Tiny Buddha

Author: Toni Bernhard

  • How to Reduce Stress by Doing Less and Doing It Slowly

    How to Reduce Stress by Doing Less and Doing It Slowly

    Zen man

    “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” ~Socrates

    In April, NPR ran a story titled, “The Slow Internet Movement.” It reported that hipster cities, like Portland, Oregon, are sprouting Internet cafés that only offer dial-up access to the web.

    These cafés give customers, “Slow pours and slow Internet. Here, you can order your coffee and spend four hours checking your email, all for $.99 an hour.”

    “Wow,” I thought.” That’s just my speed!” (No pun intended.) But the story didn’t just run in April. It ran on April 1st and was NPR’s little April Fools joke at the expense of gullible people like me.

    It got me thinking, though. Life would be much less stressful if I embraced the spirit of the Slow Internet Movement. So, here are four tips for slowing down:

    1. Double the time you think it will take to complete a task.

    How often do you clock in at or under the time you’ve allotted for a task? I rarely do. Take my raised ivy geranium bed. Periodically, the geraniums spill over onto the walkway and I need to cut them back.

    Every time I assess the task, I estimate it will take twenty minutes at most. But it always takes at least twice that long. By the time I’m done, due to chronic illness, I’ve used up my energy stores for the day. I’m “trashed” as we call it my household.

    Inspired by The Slow Internet Movement, when I tackled the task a few weeks ago, I doubled my twenty-minute time estimate. Forty minutes is more than I can handle at one time, so I cut back half the geraniums on Saturday and the other half on Sunday.

    Sure, the box looked odd for twenty-four hours—like half of a buzz cut—but no one seemed to notice. Not only did I spare myself burnout, but I truly enjoyed the activity both times. (more…)

  • Why Judging People Makes Us Unhappy

    Why Judging People Makes Us Unhappy

    “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~Henry David Thoreau

    A friend of mine likes to joke that dying will be a relief because it will put an end to the “heavy burden of judging,” as she calls it. She envisions herself lying in a hospital bed and, moments before death, noticing the ceiling and thinking, “What a hideous green.”

    Here’s a modest proposal: Vow that for the rest of the day, you won’t judge your friends and you won’t judge any strangers you happen to see. This would include a friend who’s a non-stop talker; it would include a friend who’s always complaining about his life. It would include the strangers you pass on the street or see in a waiting room.

    I call it a modest proposal because I’m not even addressing the issue of self-judgment, let alone BP or Gaddafi. No. I’m just asking you not to judge friends or strangers.

    It’s entirely possible you won’t make it past a few minutes without judging someone!

    So, why not just judge away?

    To answer that, let me start by drawing a distinction between judgment and discernment.

    Discernment means perceiving the way things are, period.

    Judgment is what we add to discernment when we make a comparison (implicit or explicit) between how things or people are and how we think they ought to be. So, in judgment, there’s an element of dissatisfaction with the way things are and a desire to have things be the way we want them to be. (more…)