“How deeply you touch another life is how rich your life is.”–Sadhguru

I like this quote because it redefines wealth, which seems to be a primary concern of many. When I was growing up, I was spoiled by having the things I wanted, and I took them for granted. Yet, I also slowly realized that what I really wanted couldn’t be bought. I wanted to be happy. I didn’t want to do anything just for money; I wanted fulfillment. Money wasn’t a driving force in my life.

Is money the key to happiness?

As a full-time volunteer, maybe I’m not earning financially, but the value I get from being with others, offering myself to help them, is far more precious. Sometimes I struggle with the idea of not making money, since I have always grown up believing I would have a career. But I am creating possibilities for myself which are beyond monetary reward, which I myself find truly worthwhile.

My grandfather can’t understand how I could have come here to help him, and would rather that I earn something and leave him alone. It’s no surprise that he didn’t have great relationships with relatives, since he apparently does not appreciate being with family.

The other day I shucked fresh Jersey corn with my nephew, & I feel this trip is the same: day by day, peeling back more and more layers, down to my core. Spending time with loved ones doesn’t cost money, it costs love–and that is invaluable.

How appropriate that my Jewish mother sent me this. I thought it was hilarious & timely, since I’m coming to terms with certain issues related to the theme of kvetching.

I checked out her son’s article in HuffPost, Frame It With Gratitude:

“One way to describe your experience would be to say, ‘This is so annoying I could scream!’ Or you could say, ‘This is so annoying … and my life is really very blessed.’ ” She agreed that could make a big difference.

“But I don’t think I can remember to do that,” she sighed.

To my delight and amazement, my mother has continued doing the practice, and the change has been revolutionary. Seven months after my visit, she sent a card for my birthday. As is our family tradition, it contained a poem she wrote for the occasion. This one I especially cherish. Even though she started losing her sight during those months, the effects of her gratitude practice are evident in this poignant excerpt. And it goes to show you that you can teach an elder human new tricks!

Ninety is just fine with me, I no longer rant and rave
About where the world is heading and my exclusive job to save.
I wallow in contentment and know that I am blessed
Awakening to the joy of living at its best.
I’m happier than I’ve ever been and truly mean each word.
The thoughts that caused the worries now all seem so absurd.
Though my eyesight has been dimmed I see clearer than before,
The glass is not half empty, it’s overflowing to be sure.

Why is it that we have to complain or criticize about what’s there? Even if you want to improve something, surely there are more effective ways of going about it.

Sadhguru’s Huffington Post piece from last week, If the Feminine Ruled This Planet, Life Would Be About Living, really struck a chord with me. Firstly, a caveat:

When I say feminine, I am not talking about it in terms of male-female; I am talking about it in terms of masculine-feminine.

Yes, but women certainly are implicated. The feminine is under threat, not just by patriarchy and social norms, but from women ourselves. We are not choosing to speak out against the systems which suppress the feminine.

So today, there is a danger that the female is giving up the feminine because survival has once again become the dominant factor. Survival has been pushed up to a demanding scale like never before. In earlier times, survival meant just gathering the day’s food. But today, survival means a BMW, the latest technological gadgets for your children, a summer home, etc. That is very challenging. So as this happens, as the demand for this type of life increases, there will ultimately be no room for the feminine to find any place in society.

There is so much pressure on women to compete like men in the workplace, and then still maintain the household. When I was growing up, my mom worked, but I had friends whose moms were housewives and I envied them. However, nowadays it is a rare luxury if families can afford to have a stay-at-home mom.

So something needs to happen for the feminine to flower within each human being. The feminine should be nurtured right from the start. As many children go into science and technology, the same number should also go into music, art, philosophy and literature. This must happen. If this does not happen, there will be no room for the feminine in the world. So celebrating the feminine is very essential. It is not about “woman,” but rather the “feminine.”

I struggled with the division of disciplines as I was younger. I enjoyed most of the subjects, but found math really challenging. I longed to pursue music, dance, and theater, but it was difficult to accommodate everything. When it came to college and professional choices, it was obvious that intuitive, artistic pursuits could only serve as hobbies, whereas my career would have to be based in the logical aspects of life. A lot of feminist research has been about quantifying the “care economy,” and calls for better remuneration of the jobs that women typically fill.

The very nature of this continual quest for survival is masculine. The masculine is always about conquering something. The feminine is not about conquest. The feminine is about flowering, about relaxing, about living – not about getting. So what’s needed is a shift. If that shift does not happen, we will exhaust the planet too fast. If the feminine ruled this planet, there would be no ecological problems because it would not be one mindless, endless conquest – it would be about living.

What do you prefer: conquering or relaxing?

It took a long time for me to process that culture shock–perhaps I am still–but one thing I know is this: The conversation is dynamic between an individual and her environment and just as it would be absolutely absurd to respond in a conversation with your friend with the same one line, it is absurd to respond to life experiences with the same old line. To be engaged in this narrative with others, our environment, our religions…requires creativity, expression, and risk. This is what I think. What about you?

Life can be so contradictory, whenever we form fixed opinions it has a way of proving us wrong, if we’re open to it. Otherwise we remain stuck and suffer.

What is required?

Fluidity. If you try to cling to your old beliefs and habits, you will end up missing all that the new place has to offer. You will close yourself to any possibilities of exploration. You will become lost in translation as you search for a meaning which computes with your preconceived notions.

Willingness to laugh at yourself. To look deeply and acknowledge that so much about you is unconsiously shaped by where you have grown up.

Listening, openness. Even if you don’t understand the what or why, acknowledging the universal humanity in others.

Appreciating the diversity of experiences. Humility in seeing that there are many rights and wrongs as shaped by place and time.

This thing we call life can be so complicated! Or so simple.

Christakis and James Fowler, associate professor at University of California-San Diego in the Department of Political Science, are coauthors of the recent book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. They have shown that cooperative behavior is contagious, and that it spreads downstream from a single individual in a cascade of influence that involves dozens more individuals, reaching at least “three degrees of separation.” Their research shows that the initiating influence can involve a variety of behaviors, emotions and ideas, including kindness, happiness, and generosity.

Seen from this perspective, it isn’t the electronic gizmos and doodads that have caused an obsession with networking in our kids; rather, the gadgets may simply make it possible for them to live out their underlying genetic predispositions for cooperation and empathy.

The ultimate incentive for kids’ interconnected, empathic way of relating to one another may be that it, well, feels good.

Very interesting to consider–helping others is selfish.

Steve Culbertson, president of Youth Service America, a volunteer resource center in Washington, D.C., said, “It gets under your skin. The real big secret to service to others is the majority of the benefits accrue to you. It just becomes who you are. It’s not something you pick or choose; it’s just part of your nature and makeup.”

It may be no accident that the most plugged-in generation in history is also the most volunteer-prone. The empathic urge may underlie both areas of behavior. In fact, electronic connectivity and volunteerism have proved to be inseparable.

Tapping into the internet allows us to recognize being part of the same whole and take actions which aid ourselves and others…?

For my dissertation at LSE, I wrote about a UNICEF project for girl’s education and questioned its assumption that education was automatically empowering. A contact of mine currently at the LSE, Layla, has posted some very interesting research–conducted by the LSE, no less–that again brings these questions to my mind:  Cleverest women are the heaviest drinkers

Those with degrees are almost twice as likely to drink daily, and they are also more likely to admit to having a drinking problem.

“Reasons for the positive association of education and drinking behaviours may include: a more intensive social life that encourages alcohol intake; a greater engagement into traditionally male spheres of life, a greater social acceptability of alcohol use and abuse; more exposure to alcohol use during formative years; and greater postponement of childbearing and its responsibilities among the better educated,” says the report.

The article doesn’t mention stress–and that alcohol happens to be society’s most acceptable and easiest available antidote. What would be helpful to look at is how women’s involvement in “traditionally male spheres of life” is inherently stressful; even more helpful would be examining methods to eliminate stress so that this kind of abuse need not happen.

Granted, this research is from the UK with notoriously high rates of alcohol consumption. But still, it’s quite tragic to think that the most educated and qualified women are wasting their potential by getting sloshed.

Is it because they cannot handle the pressure of being in such high positions in society and conforming to roles with which they are not comfortable? Is inebriation a more empowering alternative?

Scientists are especially intrigued by the similarities between hallucinogenic experiences and the life-changing revelations reported throughout history by religious mystics and those who meditate.

The subjects’ reports mirrored so closely the accounts of religious mystical experiences, Dr. Griffiths said, that it seems likely the human brain is wired to undergo these “unitive” experiences, perhaps because of some evolutionary advantage.

Rick Doblin, the executive director of Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies says:

“Thanks to changes over the last 40 years in the social acceptance of the hospice movement and yoga and meditation, our culture is much more receptive now, and we’re showing that these drugs can provide benefits that current treatments can’t.”

Another sad example of the over-medication mentality in the US. Rather than follow the natural logic of his statement–that yoga and meditation have proven benefits for well-being–Doblin promotes psychedelics. If current treatments aren’t properly addressing the mental problems, that means people should turn to other kinds of drugs instead of yoga or mediation?

We should be more interested in researching how non-pharmaceutical methods work. Oh right, but where’s the money in that…?

Far from transforming us, antidepressants are leaving us pretty much as they found us.

The transformation or malformation I had expected to feel never quite arrived, that in the course of ramping up my serotonin levels, I should remain so freakishly myself.

In my pre-pill days, I regarded happiness as a form of grace, descending upon me whether or not I was worthy of it. Now I think of it as something that, however elusive, is there to be sought.

It’s amazing how buying and believing in a pill to fix you can be easier than seeking the source of your problems, and the solutions to them.

The year after college, I became very aware that I did not want to travel down the path of pharmaceuticals like so many around me had. I viewed them like band-aids, which could only patch up what was lying underneath. I could not believe people would rather ingest manufactured substances than look within. I suppose that’s when my seeking began, for the possibility of a better life. My college distractions had faded and I was faced with the daunting prospect of starting a life on my own… One which I had to create as I wanted.

The book, “Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage,” has made the New York Times Best-seller List.  Has she actually transcended the beauty business thanks to age and yoga?

“The thing about aging is that its got all these wonderful answers attached to it,” Welch said, adding that age alone should never define a person.

I’m holding together just fine, I’m not doing it with no effort, I’m doing my yoga everyday — an hour-and-a-half of that — but really guys, what is the point of starting to lie about your age?”

She expounds upon the difficultly of being known only as a sex symbol. “I felt that people really didn’t give a damn about me, they only cared about her…”  It’s ironic how she describes her persona with “an impossibly skinny little waist” as “formidable”–what’s empowering about emaciation?

Now that she’s aged, has she surmounted her insecurities?

Welch said the point of the book was to remind women that their fears and anxieties “were not special to them.” If her own travails, worries and insecurities, which were magnified by being in the public eye, were surmountable, so are theirs.

At the end of the session, I feel happy and giggly. I lie on the floor in my blanket, laughing like an insane person, or a baby, or an insane baby. I think I must be very tired. I speak to a few of my fellow travellers. They all seem to be in recovery from a terrible personal crisis, although I do not know if they too shout at buses.

A few days later, meditation calls me back. I actually want to do it. Could the anger be ready to fly away, like a bad love song? This time I go to City Lit in Holborn, which has a mindfulness class, again run by Duncan. Again, I am late – the power of denial! So, when I go in, 20 women are sitting on mats with their eyes closed, doing the practice session. One opens her eye and scowls at me. I scowl back. There is also, inevitably, a solitary man. In meditation class, there is always a solitary man. It seems to be a law.

The gender dynamics of meditation deserve another post. The results?

I continue to meditate and as I do, I can feel the anger waving goodbye. I stay soothed. For example, a friend asks me to a dinner party. I fear dinner parties like I fear Nazis. But I go, and I am polite, even when someone asks me if I have cystitis. (I do not.) Meditation is effective, I fear. I am in danger of turning into a rug. I am in danger of being happy.