What good can come from a mere toothache? As I have recently experienced, there are a few life lessons to be learned from a small (yet extremely painful) toothache. A few summers back, when I stayed in Plum Village, the monastary of the famous monk Thich Nhat Hanh, there was one day when he made…
In part 1, I discussed Minimalism and Zen Philosophy. This is part 2 of 2 of ‘Zen and the Art of Minimalism’ where I explore the connection between minimalism and art. What does the word ‘art’ really mean? People can spend years answering this question. Quite obviously, it doesn’t purely mean paintings and sculptures. The…
So you’ve pared and pared and pared. You got rid of most of your stuff and you stopped buying what you didn’t need. It was hard work, and it took years, but now you only own the essentials. Congratulations, you’re a minimalist, now what? Do you just sit in your minimalist apartment/travel van/atop your only suitcase, twiddle…
What does it mean to love? To love is to care. To care about something, to care for someone, to appreciate its importance in your life and to be grateful for it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that we say we love and care about, but we don’t act upon it. Life gets…
When I started this blog back in 2009, I was on my way to college and living away for the first time. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. I only had a vague idea that I wanted to enjoy it, whatever that might mean. Eventually I came to understand…
What do the most successful men and women in history all have in common? Not all of them were smart, or good looking, or had either poor or wealthy backgrounds. They weren’t all gifted from birth, or went to college, or happened to be in the right time and place. They were from all walks…
Minimalism. The word has so many ‘new-age’ connotations attached to it that when people outside what I like to call the ‘minimalism/simplicity sphere’ hear it they immediately think of somebody living in a hut in a forest without a phone, computer or television. Or they think of bare and boring houses with cheap furniture and…
In my last post, I talked about what it means to be part of the digital generation. When I was growing up, I never had much technology, until at least my late teen years. I did all of the ‘childhood things’ – played outside, went to the park, learned to ride a bike. My toy…
It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of everyday life. There’s a traffic jam, someone is rude to us, the milk has run out. Understandably annoying. Some problems are a little bigger—ongoing stress from work, money troubles, or finding fulfilment are legitimate concerns. We don’t make things easier for ourselves. The more we…
In the last couple of posts, I’ve mentioned a few times that I will be going abroad this September. I’ve been keeping it pretty quiet so far, but now I feel I am ready to finally reveal where I will be going, and what I will be doing. Firstly, I get a lot of people…