Simple Wellness: Soft Living (Part 1 of 2)
By Paul Cavel
Soft living, which rejects the notion that life has to be work-centered and approached as a competition, is gaining traction worldwide. Primarily Millennial advocates have taken a good look around and decided self-sacrifice to overcome endless trials and tribulations doesn’t lead to success or happiness. At first my inner cynic thought it sounded like a perfect excuse to be lazy, but then I kept seeing thought-provoking and inspiring posts completely in step with the Water Method, an ancient system I’ve been teaching for 28 years to help people become healthy and learn how to achieve high-performance results at anything to which they set their mind – without stress or strain.
This methodology does not provide an excuse to be lazy, but rather strategies for finding sustainable paths, soft ways to merge with life and drop this insane idea that any of us need to “get ahead”. Getting ahead implies winning, which is achieved though competition; competition pushes a person towards their upper limit of performance, and usually far beyond what is sustainable for them over time. Olympic and professional athletes are prime examples as their careers are usually relatively short in comparison to other careers. The push-and-force mentality to overcome obstacles is why there is so much burnout in our society – the workplace is full of people heading full-steam ahead.
Reversing the Hamster Wheel
We’ve all been conditioned to turn the hamster wheel as fast as we can in order to achieve the goals and dreams that we have been directed to chase. In so doing, we spend most of our waking hours trying to earn money. Then of course we are left without any time and end up paying for a myriad of services – takeout, cleaners, landscapers, babysitters, dog walkers, masseuses, car washes – so many car washes in California – and more! We justify all of it by thinking that our earnings are higher than the services rendered, so we’re getting ahead. Maybe. But what you do not have is time – the most precious “commodity” you could ever have in this life. How you spend your time has everything to do with the quality of your life. And when you have time, you might enjoy taking on some remedial tasks and save some money in the process.
The social changes that have taken place over the past couple of years have clearly given many people the time to reflect and reevaluate their lives. Through this process, some have come to realise that they are in fact living to work, rather than working to live – chasing the American Dream instead of living it! The result is that a growing number of people are letting go of their previously held beliefs, kicking back, doing less or more sustainable work and shifting into what is now been coined “soft living".
Soft living is a new term for an old paradigm that has existed in the East for millennia. Ancient Chinese practised a system of moderation, not in the name of shedding responsibility, but rather to progressively grow their capacity and maturity as human beings. When you push your system to do more than is natural for you, it may increase your productivity or results in the short-term, but in the long-term you deplete your resources and exhaust yourself.
This creates a glass ceiling and, no matter how much effort you can muster, your potential will be limited. You could think of beginning a marathon with the pace of a 100-meter sprint. The runner might initially break out ahead, but he is more likely to tire and slow down before he reaches the finish line – that is if he can make it to the finish line. Many athletes retire from their game early due to injury. They overdo it and snap, crackle, pop! The runner who paces himself from the start will have the endurance, the energy and the presence to sprint to the finish line. Slow and steady wins the race—that is if you still insist on viewing life as a race!
Summary
Soft living is a term gaining traction in today’s society as a form of work/life philosophy that creates balance and healthy boundaries to reduce stress and burnout, so you can discover and live your deeper purpose. Though modern in thought, the term soft living has characteristics which underpin ancient Water Method teachings.
In the next post, Simple Wellness: Soft Living Pt. 2, we will explore more about the correlation between soft living and the Water Method.