Zen Habits blog

First, I love Zen. I named one of my dogs Zen. I’ve read it, tried it, love its simple philosophy, love the meditation and love the aesthetics.

But I chose Zen Habits as the title of my blog because it describes the philosophy of the blog in a concise way.

This blog is really about setting and achieving goals, and the numerous goals that I want to achieve. But I believe that goals — especially ones that are worth reaching — are ultimately achieved through the building of good habits. Do I want to complete a marathon? Then I must cultivate the habit of running 4-5 times a week. I must cultivate the habit of positive thinking. It also helps to become an early riser, a healthy eater, and a non-smoker, as I’ve done.

These habits are not born overnight. You can’t tell yourself, “Hey, self, I am going to become an early riser, starting tomorrow morning!” Well, you can tell yourself that, but if you think that it’s going to happen so quickly, you are clearly delusional.

No, these habits must be cultivated through daily practice. It is my belief that you must practice a habit, as focused as possible, every day for a month. When I only do it for a week, it doesn’t take hold. But when I’ve done it for a month or longer, it does. And that doesn’t mean that I’m successful each and every day … but the important thing is that I try, and when I fail, I learn from those mistakes.

In addition to the habits, I hope to post Zen-related stuff now and then, just to give me a peaceful feeling and to justify the use of the cool blog name.

Oh, Woah We're Halfway There!

Brad Warner rants about enlightenment:

"Enlightenment is always just over the next hill, available if only you’d just do this one more thing, and do it sincerely, cuz if you don’t do it sincerely it won’t work, but if you have trouble doing it sincerely send me your credit card number and I’ll help you out. That’s the nature of Enlightenment, that it’s just around the next bend. Or maybe the one after that. Or maybe after those three and a bunch of hills. But it’s always off in the distance. Not here.

And it will always be off in the distance because there’s nowhere else it can be. The very definition of Enlightenment might as well be “off in the distance.”"