Notes on a Nervous Planet(45)

16.Even during manic times – Christmas, family occasions, hectic work patches, city holidays – find some moments of peace. Retreat to a bedroom now and then. Add a comma to your day.

17.Shop less.

18.Do some yoga. It’s harder to be stressed out if your body and your breath isn’t.

19.When times get rocky, keep a routine.

20.Do not compare the worst bits of your life with the best bits of other people’s.

21.Value the things most that you’d miss the most if they weren’t there.

22.Don’t try to pin yourself down. Don’t try to understand, once and for all, who you are. As the philosopher Alan Watts said, ‘trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth’.

23.Go for a walk. Go for a run. Dance. Eat peanut butter on toast.

24.Don’t try to feel something you don’t feel. Don’t try to be something you can’t be. That energy will exhaust you.

25.Connecting with the world has nothing to do with wi-fi.

26.There is no future. Planning for the future is just planning for another present in which you will be planning for the future.

27.Breathe.

28.Love now. Love right now. If you have someone or something to love, do it this instant. Love fearlessly. As Dave Eggers wrote: ‘It is no way to live, to wait to love.’ Throw love out there selflessly.

29.Don’t feel guilty. It is almost impossible, unless you are a sociopath, not to feel some guilt these days. We are cluttered with guilt. There is the guilt we learned at childhood mealtimes, the guilt of eating while knowing there are starving people in the world. The guilt of privilege. The eco-guilt of driving a car or flying in a plane or using plastic. The guilt of buying stuff that may be unethical in some way we can’t quite see. The guilt of unspoken or unfaithful desires. The guilt of not being the things other people wanted you to be. The guilt of taking up space. The guilt of not being able to do things other people can do. The guilt of being ill. The guilt of living. It’s useless, this guilt. It doesn’t help anyone. Try to do good right now, without drowning in whatever bad you might once have done.

30.See yourself outside market forces. Don’t compete in the game. Resist the guilt of non-doing. Find the uncommodified space inside us. The true space. The human space. The space that could never be measured in terms of numbers or money or productivity. The space that the market economy can’t see.

31.Look at the sky. (It’s amazing. It’s always amazing.)

32.Spend some time with a non-human animal.

33.Be unashamedly boring. Boring can be healthy. When life gets tough, aim for those beige emotions.

34.Don’t value yourself in line with other people’s valuation of yourself. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’

35.The world can be sad. But remember a million unsung acts of kindness happened today. A million acts of love. Quiet human goodness lives on.

36.Don’t beat yourself up for being a mess. It’s fine. The universe is a mess. Galaxies are drifting all over the place. You’re just in tune with the cosmos.

37.If you’re feeling mentally unwell, treat yourself as you would any physical problem. Asthma, flu, whatever. Do what you need to do to get better. And have no shame about it. Don’t keep walking around on a broken leg.

38.It’s okay to cry. People cry. Women cry. And men cry. They have tear ducts and lachrymal glands just like other human beings. A man crying is no different from a woman crying. It’s natural. Social roles are toxic when they don’t allow an outlet for pain. Or sentimental emotion. Cry, human. Cry your heart out.

39.Allow yourself to fail. Allow yourself to doubt. Allow yourself to feel vulnerable. Allow yourself to change your mind. Allow yourself to be imperfect. Allow yourself to resist dynamism. Allow yourself not to shoot through life like an arrow speeding with purpose.

40.Try to want less. A want is a hole. A want is a lack. That is part of the definition. When the poet Byron wrote ‘I want a hero’ he meant that he didn’t have one. The act of wanting things we don’t need makes us feel a lack we didn’t have. Everything you need is here. A human being is complete just being human. We are our own destination.





Diminishing returns

PLANET EARTH IS unique. It is the only place we know of where life exists in the vast cosmic arena of the universe. It is an incredible place. On its own, it gives us everything humans need to survive.

And you are also incredible. Equally so. You were incredible from the day you were born. You were everything from the day you were born. No one looks at a newborn baby and thinks, oh dear, look at all that absence of stuff. They look at a baby and they feel like they are looking at perfection, untainted by the complexities and baggage of life yet to come.

We come complete. Give us some food and drink and shelter, sing us a song, tell us a story, give us people to talk to and care for and fall in love with and there you go. A life.

But somewhere along the way we have raised the threshold of what we need, or feel we need, to be happy.

We are encouraged to buy stuff to make ourselves happy because companies are encouraged to make more money to make themselves more successful. It is also addictive. It isn’t addictive because it makes us happy. It is addictive because it doesn’t make us happy. We buy something and we enjoy it – we enjoy the newness of it – for a little while but then we get used to having it, we acclimatise, and so we need something else. We need to feel that sense of change, of variety. Something newer, something better, something upgraded. And the same thing happens again.