I Am Project - Conscious

As Stephen Harper fights a Federal Court judge’s ruling that he must “comply with a principle of fundamental justice” and press the United States for the return of Omar Khadr to Canada from Guantanamo Bay, I am left flabbergasted by many Canadians’ reactions and in many cases, lack of reactions. It is a dangerous path we tread if we allow our Prime Minister to decide which of his citizens deserve the rights guaranteed by their passport and which do not. Even if you ignore the fact that Omar Khadr would be considered a child soldier VICTIM in any other war, allowing him to remain beyond the seven years he has already been held without a trial should be something every Canadian should oppose with all their might. What have all our soldiers died for in Afghanistan if not for our freedoms and rights? What about the torture that has allegedly been inflicted upon a fellow Canadian citizen? When we start ignoring our rights and values in a war that is supposedly being justified in the name of those rights and values, have we not lost our way?

I often wonder if our leaders are even conscious of what the wars are really about. At times it feels like the post 911 conflicts are more about revenge and testosterone fueled posturing than the protection of freedoms and homeland security. From my perspective Canada is much less secure since we became involved in Afghanistan than before. At the end of the day does anyone really think invading someone else’s homeland is going promote long lasting friendship between two nations? Do we really not think the hatred we are currently creating is not going to be passed from father to son and mother to daughter for many generations to come? We are quite possibly creating the foundation for a future retaliation against our citizens who are yet to be born. They literally will be inheriting a conflict whose initiators will have long since passed on. When is it going to stop?

By staying conscious of the diversity that exists between two cultures, perhaps we can learn to reflect as opposed to react and quite possibly learn that the gap between two points of view is only reduced through communication, not a bullet.

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." - Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)

I Am Project - Resourceful

While the world continues to react to the global financial crisis, I can’t help but notice the incredibly improvident decisions our leaders continue to make in shortsighted attempts to stimulate the economy while limiting their deficits. Our society’s rate of consumption has been at a completely unsustainable level for years while our environment has been continually raped to fuel yet more economic growth. So many of us were oblivious to what was happening as long as we were making a buck. Now that reality has set in and this house of cards our whole economic system has been based upon has collapsed, we seem determined to reestablish this illusion of prosperity rather than learning from our mistakes. We need leaders with vision who are resourceful enough to use this crisis as an opportunity to retool and rebuild our economic strategy into something sane and sustainable that ensures our species is viable over the long term.

So much has happened over the past couple of years that has convinced me that Ed Stelmach and his provincial government is totally clueless as to how to proceed. On one hand they have been completely uninterested in addressing the ecological disaster perpetuated in the oil sands because of the revenue these projects generate, and on the other hand they are frantically spending money and effort in an attempt to convince the Americans that our oil is not dirty and that we care about the environment.

It is projected that by 2030, between 32 and 86 percent of the Alberta government’s income will be dedicated to funding healthcare. It is a proven fact that prevention is much more economical than treatment so you would think promoting a healthy lifestyle would be a strategy the government should invest in. Yet when this economic crisis hit, after the ruling party gave itself a 30% pay increase, Ed Stelmach has cut back chiropractic funding and is talking about cutbacks to healthcare wages. The biggest cost in healthcare is salaries and the biggest cost in salaries is sick time and overtime. Wouldn’t it be more resourceful of the government to actually increase funding for chiropractic and other preventative treatments so that sick time is reduced in the work force and thus so is overtime?

I have found that when I am resourceful, I see opportunity within crisis and am able to grow and evolve even in the most challenging of situations.

“The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life” - Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919)

I Am Project - Quiet

The past few months have been interesting, eventful, and never boring. The stresses of my personal, professional, and business lives have all converged to form the perfect storm. The racket of the franticness that has surrounded me has been building into a cacophonous symphony of agitation.

I recognize the need to quiet down this growing frenzy. If I can quiet the noise that is pulling me in every direction at once, I can focus on the tasks necessary to permanently reduce the commotion that is surrounding me. When I am quiet I can see things for what they are and recognize that there are some I cannot change. Rather than continuing to try and control these things, I must eliminate their influence.

“A quiet mind cureth all.” - Robert Burton (1577 - 1640)

I Am Project - Unencumbered

Change is blowing in the wind. Several directions are being travelled at the same time and the time has come to evaluate where I am, what I want, and how I am going to proceed. I, and those around me, have sacrificed and compromised so much to achieve my goals such that I have allowed guilt and my sense of responsibility to dictate my life for as long as I can remember. I find myself asking - Is a life of compromise a life well lived? Obviously if I am asking such a question . .

A life without encumbrance is a life of simplicity and balance. When I am unencumbered my decisions are sound and not influenced by manipulation and deceit. To do what one believes as opposed to what one feels is expected is the purest form of freedom and integrity. Paths converge and diverge, this is life and must be accepted. An unencumbered mind accepts this and knows when to fight and when to move on. If I am unencumbered I am assured that my wants are only dictated by my needs and thus my thoughts and words are perfectly mirrored by my actions.

The Eightfold Path continues to elude me. I have almost fully grasped the wisdom and ethical conduct aspects of this philosophy but the mental development portion is lacking. When I am truly unencumbered my cup will be empty and I will have a chance of mastering right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

“One should rather die than be betrayed. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised. Betrayal, though - betrayal is the willful slaughter of hope.” - Steven Deitz (b. 1958)

Alabama Potential

Just got back from Alabama. It was a hectic return as our flight out of Birmingham was delayed due to weather and so we missed our connecting flight in Chicago and had to spend and extra day there before making our way home.

Once again my time in Alabama was an enlightening and nourishing experience. My trip last year, being my first, was extremely difficult for me as I am a very shy person who is definitely more at home on the mat teaching than I am networking and making new friends. With last year’s experience under my belt I had hoped that this year would be a lot easier. Despite my teammates from Team 6 being fantastic and unbelievably supportive, my social awkwardness was worse than ever and it definitely spilled over.

The potential I see in the UBBT is massive. When I think about the thirty minutes it took for me to raise $1000 for HERO just by getting my twenty student members to contribute $50 each, what are the possibilities if Coach Tom can get each school owner to do the exact same thing? While $50 is not going to hurt any individual’s financial situation and $1000 may not dent any organization’s lot, $50,000 can definitely promote change. That’s just financially, what about the social change that can be initiated if Coach Tom reaches 50 school owners who reach 200 students each? That’s ten thousand people who can be rallied instantly for any cause worth tackling. That is truly inspiring potential.

The only thing needed for us as a team to realize this massive potential is our commitment to the ideal. If we all stay engaged in the UBBT project and truly buy into the concept and participate fully, we’re definitely gong to make history.

“Well done is better than well said.” - Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

I Am Project - Honest

It is difficult to temper empathy with honesty. Why, I don’t know. Seems pretty obvious when you think about it but yet it is not easily applied. I find it difficult to be 100% truthful with someone if I know the truth is going to hurt them and so I tend to sugarcoat things and carefully consider their feelings before speaking. I have always thought of myself as a giving, caring person but in retrospect I see my passive approach to honesty as selfish, cowardly, and short sighted.

If I am honest my life becomes unburdened. It is easy for me to stay in the moment if I am expressing myself fully and openly without conscious effort. If I am honest my relationships will be based upon trust and reality as opposed to guilt and insecurity. If I am honest the respect I am showing will be reciprocated upon me. When I am honest I will be free.

“Every act of dishonesty has at least two victims: the one we think of as the victim, and the perpetrator as well. Each little dishonesty makes another little rotten spot somewhere in the perpetrator's psyche.” - Lesley Conger

I Am Project - Breathing

A week passes, and then another. Plans are made, circumstances change, responsibilities compete with commitments, and past mistakes come home to roost. For the first time in my life I have questioned my ability to compartmentalize and push my way through the pressure.

I have always thought myself as independent, a loner. I’m shy, painfully quiet, and have never really reached out for help because I have never doubted my ability to persevere alone. Things have happened these past few months and have come to a head this week that have shaken my perception of myself.

I now realize that I do depend on others. It’s funny how one does not notice these things until it is too late. Take one important individual out of the intricate cogs of my life and the entire mechanism of my balanced existence begins to breakdown. This is what happens when the foundation of your equilibrium is based upon a fallacy.

So what does one do when one finds oneself in such a situation? If you’re me you immediately set out to consolidate your independence by contracting your world into something more safe and manageable. That is if you are the old me. The new me, the evolved me, has learned to stop, take a deep breath, and reflect as opposed to react. The new me realizes that the problem is not my dependence on others but rather my ignorance of the deep dependence that has always existed.

I have learned the importance of breathing in the handling of stress. When I stop to breathe, the decisions I make tend to be more reflective than reactive thus allowing me to grow and evolve. I have learned a lot from this UBBT directive writing project. I have learned so much about myself and more than anything I realize I am not as humble as I thought I was nor am I as humble as I should be. I am not alone, I depend on others and the fact that they have been quietly helping me with such little fanfare that I did not even notice what an important roll they played in my life, shows that they are truly the humble ones. As long as I keep my wits about me, breathe in, breath out, this is a lesson that I will not soon forget.

“There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.” - George Shinn (b. 1941)