well as those that follow us. Many years ago I coined the phrase "Everything you own takes a little piece ~ peace of you." A couple years ago I came across Richard Gregg's original work on Voluntary Simplicity penned in 1936 and this is what he said on the subject of peace disturbance or as he termed it "SIMPLICITY A KIND OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HYGIENE".

Taken from the original work:

Pendle Hill Essays Number Three
THE VALUE OF VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY
RICHARD B. GREGG
Acting Director of Pendle Hill 1935-36


Chapter X. SIMPLICITY A KIND OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HYGIENE
There is one further value to simplicity. It may be regarded as a mode of psychological hygiene. Just as eating too much is harmful to the body, even though the quality of all the food eaten is excellent, so it seems that there may be a limit to the number of things or the amount of property which a person may own and yet keep himself psychologically healthy. The possession of many things and of great wealth creates so many possible choices and decisions to be made every day that it becomes a nervous strain.

I'll leave you with a snip of wisdom from Thoreau from his book Walden.

"The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor. They had no friend Iolaus to burn with a hot iron the root of hydra's head, but as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up."


Take Care,

Dan