So many of us in particular and our culture in general have lost sight of the ends to which we should be striving.  Things like freedom, intellectual growth, happiness,  social relationships, and general well-being.  We have allowed the means to these values to become the ends towards which we endlessly strive.  We constantly are piling up the means, but forgetting the ends to which those should lead.

This is where we are at with the means becoming more important than the ends:

This is where we should be with the ends more important than than the means:

The most obvious of these is money.  It has ceased to be a means to more valuable ends like freedom and has instead has become an end in itself and indeed an obstacle to freedom.  Instead of buying freedom is it buys most people slavery.  Those who accumulate enough chips to buy their freedom usually don’t.  Instead they just continue striving for more.  It has become the end that is pursued for it’s own sake; as a measuring stick for success and status (regardless of what some may claim).

But it’s not just money, it’s happening with just about everything.  Electronic gadgets which should be used as tools for convenience and to connect have become an absurd end in themselves.  The gadget buying for no other reason than to have the latest and greatest has gone over an obscene cliff and shows no signs of slowing down.  I’m not a luddite, but I want to use gadgets as a means to something better. They are like a car with 1,000 unneeded options.  Once you get past heat and air and comfortable seats the rest is pretty much fluffy status.

Our homes are no longer for shelter or an anchoring place for family and friends.  They have become monstrously oversized status symbols or even alleged investments.  They are expensive to buy and operate and many people not only don’t own their home (because the bank owns 100% of the property), but they also owe them some part of the rest of their future wealth.  Congratulations you are now a slave to financial institutions.  Expect them someday to go bankrupt and then get the government to steal more of your money to bail them out.

Our children’s activities are supposed to give them a rich life experience.  Instead they have become a competitive status activity that makes the kids miserable and allows the parents to live vicariously.

Facebook and similar sites were supposed to be a way to connect with family and friends and instead have become a place to display your fake self and compete to see who can have the most fake “friends”.   Facebook is no longer a means to something better, it has become an end in itself.  Do you “Facebook”?

What Are Your Values?

It can’t be money because money is only a medium of exchange and in itself is completely worthless (and government policy makes it less valuable in exchanges).

Stop and think about what you truly value.  I listed some of mine at the beginning of this article – freedom, intellectual growth, happiness, social relationships, and general well-being.

I seriously doubt that anyone actually values an iPad 11 (I know it doesn’t exist).  You want an iPad 11 because it can do three things the iPad 10 can’t.  So what?  Exactly what do those three things contribute to your ultimate values?  I suggest exactly nothing.  Is downloading a movie on your 4G phone in 5 seconds going to make you happy?  If it does you are in serious need of help

The beautiful thing about life is that means to those ultimate values can be achieved by some of the simpler things you can do in life.  In the pursuit of success, happiness, and freedom we have lost sight of those ultimate ends and become stuck in an endless game of piling up means.

If we can focus on our ultimate values and adjust our relationship to the means, we will be a lot more likely to thrive in the only thing that really counts; our experience of life.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

If you liked this article and think it might be useful to others please share by clicking the share buttons below:

“When you get in the mud with a pig, you get dirty and the pig gets happy.”
–James Altucher

This is one of those problems in life that has a simple solution that is hard to implement.  It becomes more difficult the closer one is to one of these crappy people.  Even though I know what I should do, I still find it hard sometimes.

These kinds of people are not worth your time or stress.  Every second of your life that you spend with someone who is a negative is not only a second you lose from something you value more, it takes something out of you.  It’s not not neutral it is a draining negative.  The effect of dealing with them will linger with you and continue to take away from your precious life.  It’s like a left hook to the head followed by a right.  And for particularly crappy people you might as well take an uppercut to the chin as well.  You may suffer the effects for days to come.

It’s your life and you don’t get it back. You don’t get a do-over. You waste it on stupid, needy, irritating, toxic, and generally crappy people and YOU LOSE.

Making It About You

When you think about, stress about, talk about, or in any way do something about crappy people, you thereby make their problem all about you.  This is where you make the big mistake.

In my own life I have done a great deal to eliminate this problem but I still have a long way to go. In listening to the chatter of others, I think most people suffer from it a lot. They sure spend a lot of time talking about the crappy humans that they deal with; reliving the events all over again.

The Simple But Not So Easy Solution

What follows should be obvious. While writing it I kept saying “Duh!” to myself.   However we seem to need to be reminded about what to do because we obviously aren’t doing it enough.

Three simple words: Avoid, Ignore, and Forget.

Avoid

Avoiding crappy people is the first strategy.  If you know a crappy person avoid them.  This is obviously easier to do if the crapper is a friend of a friend than if she is your mother in-law, but still in almost all cases you can avoid these people more than you might think.  It takes guts to walk away or avoid people who are close to you but you need to set boundaries.

People who interact with you need to understand that it takes two to tango, and that you have the right to avoid them if they do not respect your terms for engaging in the dance.  Often times your family, friends, or colleagues will look down upon for being anti-social or refusing to engage.  However it is your right to live your life as you choose and that includes avoiding crappy people no matter who they may be.

If your mother-in-law (or your mother) is at your home for the holidays, you have a right to inform her that she cannot act that way in your home.  She can either behave or leave.  If you are at her home you can leave.  If you decide you can’t leave you can go into another room and read a book, go outside, or otherwise disengage.

Ignore

Let’s say you can’t actually avoid the person or you chose not to avoid them.  You can then utilize the second strategy and simply ignore them.  Don’t talk to them.  Whatever you do do not argue with them.  Don’t complain about them.  Keep quiet.  To do otherwise is simply to elicit more crap.  If it is your boss or a colleague say as little as possible and meet as little as possible.  You can still be professional, you just choose to keep quiet if at all possible.

The human tendency, trust me I know, is to be outraged, to fight, complain, and stew about it.  If you can’t avoid then ignore, ignore, ignore, and ignore some more.  DO NOT ENGAGE THEM IN ANY WAY.

It’s amazing how much better you feel and how much less interesting you are to the crappy people in the world when you simply ignore them.

Forget

If you have failed to avoid and ignore you are left with the final strategy of simply forgetting about it.  Whatever has happened in the past is done and gone so forget about it.  Why relive the problem again and again?  Every time you think about it, say something about it, complain about it, stress about it, or do anything but forget about it you are reliving the pain all over again.

And So…

You can’t change people no matter what you think.  You will waste your life trying and frustrate yourself to no end.  Just stop.  Avoid.  Ignore.  Forget.  Remember the quote from James Altucher at the top of this article and don’t play with a pig.

This may seem obvious, but evidently most of us can’t seem to do the obvious.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

If you liked this article and think it might be useful to others please share by clicking the share buttons below:

The other day I went to a blog I regularly read and I was dumbfounded by the subject of the new article on display.  It was something like “How To Read More”.  I thought he has to be kidding right?  But no, in all seriousness the article was about how to read more with 10 strategies to accomplishing this amazing feat.  I’m not naming the blog because this celebration of the trivial is not unique to that blog.  It is widespread and I’ve been guilty of similar things myself.  I’m sure the author thinks he is writing something valuable.  But what struck me was wondering how many of the hundreds of thousands of subscribers to that blog thought it valuable?  Is anyone besides me thinking this is useless trivia?  I doubt it, at least not many.  Other than to actually pick up more reading material and turn more pages, I’m not sure exactly what it is I need to know.

I ended my dance with Facebook for the same reason, the celebration of the trivial.  Other than being a place where people perform for public consumption, the trivia was simply mind-numbing to me. We have got to a point in our culture of trivia that we think it is normal that one of the most popular blogs in the world needs to tell us how to read more.  Our culture is so saturated by useless trivia that we don’t even notice it anymore.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve read on some blog or elsewhere about how to declutter.  But seriously who needs it?  The one time I did a significant decluttering I went to my closet with a bunch of giant bags.  I went through all my clothes.  I think I eliminated about ⅔ of my clothes from my closet.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t use any advice from all that reading about decluttering but instead just used my common sense.  If I no longer wore it, I got rid of it.

I don’t like to watch TV much but my wife usually has it on and I can’t help but pick up on what is being said some of the time.  One of the most common phrases that comes out of my mouth any more is “And that is considered newsworthy?”  I live in the huge metropolitan city of Houston, TX.  One of the network stations here on the local news was telling us the other day that health inspectors found a cockroach at some restaurant I’ve never heard of.  Really?  In a city of this size that kind of trivial nonsense is what earns a time-slice of the airwaves?  Even without watching TV intentionally I seem to know way more than I want to about Ashton Kutcher’s and Demi Moore’s marital problems.

Don’t misunderstand me.  Everything does not have to be serious.  I’m a big fan of smart humor and I spend a good amount of time joking around.  I’m all in favor of relaxing and enjoying life.  But seriously do we need Gurus to tell us how to read?  Are we so freaking helpless we have to take a class in how to relax or buy a self-help book on the subject?  Can we not figure this simple stuff out for ourselves?  I guess I’m just becoming a cynical old crank, but good grief.  Let’s spend our time on more substantial things.  Do you really want to look back over the last few years of your life and think about how much time was spent on such useless trivia?  Try reading instead, and I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you how to do that.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

If you liked this article and think it might be useful to others please share by clicking the “Share This” button below:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

–Thomas Jefferson author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence

On July 4th in the U.S. we celebrate our country’s independence.  While I personally believe we have lost much of that spirit of independence with the explosive growth of government encroachment in our lives, we retain at least in theory a basic level of political freedom.

On the other hand, I believe the vast majority of us have voluntarily, if unknowingly, enslaved ourselves in other ways that are just as harmful to the stated values of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”.

In no particular order what follows is some of the ways in which we enslave ourselves.

Independence From Stuff

I think Peter Walsh the clutter expert says it very well:

“We buy all that stuff because we think it will make us happy.  We thank that if we collect all the right things – the right home, the right clothes, the right electronics, the right cars, the right appliances – we will eventually accumulate the life we imagine for ourselves.  In buying what we want, we hope to acquire the life we desire.  …  Stuff can be a real bitch!  It’s very demanding.  It fills space.  It costs money.  it doesn’t respond to your changing needs.  It promises everything, delivers nothing, and eventually just stresses you out.  Chasing the life you want by accumulating more stuff is a dead-end street.”

– Peter Walsh

I turned 50 this year and I realize in those 50 years that no thing I have ever bought has brought me anything but temporary happiness and very temporary at that.  It’s a lesson that is hard to communicate well to others; they seem to have to learn it themselves – the hard way.  Forget stuff or you will never be pursuing genuine happiness.  I don’t care much about any of it anymore.  Eliminating your dependence on stuff is also the best way to prevent your enslavement to money and debt.  They are all basically caused by the same thing – our desire for stuff.

Independence From Others

This is a tough one because often we accept enslavement to others as just part of what we believe are necessary compromises in life.  I don’t buy it.  Whether it is family, friends, or a life partner, enslaving your life even in small ways to the wishes of others is a losing proposition.  The accumulation of a lot of “small” compromises can add up to a big loss of independence.  People complain about not having time to do things they want to do in life.  Most of the time it is because they gave away their precious life minutes in “small” chunks.  In my article about manipulative relationships. I said this:

“Time does not run backwards.  You do not get a do-over.  Please do not waste another minute with toxic or manipulative people.  When you are lying on your deathbed, it is highly unlikely you will say “Boy I’m so glad I wasted my precious life putting up with all the drama and crap in my relationships.”

If you can’t have relationships with others that respect the fact that you are independent souls, then I don’t think it is a relationship worth having at all.

Independence From Commitments

“If there is one change you could make today that would have the biggest impact on your life in terms of productivity, effectiveness, and being able to do the things you most want to do, it would be to reduce the commitments in your life.”

–Leo Babauta

Your job commitments, your church commitments, your civic commitments, your coaching commitments, your chauffeuring commitments, your children’s activity commitments, your hobby commitments, your shopping commitments, your household commitments, your PTA commitments, your neighborhood commitments, your friend commitments, your family commitments, your online commitments, and on and on the list goes.

With those commitments you have enslaved yourself and are no longer truly independent.  Refusing to commit does not in any way entail a refusal to help or volunteer or doing whatever else you feel like doing.  It means simply that you don’t commit to it ahead of time.  Commitments are enslaving.  Helping is liberating.  Big difference if you can get your head around it.

Independence From Wage Slavery

I’m taking license here with the term “slavery” because obviously we do it voluntarily in a technical sense. However, the current common practice of going to a “job” and putting in a set amount of hours for a set wage is a legacy from a past that no longer exists. The factory jobs from which that model arose are no longer the kind of work most of us do.  We need to abandon the outdated model.

Becoming independent of “stuff” and debt is one of the best ways to avoid wage slavery. Whatever your situation and especially if you are young I encourage you to find way to get paid for what you produce and not for the time or place in which you do it. I spent my life in wage slavery and if I had it to do all over again I would do whatever it takes to avoid it.

Independence From Expectations

“It is our mistaken belief that we must push life in the direction we choose that keeps us in a strained and unhappy relationship with it.  Reality has its own effortless course, and we can either embrace its way or struggle endlessly with our own.”

– Guy Finley

You pooh pooh this point at your own peril.  It’s easy to do because it is not something very many of us are taught to understand.  However, I believe it is a major cause of our own psychological enslavement.  We enslave ourselves to our own expectations of how things should be rather than accepting them as they are.  The vast majority of your stress and frustration are caused because the the way things don’t match your expectation of how they should be.

I expected Justice in the death of Caylee Anthony and today what I saw happen was a frustration of that expectation and a miscarriage of justice. It doesn’t matter what I expected, I have to accept what is and being upset about it isn’t going to help anyone – most especially myself.

Read more here about Choosing Real Freedom.

Independence From Unhealthy Habits

We become slaves to our bad habits and addictions.  We know they are bad for us but we heavily discount the long-term and succumb to the short-term as part of our human nature.  Anyone who has broken those bad habits and chosen healthier options knows the sense of freedom that necessarily results.  Breaking free is not easy but is is worth the pain and effort.  I simply refuse to be enslaved to my own bad habits any longer and have decided to choose long-term well being over short-term satisfaction.

There are many other ways we voluntarily and bit by bit enslave ourselves.  While political freedom is indeed very important, it make little difference towards Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness if we give it away in other forms.  Take this time in our national celebration of independence and consider in what ways you can take back your personal independence.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

If you liked this please share

Why You Shouldn’t Trust Expert Predictions

We are bombarded daily with predictions by experts; both long and short term predictions that are supposed to help us plan for our futures.  The problem with all this is that you might as well be flipping a coin.  Research clearly shows that once you get outside simple phenomena that are driven by basic physical laws and into complex systems, prediction becomes practically impossible.

Human beings can’t seem to cope with uncertainty and so we spend enormous amounts of time trying to predict what is going to happen.  I guess we simply feel better pretending like we know or pretending like someone else knows who can tell us.  We want to be prepared for the future so we feel better knowing what is likely to happen.

The problem is that if all these experts really could predict what was going to happen they would be trillionaires instead of slaving away on MSNBC telling you what was going to happen with the stock market or with oil prices.  The fact of the matter is nobody knows and nobody ever will know.

A few weeks ago I read an excellent book called Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Are Next to Worthless, and You Can Do Better.  The author skewered everyone who ever thought or now thinks they have insight into what the future holds.  If you look at what experts predict and then compare that to what actually happens you’ll end up on the floor laughing.  It’s pathetic, but it makes no difference.  The same people who were wrong last year are back again telling us what’s going to happen next year.

I live along the Gulf coast of the U.S.  Every year the local weathermen haul out the National Hurricane Forecast Center forecast for the upcoming season.  A few years ago we were told we were going to have the most active season in decades.  It turned out to be the least active season in decades.  It was a big dud.  The next year they made a similar prediction with another fairly inactive season resulting. This is typical.  It’s not unusual for them to be wrong, it is normal.  And yet year after year, as if we have amnesia, they go through the same nonsense.  Somehow I’m supposed to believe anyone has a clue what the weather is going to be like 50 years from now.  Oh I know it’s just going to be “bad”.  Pardon me for being skeptical as to whether any side in the debate really has a clue.

But that’s just the weather.  We can surely predict the stock market, or geopolitical trends, or the economy, or other things can’t we?  No.  The record is clear.  If you are expecting a return from the stock market over the next decade, you might want to look at what happened over the last decade (in the U.S. at least).  It was basically flat, but it was supposed to keep climbing like it had in the decades previously.  Oops.  What’s going to happen now?  Will it go up or down or stay flat?  If it goes up or down how much will it change?  Nobody knows and if they did they wouldn’t need to be trying to sell you on that information.

How To Deal With An Uncertain Future

Invest in Yourself

I have little confidence in the stock market, currency values, precious metals or anything else that is supposed to be crash proof.  However, there is one thing you can always count on and that is yourself.  35 years ago my uncle told me that people with talent will always be valuable no matter what happens and I think that’s just about the best advice anyone can give.  When I say invest in yourself, I don’t mean developing a specific skill or trade.  That is the trap we are trying to avoid.  Trying to figure out what occupation is going to be in high demand 20 years from now is a losing proposition.

You need to develop general skills like people skills that can be useful no matter what you are doing.  Develop the growth mindsets and the attitudes that lend themselves to peaceful well being, detachment from outcomes, and resilience.  People who are resilient and resourceful are able to deal effectively anything that may arise in their lives down the road.

Develop and Maintain Deep Social Relationships

Being lonely correlates with all kinds of bad things like disease and early mortality.  If there is one thing that is clear from the research it is that active social lives, deep and meaningful ones and not 1,000 Facebook friends, correlate with all kinds of good things.  It might just be the best advice for human flourishing one can receive.  Of course we are all different and the number and kind of social relationships that individual people need are different.  However, everybody needs at least some meaningful relationships.  When times are tough those with deep social connections do fine.  Those that lack them often flounder.

Accept What You Do Not Know and Can’t Change

First of all you have to accept that you don’t know what is going to happen.  If you believe you do then fine, but I think you are fooling yourself.  The best way to be prepared for the future is to accept that you don’t know what is going to happen and stop worrying about it.

Secondly, you have to accept what you cannot change.  I hope we stop the massive destruction of the world’s forests.  It used to almost make me physically ill thinking and worrying about it.  However, I have accepted that I can’t do anything about it one way or the other.  I can plant a tree, own a bit of land, or contribute to the Nature Conservancy but that’s about it.  When the settlers or the loggers move into the forest and cut it down, they aren’t thinking about me. Getting upset about what you think is going to happen will simply make you less effective in dealing with it.

Become Independent

I don’t mean that you own your own business or that you are independently wealthy or that you don’t have meaningful relationships or anything like that.  What I do mean is that you depend primarily on yourself.  I assure you that when things go bad and there is no more money to steal from its citizens, the government will not be able to help you.  When you make yourself a slave to your job, your spouse, your family or whatever, you limit your options significantly.  When people take on heavy debt load and then lose their job or business, they are up the proverbial creek.  When people who depend upon their spouse find themselves newly divorced and without independent means and skills, their future plans die a very quick and ugly death.

Prepare a Cushion For Bad Times

I save money for the future but I don’t count on it.  The government policies may make it worthless in the future.  No matter what happens in the long term though, at least in the short term it provides a cushion for me.  Were I to suddenly find myself without an income, I could live quite a long time on what I already have.

Whatever you are concerned about, consider setting aside some kind of cushion to deal with it and then stop worrying about it.  It is unlikely to ever happen, but if it gives you a little peace of mind then deal with it and move on.  If you obsess about it you are doing exactly the wrong thing.  You will end up unprepared for what actually does happen; and that something will likely be something entirely different from the specific thing for which you were so diligently preparing.

Seriously, I believe you should eat, drink, and be merry and simply let come what may.

If you have taken care to make sure you are an adaptable, knowledgeable, resourceful, and connected individual, you will likely thrive no matter what happens.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

If you liked this please share

Note from Stephen:  This is a guest article by Daniel A. Miller and is the topic of a new book by him.  The topic of letting go of control is very important and I wholeheartedly support the perspective offered by this article and the author’s book.  Please consider checking out his book and web site.

Are you stressed out and overwhelmed?   Do you want more intimacy and connection with your loved ones?  Are you lacking the time to pursue your passions?

There is a way to change all that:  let go of control—or as I like to say, lose control!

Trying to control people and events harms us and everyone around us.  It blinds us to options and choices we can make that would greatly improve our lives emotionally, spiritually, creatively and financially.   Instead we worry incessantly and become imprisoned by our fears, anger and anxiety, all of which consume inordinate amounts of needless time and energy.   This time and energy could instead be devoted to pursuing our passions—if we are willing to lose some control in our lives.

When we let go of control, our blinders come off and we can engage in life’s currents in an intuitive and expansive manner and thereby discover life’s possibilities.   Moreover, when we stop trying to control others, the focus changes from them to us.    We can then work on improving our shortcomings and enhancing our skills, talents and creativity.

In short, you will have more freedom and contentment when you lose control.   Let me share two true stories that illustrate this in two important life arenas.

Letting Go of Control at Home Creates Intimacy

With families and close friends we often want or demand more than what is (or can be) given to us.   For example, we may feel the need for more support, affection and validation from our parents.    Similarly, parents may feel the need for more respect and attention from their children.   Controlling actions are frequently the means used to try to fulfill these needs.   However, pressuring others, particularly those closest to us, breeds anger and resentment.   After all, who likes being told how they should be?

A case in point is the story of Emma, an only child who had immigrated to the United States from the “old country” after World War II, and her daughter, Anna.

Emma was ill-equipped to raise her five children in a culturally diverse country, and she made no bones about not enjoying being a mom.  Once she even told Anna that if she could do it all over again, she would not have had children.   Nevertheless, Anna was a dutiful daughter who dearly wanted a nurturing mother, and thus continually looked to Emma for support and encouragement.  But it rarely came.   Instead, Anna usually received criticism and demeaning remarks from her mother.   Yet, well into her adult life, Anna persisted in seeking what her mother was unable to give her and always got the same results.

Then one day Anna had an epiphany that dramatically changed the relationship between the two women.   Anna had seen a movie in which the heroine was viciously attacked, and the first person she called for help was her mother.   This made an impression on Anna.   She realized that her own mother would have been the last person she would have called under similar circumstances.   From that turning point, Anna stopped trying to change her mother and began accepting her for who she was—and just as important, for who she wasn’t!

Interestingly, their relationship improved dramatically.   The pressure was off Emma to be someone she wasn’t.    Over time, the two became friends and equals, and Emma began to open up more to her daughter.    When Emma later became gravely ill and was dying, Anna was there to share her mother’s final intimate moments, in which they selected the songs and prayers, even the clothes and jewelry to be worn, for Emma’s funeral.

Thus, Anna’s willingness to accept her mother as she was finally brought her the intimacy that she was unable to have by seeking it.

Letting Go of Control at Work Pays Large Dividends

The workplace is where humanity’s primal drive for sustenance and survival is most prominently played out.   As such, it is a hotbed for costly and inefficient control practices.    Being willing to lose some control at work brings unexpected rewards.

Many years ago I formed an investment partnership to purchase the largest and most expensive office building I had ever known.   I was very excited by the property’s prospects.    It seemed to have everything going for it—quality contruction and design, solid tenants and a great location.  In fact, I proudly considered it my “flagship” property.    However, shortly after the purchase the local office market took a dive and we lost key tenants.  I devoted almost all my time and energy to trying to save the property from foreclosure, including coming up with expensive promotions, remodeling the common areas and offering rent reductions.   I even changed the name of the building.

Nothing worked.   We were on the verge of losing our entire investment.  However, being the compulsive controller that I was, each defeat only caused me to press harder.   Then one day one of my partners said, “Maybe the building is the heavy anchor that is weighing you down.  Have you ever thought about unloading it so you can focus on your other properties?”

I was stunned.   The truth and common sense of what he said were immediately apparent, but I had never considered it because I was so preoccupied with trying to “save” the investment.   I then stopped “working” the property.  I mentally let it go and focused on my other properties, which I had neglected because I had been compulsively seeking a solution to a problem that was not ready to be solved.  In other words, I gave up control—although I didn’t think about it in those terms at the time.

A short time later a solution emerged that I never could have foreseen.  Two of my passive partners met with the seller of the building (who was also our lender) and negotiated a sale of the building back to him at a price that recouped half our investment.   My decision to back off turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made.   By putting my time and effort into my other properties, their collective value appreciated so much within a couple of years that it made up for the loss on the flagship property many times over.

After that I began letting go of more and more control at work.   I stopped forcing issues and pressing for solutions.   In that manner, I allowed the work “currents” to flow more naturally, and I was able to engage those currents in an intuitive manner.  What evolved was a highly efficient way of doing business in which I made fewer mistakes, had fewer diversions and had much less stress and anxiety.    I eventually cut my work time by half and made more money.

I thus had much more time and energy to explore life’s possibilities.   I became a fine artist (after never being able to draw as a child), a published poet, a seniors’ tennis champion and an author of a book about the benefits of losing control.

Letting Go of Control Helps You Find Freedom and Contentment

Work life and intimate relations are not the only life arenas in which not resisting life’s natural currents bestows remarkable rewards.   In a similar manner, letting go of control expands your creative horizons,  strengthens friendships and improves athletic and other types of performance.    As it does, you will have the time and energy—and desire—to pursue your passions, and you will no longer feel stressed out and overwhelmed.

Because control is such a deeply ingrained pattern in most of us, releasing control can be very difficult, particularly in important life issues and challenges.   For that reason, I recommend that you start by gradually giving up control in “low stake” areas of your life so that you can get comfortable with the process.   As you begin experiencing the benefits of the process, you will gain the confidence to lose control in more vital areas of your life.   And as you move forward, you will find greater freedom and contentment in your life.

Daniel A. Miller is a businessman, an artist and the author of Losing Control, Finding Serenity: How the Need to Control Hurts Us and How to Let It Go (Ebb and Flow Press, 2011), and writes about control issues at www.losingcontrolfindingserenity.com (where excerpts from his book can be read) and at blog.losingcontrolfindingserenity.com

This article is going to suggest that participating in politics at any level is generally not a good idea.  Many, maybe even most of you are going to disagree with this.  I also know that people will tend to take it as a categorical statement and offer counter-examples.  You will notice that I said “generally” because I don’t mean it in a categorical way.  I can think of scenarios or places where I would not apply my general advice, but those are increasingly rare.

I can’t help but absorb a little bit of what goes on in politics through the media (my wife watches the news and the morning shows) or through reading some political satire, but I treat it mostly as a little bit of entertainment.  I’m not participating in any real way.

Here is the basic question you need to ask yourself.  Is it worth your time, effort, money, and mental well-being to keep up with or participate in political issues?  For me, the answer is unquestioned no.  I’ve been there and done that and since I actually cared so much about the issues, it was a never-ending source of disappointment and frustration.  All the time I spent reading, listening, following, debating, wishing, hoping, and voting resulted in exactly ZERO difference.

Unless you are entertained or enjoy the process itself, I suggest that any time you spend in politics can actually be spent better elsewhere helping either yourself or your fellow man.

The reasons I’ve mostly chosen to withdraw from politics in all its forms are the following:

• I personally can’t make a difference.
• Even when my side “won”, nothing fundamental ever changed.
• Since I actually cared about the issues, it was a source of endless stress and frustration for me.  It made me ill.
• I decide I no longer want to lend “participation support” to the flawed process.
• I was wasting my life.

You will get a tremendous amount of advice this days about not fighting reality, accepting the things you can’t change, etc., but almost nobody applies that to politics and there is hardly anything that it is more appropriately applied to.  I think the reason is because we’ve been socialized into believing it is some kind of duty of a good citizen to be politically aware and active.  I used to buy that crap.  It is also because people will cook up scenarios where you can make a difference like a really close election, or with platitudes like “what if everyone thought that way”.  Well everyone doesn’t and even if they did I would no more be able to change their minds about that than I am about the issues themselves.

All this is just socialization and there is no real basis for it.  In fact the politicians want you to participate in the long run even if you don’t support them.  It gives legitimacy to the process.  P.J. O’Rourke has a book called Don’t Vote It Just Encourages the Bastards.  I haven’t read it, but I like the idea of the title.  I suggest you spend your time gaining freedom, peace, well-being, or whatever else outside the arena of politics.

The amount of mass media content that is devoted to the government or politics is overwhelming.  If you believe the media, the government and its activities must be the single most important area of all of our lives.  But it is simply a myth.  It’s just baloney that we’ve allowed ourselves to be caught up in.  Just because the media prattles on endlessly about Paris Hilton or Tiger Woods doesn’t mean I think they are important to mine or anyone else’s lives.

If you live in the U.S., Canada, most of Europe and Asia, and probably many other places, it’s simply not worth your time to engage in political activity.  The political environment is just a reality.  You personally can’t do anything about it unless you can convince millions of people that we are in need of radical change.  Good luck with that.

You can stop arguing with reality, stop trying to control that which you can’t control, and find freedom by taking actions you do control.

I look at the political environment like the sun.  It’s a basic fact of reality.  It comes up and it goes down.  I love the sunlight, but I can’t do a damn thing about the fact that every night it drops below the horizon and disappears.  What I can do is turn the lights on.  That’s something in my direct control and I don’t lose one second of my life worrying about or trying to change the fact the sun goes down or the fact that I prefer natural sunlight to artificial lighting.  I try to take the same attitude towards government and politics.

You have a choice and obviously it’s yours to make.  I’ve got to believe that the amount of national resources spent playing the political game are better spent elsewhere.  I’m not apathetic.  In fact I’m just the opposite, but I’ve made a conscious, intentional, and intellectual decision that politics sucks and is a waste of my life.

If you can accept the fact that the government steals a portion of your income and just get on with living you own life, the impact of the government on you will mostly disappear.  If on the other hand you constantly monitor, watch, participate in, or worry about what the politicians and the bureaucrats are up to, then the government is going to be a huge burden upon your life.  The key point is that the choice is yours.

Once I freed myself from the need to be worried about what the government was doing, the government became an incredibly insignificant, almost invisible factor in my life.  The same freedom is yours if you will simply make the choice to forget the government and be free.

Treat the government like the weather.  If it’s raining, put up an umbrella or go inside.  If it’s cold, put on a coat.  If it’s warm, take off your coat.  If it’s dark, turn on a light.

What do YOU think?  Leave a comment and join the conversation.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

OK, I admit it.  I created that title just to get you to read this article.  The amount of anxiety that goes into most decisions is ridiculous.  Further, the amount of time people spend making decisions, even the most trivial ones, is a life-wasting shame.  See  your typical company meeting for endless examples of how to torture people with trivial decision making.

I watch in amazement as some of my friends stew over what to select from the absurdly long lunch menu at a restaurant.  They are afraid they aren’t going to make the “ideal” choice.  Later in the evening when you are remembering the wonderful lunch you had with your friends, do you have serious regret over what you ordered?   If you do, I suggest you get a life; you missed the point of the lunch.

In a very real sense you shouldn’t ever live with the consequences of your decisions.  Because if you do, it means you have stopped living and started existing.  Any one decision is just a step on your path and no matter where it led you, you can take another step.  If you don’t like the previous step take one in a different direction next time.  It really is as simple as that.

Here is my bottom line on making decisions.  If the decision seems easy you already know the answer.  If the decision seems difficult that’s an indication that it is too complicated for you to figure it out in advance anyway.  In that case all you are doing is guessing, so just make a choice and move on and you can see what happens.  Very few people really accept that, but it is my opinion and I’m sticking with it.

The most profound idea I have ever heard about decision making was the following by Michael Neill.  If you can truly understand this, then your life will be a lot easier and better.  I suggest you reflect deeply on it.

What you decide will never impact your life as much as how you handle the consequences of that decision.

Six Things to Keep in Mind About Decision Making

1. Accept that there is no right or wrong decision.  There are only choices and the consequences of those choices.  The consequences are neither good or bad, they simply are.  My favorite article that goes deeper into this is my own You Cannot Choose the Wrong Path.
2. Get comfortable with the fact that you cannot possibly know in advance what’s going to happen; life is too damn complicated.  Get over yourself.  You are not perfect and life is not a mathematical equation you can solve. Just choose something and go.  If you still don’t get this reread the yellow box above.
3. Treat decisions as experiments.  If you don’t like the outcome conduct your next experiment.   What a wonderful way to navigate through life!
4. Flip a coin and accept the result.  However, if you find yourself hoping it comes out one way, you already have your answer and don’t need to flip.  If, after seeing the result, you wish it had come out differently, you also have your answer.
5. After letting a decision percolate while you are doing something else, go with your gut feeling.  Your subconscious mind figured it out for you.
6. In the end do what you want to do.   What a mind-blowing concept

What do YOU think?  Leave a comment and join the conversation.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.” – Eric Hoffer

Right off the top let me say I support doing good, I support helping people, and I’m not opposed to trying to change things.  I do think it is a huge mistake to take group action to do these things and the larger the group the bigger the mistake.  This is not a categorical statement as there are exceptions, but as a general rule in my opinion, group action (esp. large groups) is a mistake.

Causes, crusades, mass movements, especially organized ones, very seldom work; they usually end up with most people involved becoming frustrated and depressed. Usually the movement becomes an end in itself that takes on more importance than the original cause for which it was established.  Preservation of the movement now takes priority and the formerly idealistic leaders end up trying to preserve the power and prestige they have gained as a result.

Your individual contribution to the goal of the movement is not generally amplified by joining the movement; instead it is diluted.  Your participation just adds to diversity of opinion and bureaucratic piddling around and thus individual effectiveness is thwarted.  Time is now spent trying to agree on strategy or tactics, planning, communication, etc. and all that before any actual work is done.  Most of the resources of the group are spent on internal bureaucracy and structures instead of real action.

Your individual aims are sacrificed to the lowest common denominator of the group.  Reflection, nuance, deep-diving on complex issues get lost in sloganeering and the mindless repetition of the latest revealed wisdom from the leaders or gurus.   Research has repeatedly shown that people in groups, even mixed opinion groups, harden their positions and move towards becoming more extreme.  You seem to lose the ability to remain open-minded and become a victim of groupthink.

Movements appeal to emotion more than intellect.  Immersion in a movement gives the participant the illusion that he is part of some greater good when in reality it allows them to fool themselves into the belief that they are actually accomplishing something.  What is being accomplished is support of the movement itself.  Some people get off on joining movements and that is fine.  If that is what you want I say go for it.  Just don’t fool yourself into believing you are changing the world.

When you join a group movement you are not longer responsible for success or failure; a great way for people to avoid individual responsibility.

Taking Your Own Direct Action

“Most people think in terms of indirect alternatives – who must be changed, how people must be educated, what others should be doing.  Consequently, they spend most of their lives in futile efforts to achieve what can’t be achieved – the remaking of others.” – Harry Browne

In any situation you need to ask yourself what can you do yourself to improve the situation?  Forget save-the-world causes; the principle applies equally to every day action.  If people around me are noisy I can take the indirect action of asking them to behave the way I want them to behave and quiet down, or I could take the direct action of putting on headphones, going in the other room, or going outside.

If I don’t like what my neighbors are doing I can try to change them or I can move.  I hate moving and it is not easy, but I’ve never convinced my neighbors to do what I say either.

If you have a good idea at work, good luck trying to convince others, especially the corporate bureaucracy.  Some people say it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.  I say it’s better to ask neither – just do it.

If you want to travel somewhere or eat lunch at a certain restaurant or do something else you can try to convince others to agree with your choice or you can announce what you are doing and invite them to join you.

If you think your taxes are too high, you can take the indirect action of spending your time in a futile effort to band together with other people to convince the government to lower them.  Alternatively, you could take the direct action of figuring out ways to avoid them yourself.

There are few cases where joining a cause or where trying to take indirect action through others is a better approach than taking direct action yourself.  It’s a mistake to believe you can accomplish more through others; you just end up frustrated and disappointed.  Your actions are diluted, your goals are reshaped, and your time is wasted.

“Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, He travels fastest who travels alone.” – Rudyard Kipling

What do YOU think?  Leave a comment and join the conversation.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.

Remember when you were a kid and the days of summer seemed endless? You just hung out and played and did whatever you felt like doing.  You paid little or no attention to clocks and knew it was time to go home when the sun got low in the sky.  Robin Easton in her wonderful book Naked in Eden: My Adventure and Awakening in the Australian Rainforest, described how she had lost track of all clock and calendar time; she did not know what day of the week or even what month it was.  I wish I could escape into that timeless universe.  I suggest we all need to get back to our youth and engage in some timeless experiences.

Clocks are important in the modern world.  Without synchronized clock time it would be very difficult to hop on a plane and fly to Las Vegas or meet someone from across town for lunch.  But I think we have taken things too far.  We have lost the ability to think about things in terms of themselves, and have instead started measuring everything by clock time.  Instead of using clocks for the good they can bring, we have allowed them to control us and are taking orders from a ticking mechanical monster.

In his book In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed, Carl Honore spends several pages describing an incredible meal experience.  He writes:

“I look at my watch.  It is 1:25 A.M.!  I have spent four hours at the table without ever once feeling bored or restless.  Time has floated by imperceptibly, like water in a Venetian canal.  Perhaps because of that, the meal has turned out to be one of the most memorable of my life.  As I write these words more than a year later, I can still recall the bittersweet smell of the cipolline, the delicate sea notes of the cappon magro, the sound of leaves ruffling in the darkened piazza.

This is a beautifully written description of an event that determined its own beginning and end; not the clock.  If he had been constrained by a clock, perhaps to rush through it so he could make the 11:00 p.m. show, he would have never written those words.  It is unlikely the meal plus show would have registered the same impact.  Just because you planned something doesn’t mean you have to follow through on the plan.  Hold your plans loosely, if at all.

I’m not suggesting you can literally just start hanging out all the time and paying zero attention to the clock.  However, I think we can capture some of the joy of our youth by changing our relationship with our clocks.   I started noticing how often I check the time.  It was ridiculous and I think most people don’t realize how clock and deadline driven they are.  How often do you even go an hour without checking the time?

I’ve been trying to look at clock time less and less.  I don’t want to go to a neighbor’s barbecue between 7:00 p.m and 8:00 p.m.  I don’t want to be looking at a clock and saying “It’s time to go”.  I want to go when I feel like going, if I feel like going, and I want to leave when I’m done.  I’m living more and more of my days and parts of days like this.  I don’t set an alarm clock anymore.  I sleep until my body decides it’s done sleeping.  Why do we feel the need to constrain so much of life by something artificial like the tick of clock?  If you have something truly better to do than whatever you are doing, then change what you are doing.  If you enjoy where you are at and what you are doing, then keep doing it.

I frequently get together with friends for a “happy hour” with good food and drinks.  After about one very happy hour people start looking at their cell phones and taking note of the time.  Inevitably by the second hour they are saying they have to go.  Why do they need to look at the clock?  If they truly were losing interest in the event, if it were nearing its natural end there would be no need to obsessively monitor clock time.  No, what is happening is that we decide that we can only allocate about two hours to a get together with friends.  That’s all the time we have to waste on such foolish indulgences; we must now return to the real world of responsibilities.

I understand responsibilities and the requirements to allocate your time wisely and I have written on the subject.  However, I think it is time (ha ha) to find a little balance between scheduling and free flowing experiences.  I feel much more free when I am not marching to the orders of a clock.  I’m finding I can balance goals and responsibilities with a lot less scheduling and clock watching.

In her book Robin Easton also said something to the effect that she would like to take a trip around the world by just wandering from place to place.  I don’t know exactly how she described it because I can’t find it again, but it resonated with me.  It gave me an idea; I can’t travel the whole world right now but I can take a vacation.  This fall I’m going to take some time for a wandering, free flowing experience vacation.  I think I’ll put some water and some emergency snacks in my car and just go with no plans.  I’ll eat when I’m hungry and I’ll sleep when I’m tired.  I might find food at a roadside stand, at a convenience store, or at a nice restaurant  Wherever the moment takes me is where I’ll go.  It might be a remote beach, a forest, a casino, a movie theater, a museum, none of them or all of them.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep my eyes off the clock as much as possible.  Give it a try yourself.  You may find life just a little bit more peaceful and free as a result.  So much of what constrains us, is what we do to ourselves.  We can undo this one by simply ignoring the clock.

What do YOU think?  Leave a comment and join the conversation.

Get Free Updates to The Rat Race Trap by Email here or via a reader in the top left sidebar.  I would love to have you on board.