Lost and Found

Can you imagine a world without strangers? Would you know what to do without a computer? Could you last a day, a week, a month without a phone?

What would you do with one litre of water? What would you do with one set of clothes? What would you do with one meal a day?

What would you do for an hour without electricity?

What an innovated person you could be! I recently started a "What would I do?" challenge. Each week I ask myself "what would i do if..." And i think of one of the luxuraies in my life. Then I try for a week to be without that luxury.

The most amazing thing has come of it, too. After the week ends, and i start to think of the next luxary I am finding I don't need to return to that old habit.

It all started when I was posed the question: What would you do for one hour without electricity? It is a great environmental campaign started in Sydney Australia call Global Earth Hour. I challenged my students too it, to great sucess. And myself too. Now At least once I week, I try to live one hour (after dark) without electricity. I go for walks, or bike rides, I do yoga, or talk with a friend under the moonlight. It has become great fun.

But after GEH, I started asking myself what other things might I give up for one hour? Well I found the time constraint less important. And tried things like, what would I do with 1 litre for bathing per day. An amazing experiement that has seen the amazing revitalization of my skin and hair, as I use far fewer commericial chemicals now allowing my body to be responsible for oil levels etc.

Then I asked, what would I do without cars, buses or taxis. While this one is difficult because sometimes my friends aren't comfortable with my "making my own way there," I have astonished myself with 10 and 20km bike trips in 30 minutes, with the development of wicked legs and improvement of overall stamina.

Next I asked, what would I do without an alarm clock. I set myself the challenge to wake up at 6:15 every morning without an alarm, and am astonished to find not only can I wake up at 6:15 without the alarm, but i can wake up at 6:30, 7:15, 5:49 and many other times fairly precicely (and well rested) simply by planning before i go to sleep when I want to wake up and what i want to do when i wake up. Of course it helps that it is summer time so I have the sunrise to help me, it will be interesting if the training will stick through the winter months (I'll let you know).

Of course there are dietary things too. I am told we only need about 8 oz of protein a week. So I tried. I left of pork, then beef, then chicken. Now i eat meat about once a week, and am seriously enjoying the improved health, weight loss, sink condition and bank account for the simple shift in diet.

Same went for alcohol, chocolate, coffee...juice, PET bottles. It is amazing how easy it is to let go of these things...just try one. Ask yourself. What would you do for one week without spinach? then experiment...and find out.