30 Before 30

A friend of mine introduced me to the idea of doing 30 news things in the thirtieth year of life.

Here's what it is not.
This is not defining life through what I do. The point of this is not to collect a list of skills, achievements, and adventures in order to feel good about myself. This is not about giving me an excuse to list it up like crazy.

Here's what it is.
Instead, this is pushing myself to grow, experience new things, keep things changing in order to live in and understand the moment. It has given me a chance to get closer to people as I do this. I believe that it is important to live in the discomfort zone in order to learn who I really am, to push the boundaries of my self-definition. This is also about adding new wholesome and exciting activities to enrich my life and help me connect more with the world.

One of the definitions of aging is that you're only old when you stop doing new things. Maybe that's one of the roots of this 30 before 30 ritual. Keeping the 30ieth year fresh and vibrant.

I started making the list and realized that it was hard for a few reasons:
1. I do a lot already. I usually act pretty immediately on the things that I want to do. I don't want to add things that I've already done.
2. The things that I want to do and have not already done usually require a substantial amount of money, planning, or time. For example - a trip to South America would require a lot of all three.

As I found these difficulties, I realized that I already had established some mental boundaries about who I am. I needed to open my mind and my heart as part of the brainstorming. There are a few categories of things that I can do with the given time constraints and resources:
1. Things that I don't really want to do or that I'm scared of doing. I learn a lot by doing these things.
2. Things that usually require opportunity - with just a little pro-action I can make them happen. And it gives me a chance to seek how buddies who know how to do them.

Here's the list, including where I am so far. I am intentionally not filling it in completely at this point in order to learn more about myself and leave room to be flexible as the year continues.

#	Done	Item to Do	Notes
1		Drink real absinthe	Acquired - Thanks, Paul!
2		Ride a tandem bike	Need partner, need to find a bike
3	X	Study with a grand master	5-day workshop with Taijiquan grandmaster Chen Xiao Wang
4		Surf	Abby will teach me - thanks, Abby!
5		Make Waldorf salad ice cream	Got the ice cream maker - need to do it
6	X	Become proficient in salsa	I was invited to Century Ballroom's salsa level 4.
7		Sell a piece of art that I've made myself
8		Get involved in my community	This one is pretty vague, and I need to define it more crisply.
9		Throw a making art party
10	X	Write 30 blog posts during this year
11		Do something everyday for 100 days	Almost there, I'm on day 90 of writing.
12	X	Volunteer in the election	I canvassed for Obama/Gregoire.
13	X	Visit an eastern Washington wine region	Went to Yakima Valley
14	X	Receive a psychic reading	Tarot from Raven, and then again from Vinny.
15	X	Give a psychic reading	Thanks for teaching me, Vinny.
16		Climb outdoors on real rock
17	X	Visit Chichen Itza	Magnificent! One of the new 7 world wonders. Visited it with Josh.
18	X	a	There are some things that need to be kept private...
19	X	ss	2/14
20	X	Buy something in an auction	1 week vacation on Whidbey Island - bought at NWIRP auction
21	X	Develop a regular yoga practice
22	X	Learn to drive stick	Earned my wings on the Yucatan peninsula driving through jungle and busy little towns. Thanks to Dad and Josh for the help.
23	X	Take an art class and learn to draw with new media	I took a finding flow in art class from William and I have been working with new media - sharpies on graph paper, charcoals, and chalk pastels.
24	X	Reiki III attunement
25		Ride in a hot air balloon
26	X	Take private dance lessons	Both tango and salsa
27	X	w	Another private one.
28	X	Rolfing Basic 10 Series
29		Wildcard #1
30		Wildcard #2

30, Here I Come.
I am pretty excited about turning 30 this year and I really look forward to what I will learn about myself from this adventure. Expect a future blog post on my learnings.

Comments Requested

Please let me know if you have any such practices yourself. Please share any ideas of things that you think for me to do. Do you believe in a particular book that every person must read? I'd like to include one of those. If you know me and can help with any of these or would like to share in these, please let me know that, too.

When the Going Gets Awkward

When we're new to a path, we often find it pretty difficult to relate with family, friends, colleagues, and strangers. This is certainly true when we embark on a spiritual path.

Fortunately, we also form strong bonds of friendships as we meet people along our paths. Erica Knight has been an important friend for me discussing mindfulness, happiness, and how to have a meaningful life. These conversations often illuminate me because she challenges everything on her path, which is similar to mine, yet still uniquely hers. This constantly pushes me to rethink and re-contemplate. Much of the content on this blog comes from my discussions with Erica.

We both experiment with the mindfulness practices espoused in Buddhism, in Taoism, by Tolle, etc. and report back on how they work for us. We both comment about the awkwardness of the path, especially when they contradict societal maxims. Having lived in this society, attachment, judgment, desire, and suffering-in-the-face-of-hardship seem to be so naturally human. On the other hand, spirituality teaches us to favor non-attachment, non-judgment, renunciation, and avoidance of suffering. Is this dehumanizing or transcendent? Pondering this is a valuable mindfulness practice, especially as practicing the spiritual teachings puts us at odds with others.

Goodness knows I have gone through some pretty embarrassing moments when I first began living by new ideals, and still sometimes now and again. I have come to interpret these times as challenges to grow my practice stronger through perseverance and contemplation. I have to learn how to fit new realizations with my nature, rather than just adopt them from a book or example. There are a few lessons learned along the way that make it easier.

First of all, it helps to have a definition of spirituality -- or whatever word you choose -- that fits your style, something that you can say comfortably. I define spirituality as "meaningful living," and I view it as orthogonal to religiosity. It is connecting at a deep level with my own spirit or soul or Being or me-ness or I am; this transfers to connecting with the spirits of others. When you communicate about it, you will be more comfortable with the words that fit you, though I encourage you not to place too much into the words themselves. It is sort of like clothing. If you're from Texas you may be comfortable in a cowboy hat and boots, if you're from Luzon you may be comfortable in a barong, and if you're from Oahu you may be comfortable in a grass skirt. Try wearing these things out of your element, and you will both feel and look funny to others. Spirituality is the same way. So you see, the clothing is a metaphor, and actually the choice of words is an even subtler metaphor. It's not the choice of words, it is the comfort with them.

Another important thing to note is that spiritual or mindful living (whatever you want to call it) is a skill just like any other. When you're first starting out, you don't really know how to incorporate it into your life yet. You copy from books or other examples and it seems unnatural to others because it is unnatural to you. It is like learning to play the piano; nobody wants to hear your playing at first (except for your teachers, maybe) because you're still on the very basics, you still make mistakes, and you have not developed your own style, yet. Can you really expect that your Chopsticks-level spiritual practice is going to be super-inspiring? Bear with it until you know how to live this way. Its actually quite rewarding to work through this phase.

There are a number of other issues that you might bump up against. Here are a few of the common ones.

1. People you have known for a while may feel your change as a form of judgment. Even though you may have honestly made a complete change to non-judgment (hard, hard, hard), a spiritual practice often comes across as self-righteous and obnoxious. By changing your view of the world and refusing to interact in the same way as previously, this can be upsetting to people we love who see our changes as challenging their ways of life. This concept is explored in the New York Times opinion piece Being and Mindfulness.
2. If you're like many people, you may often err on the side of proselytizing. After learning something new and very useful, it is natural to want to share this with friends, family, and others who might think that you sound like an obnoxious lecturer. The lessons of Consoling Wisely need to be taken into account here, especially: "When you communicate your views, do so casually and in a nondogmatic manner. Allow the people you speak with to ask questions. Offer only as much information as they are ready to hear." From the Daily Om's Expanding Their Vision.
3. You may find difficulty relating to people with whom you previously spent a lot of time ranting and complaining. When you engage in the practices of positivity and non-judgment, complaint-based relationships are no longer as interesting to you. So it seems that you would no longer be able to relate to these friends. But perhaps, this is a challenge to learn to be compassionate along with them, acknowledge their suffering, and connect with them based on who they are rather than an mutual grudges. This is much easier said than done, I know. I often catch myself in the complaining side of things and can commiserate with others.

All in all, where it may feel that spiritual practices are isolating and solitary, even dehumanizing, they are really the contrary. By following a practice of compassion and loving-kindness, you begin to notice the interconnectedness of everything, even the amount of people that it takes to bring A Pistachio to your table. Matthieu Ricard addresses this eloquently in Happiness:

But how, you might ask, can I avoid being shattered when my child is sick and I know he's going to die? How can I not be torn up at the sight of thousands of civilian war victims being deported or mutilated? Am I supposed to stop feeling? What could ever make me accept something like that? Who wouldn't be affected by it, including the most serene of wise men? The difference between the sage and the ordinary person is that the former can feel unconditional love for those who suffer and do everything in his power to attenuate their pain without allowing his lucid vision of existence to be shaken. The essential thing is to be available to others without giving in to despair when the natural episodes of life and death follow their course.

This post is dedicated to my close friend and mindfulness companion Erica Knight. A lot of the concepts in this blog come from realizations made during conversations with her where she challanges my practices, holding me accountable to live the most meaningful life that I can live. She helps maintain humanity and grounding into spiritual practices, keeping me away from purely intellectual and theoretical understandings.