Do nothing, Do something

It has recently been brought to the forefront of my life that doing nothing is just the same as doing something.

On a mundane level, not making a decision about something is, in effect, making a decision. If you can't decide on whether to go out to dinner (or where), you basically make the decision to stay in. If you decide to delay a decision on what to watch for t.v., you make the decision to keep watching what you are watching (or doing what you are doing without the t.v. on).

Meditation is similar to this. Meditation is often thought of by those who haven't tried it as "doing nothing". But by "doing nothing", the meditator is actually doing a whole bunch. I won't go into too much depth here, but want to emphasize how important it is to make conscious decisions...because an unconscious decision is still a decision - just one you didn't take part in.

On a related note, I love the point my yoga teacher once brought up that we don't go to the gym and lift weights so that we can lift those weights. We lift the weights in order to have the strength to do things outside of the gym.

Same with meditation, or yoga, or exercising, or healthy eating. We do these things so that when situations come up that are stressful or require our strength, we have the capability to deal with them.

I've had a lot of stresses come up in life recently. I've been faced with the fact that my lack of attention to healthy eating, meditating, and yoga (even restorative as I still deal with my back issues) is in direct relation to my high stress with life off the mat. By making the decision (or avoiding the decision, I guess) to not eat healthy, not meditate and instead head for bed, and not head to the mat because of my fear of what I might do to my back, I am making a decision to increase my stress levels throughout life.

Another thing I've discovered - by avoiding making a conscious decision to live with joy, I'm making the decision to live without it. Along these lines, I recently came across a book that I am loving. "Yeah Dave's Guide to Livin' the Moment" by David Romanelli. After I purchased it, I looked it up on Amazon. At the time of this entry, there are 25 reviews - all giving it 5 stars.

You can check out more at http://www.yeahdave.com/livin-the-moment/. I love his philosophy and even more so that he advocates yoga and loves chocolate and wine. My kinda man!! It is a very humorous book and I HIGHLY recommend that you check it out.

So. I'm off to sleep to awake to another day and decide - or not - what I'm going to do.