How to be the Luckiest Person Alive

Tivoli Bays (a lucky place) photo by Wayne Pyle

The title of today's post comes from James Altucher's blog post about How to Be the Luckiest Guy on the Planet in 4 Easy Steps. There's a link to his original post at the bottom of this one.

He recommends 4 practices: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual

He says that when he practices these daily, he ends up being the luckiest guy alive and when he lets these practices go, he ends up in the downward spiral that I seem to find myself in right now.

So, I'm taking on Jimmy's ideas and I'll explore them here and post about how they are going for me.

I started today with the physical.

Let me preface this by saying that we lost our house a few months ago and it was quite difficult emotionally, financially, physically and mentally, but it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I'm not a big believer in home ownership. To me it's a really expensive box to put all of your crap in. George Carlin said that first, I believe, and I've always took it to heart. Do we really need to go in debt to the banks in order to say I "own" a home?

I don't think it's necessary.

Anyway, we lost our tiny overpriced box and had to move north of where we were living to a tiny village called Tivoli. It's a quirky place with Bard students and famous artists and blue collar workers and has a fabulous bakery and some really great restaurants, a small public library and the place where I'm writing this from - Tivoli Bays. (pictured above)

We still have not been able to get rid of the tiny overpriced box and now the neighborhood kids have been trying to steal things out of the shed that is still on the property. So I went there last night and emptied the shed, grabbed our bikes, garden tools, an artist's easel and came home.

Today, I rode that bike for the first time in more than a year. The chain slips, the gears don't work right, the thing weighs a ton, but I was able to move through space and get out of the house and it felt good and right to do that. The photo I took is a result of that ride.

I'm sitting on a dock right now typing this, instead of being in the house we are sharing with a friend, and the loons are calling and the trains are blowing their whistles and the wind is rushing through the marsh grass and I do, indeed feel lucky.

The mental aspect of James' practice is about making lists and coming up with ideas and I've been putting that into practice as well. I teach a screenwriting class at a local community college and the thing that seems to be the most difficult for some of them is coming up with ideas. James' recommendation is to make lists of ideas until your brain hurts. I made a few today, ideas for screenplays, ways to make more money with less frustrating work, book ideas, ideas for leading a more creative, nurturing, uplifting and fulfilling life. His theory, as I understand it, is that by making these lists, our brains have to fulfill some of them at some point. We get a brain itch and our bodies have to scratch it!

Emotionally, James recommends letting go of negative people in your life. One of the things I've done recently is purge negative people from my Facebook page. At first it felt scary because I genuinely like people, even the negative ones. But after I pushed that button that said "unfriend" and "block" I felt relief. I don't really use Facebook that much anymore anyway. I find it to be a giant bathroom wall with graffiti scribbled on it, "Like me", "I eat spinach", "My girlfriend dumped me", "Look how cute I am", "Come and play with me" and it's mentally exhausting. 

I do like seeing friends' photos, but I've realized that I have not really seen any of my friends face-to-face in a really long time and I want to start to change that. When I'm with friends and we are just hanging out, talking about life, laughing, playing, I feel like I've been plugged into a phone charger and my green battery signal is going up and up and up. Right now, I really only spend time with people if I'm working with them. I work and work and work and then when I get home I work some more. 

As Jack Nicholson's character in THE SHINING says, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Probably an unlucky one, too.

The final practice is spiritual. I'm not religious. But, like James, I do find that reading books by spiritual leaders, practicing meditation, doing yoga, being in nature are all very spiritual things that make me feel more connected to the world. I've also found some great apps like Omvana that allow you to create and play guided meditations and that leads to a spiritual practice in a different way. I'm not connected to Omvana in any way, I just really like their app. Let me know if you try it and what you think.

Sitting out here on this dock on the bay and listening to the world existing around me is a spiritual experience and I do feel lucky to be here.

Here's the link to James' original post:

http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/how-to-be-the-luckiest-guy-on-the-planet-in-4-easy-steps/

Be lucky!

You can follow me on Twitter @waynepyle and follow James @jaltucher or buy his book How to Be the Luckiest Person Alive by clicking the link below. (As an Amazon associate, I get some pennies just to say, "Look, pennies." Thank you!)

                                                                      

You, LLC

As you may have noticed, I'm changing the name (and focus) of this blog to YOU, LLC (You, Living Life Creatively).

After my last post about the importance of creativity as an opposing force to destruction, I realized that while, yes, I am an actor and those experiences are important to me, I'm also a human being who is interested in how to live a more creative, nurturing, uplifting and fulfilled life in all areas of my life. I'd also like to share that interest with others.

Instead of focusing on just one aspect of creativity that I'm involved with - being an actor - I'm going to explore many different aspects of the creative life: writing, art, film making, teaching, cooking, being a parent, husband, partner, friend; all of those areas of our lives that can be made better by applying creativity and creative solutions to them and then seeing what happens.

I like the idea of taking a legal term, LLC (Limited Liability Company) and turning into something of a mantra YOU, LLC (You, Living Life Creatively). I like the idea of a life lived creatively with boldness, freedom and expression as a priority. I like the idea that the members of this LLC will learn new ways to think about old problems, discover old ideas that can be applied to new problems and hopefully have a lot of fun doing it. Oh yeah, I also just like IDEAS.

Thanks for reading! I'm looking forward to our journey together.

Wayne Pyle, LLC

Thoughts on the Boston Marathon Bombings

Buzzard's Bay, MA

This past weekend, I was leaving a funeral in Buzzard's Bay, MA for a beloved aunt on my wife's side of the family when I heard about the bombings in Boston. It was the first funeral I'd ever been to where hundreds of people showed up to pay their respects and say goodbye. There was a long line of people that wound its way around the funeral home and out the door into the parking lot.

I was very moved to see that this woman had touched so many lives. She had obviously made a difference in people's lives in her short time on this earth. It made me stop and think, "Have I touched as many lives? What is my contribution to this too short amount of time we all have? What small changes could I be making to make more of a difference?"

As we left Buzzard's Bay my wife, Heidi, reminded me that it was Patriot's Day. I had no idea what that was. I've lived in Boston, but I was working on Lion King at the time and going through the trauma of my divorce, so I didn't really participate in as many of the city's cultural events as I would have liked to.

She also said that it was the day of the Boston Marathon. I had just been thinking that one of things I would still like to do is run a marathon. In my imagination, I saw myself running the 26.2 miles looking around with joy and awe at the people around me going on their own journey. I could feel myself exerting my body, sweating, struggling, talking to myself, urging myself to finish, to just make it one more mile, one more mile. In my revery, I saw Heidi and my young son waiting for me at the finish line, smiling, happy, as I collapsed into their arms.

While imagining all of this, I hit the Twitter button on my phone. I wasn't looking for anything related to the marathon, just seeing what friends were up to. My imagined experience of running a marathon came crashing to a halt when one of my Twitter followers stated, "Oh no, I know some people running the marathon."

My heart jumped. I knew that something bad was happening. This was within 20 minutes of it actually happening. I was amazed at the speed news travels and I quickly searched the web and found out that bombs had gone off - right at the finish line.

The finish line - the goal - the hoped for future - nirvana - bliss - the end of struggle and the beginning of stories told about the race that happened...and suddenly all of that was twisted into a nightmare of human body parts and metal and death and destruction. I was saddened and angry by this news and wondered how best to respond.

How DO we continue to strive to make a difference when every other day the news is filled with these stories of shootings and bombings and revenge and death?

This was now the question on my mind as we drove on, away from Massachusetts and friends and family and back to New York, back to work, back to the students I teach every day at SUNY New Paltz and SUNY Dutchess Community College.

What do we DO?

As I stood before my first class, feeling defeated, feeling like they don't really care about the skills I am teaching them, feeling like they might give up in the face of all this violence, I had a revelation.

What do we do in the face of death and destruction?

We do what all artists have done and continue to do and will continue to do until our sun shrinks to a cold, white dwarf and we are no longer here. We CREATE.

We make something from nothing. We take our lives and experiences and skills and education and we create something new, something that never existed before and we share it with world and say, "Hey, take a look at this, what do you think?"

Sometimes, the world responds back with praise and money and fame and glory and sometimes just your best friend in the whole wide world sees the work and says, "Eh, try again." But the WORK of CREATION continues and will continue and that work, that drive to make beautiful and worthy and challenging things and films and plays and stories and myriad other forms, is light years away from the drive of the person who cobbled together some pressure cookers and ball bearings and blew up a small child and a family and other people who were there to celebrate the gloriousness of human beings and what they can accomplish when they put their minds and hearts and souls into something.

Those two bombs have hurt and killed and maimed. Their intention was to destroy and cause fear. But they cannot stop us from creating beauty out of chaos, they cannot maim our ability to love and reach out and create alone or together works that celebrate what it means to be a human being among human beings. They cannot stop art from happening and overwhelming the world with joy and beauty and light.

I urge all of you, in response to this tragic event, to create something beautiful, something worthy, something challenging, something funny as an oppositional response to this destructive event. Share your creations with me, with others, with the world or just hold it in the palm of your hand and know you have stepped on the other side of the line away from hate and fear and destruction.

My thoughts are with my Boston brothers and sisters today. May they find answers and closure and love and begin the journey of healing as soon as possible.