Dear Why Team member,
I hope this week’s message finds you well and will inspire a bit of deprivation.
It wasn’t until I started climbing mountains that I truly came to appreciate the upside of deprivation. Food never tasted better, drink never more satisfying, and rest so deeply appreciated. It’s a bit ironic that to appreciate the most out of life, we must deprive ourselves of the best of life.
Sad is the man who has all the trappings of success and thus feels trapped by them. It is said that luxuries once enjoyed become necessities. Awe, but there is the sweet benefit of deprivation, hardship, and difficulty.
I once read that only those who know hard work can truly enjoy a vacation.
Somehow, we have come to think that a life of leisure will make us happy. But research has revealed that a sedentary life is no life at all - the vacation is best enjoyed as a counterbalance to hard work. The optimal vacation being no more than eight days. At some point, the hard-working disciplined individual, arrives at the point where the vacation has served its purpose, has refueled the tank, and it’s time to get back to meaningful and purposeful work. Sad is the one who plays rounds and rounds of golf yet after a while feels that something is missing.
I know, we would all love to give it a go :-)
Be released from all our responsibilities for a nice long while, but it is from the responsibilities we find our meaning and purpose in life. Remember that maybe the grass is greener on the other side because of all the manure. This weekly blog, for example, is not a burden, but rather a privilege. I am inspired by the ‘one’, for the ‘one’ who I feel confident will be served by my joy and effort in this work. No matter how many may read, of which I am very grateful, it is the ‘one’ I pray to reach.
Why Deprivation?
To Revive and Thrive in ‘25 - To s weeten life!
To awaken us to the riches we already possess. A dopamine fast is particularly powerful. The taste of food is so much more enjoyable after a time of fasting, of feeling hunger. Nothing like a drink of water after becoming really thirsty. Many have asked me why I would climb a difficult mountain, exhaust myself in the effort daily, and sleep in a tent for a week. Not only does difficulty awaken us from our habitual lives, it awakens our senses in profound ways. Deprivation is an incredible path for fueling gratitude.
So, it begs the question, what other ways might we deprive ourselves to enhance our experience of life?
Familiarity Breeds Contempt
That which we have in abundance, luxuries enjoyed regularly, can lull us to sleep, cause us to take for granted more and more of our incredible lives.
Would not a bit of hardship be good for us? Especially the hardship we take on voluntarily?
This helps answer why so many choose hardship and deprivation regularly.
Why do hard things?
To make the rest of our lives even more rewarding.
Recently, on vacation, I had the pleasure of enjoying a Sauna, Cold Plunge, and Hot Tub. It was particularly enjoyable to go from cold to hot to cold to hot. So enjoyable was it, that I began writing this blog. Doing things our body may be screaming for us to not do, reminds us that we can do hard things - the mind rewards us, not just with the dopamine, but with the awareness, that come Hell or High Water, I not only have the ability to do hard things, those hard things are likely the very path to a more enjoyable and rewarding life.
I am less threatened by the potential loss of comforts and conveniences - in fact, I’m certain they are often in the way of a more incredible, visceral experience of life – and more open to experiencing life more, in a variety of ways.
Why Deprive? To Come Alive!
The ancient stoics believed the optimal day began by choosing to do something difficult; doing something hard early made the rest of the day easier in comparison and more enjoyable.
My early morning disciplines start my day optimally: meditation, reading, training.
Consider what more you could do early to turn on your life more optimally?
Not to achieve some outcome in the future, but to simply enhance the present. What hard things could you do early in your day that would elevate your experience of life.
What bit of deprivation, even from comfort, could awaken you even more to your amazing life?
What could you remove for a period of time, to become more appreciative of its existence in your life?. Funny how we take our thumbs for granted until one gets broken. How about taping one thumb down for the day? Just for fun - a reminder all day long of how much your life positively benefits from your thumb. Soundssilly? Why? Is it better to take for granted our blessings?
Why Deprive? To Become More Alive?
And fuel more gratitude for the incredible lives we are blessed to live. We do not need all the luxuries around us, and it’s very helpful to remind ourselves that our true joy is from inside out, not outside in.
Becoming more conscious in our life is to awaken us more to our life. Hardships will most definitely come - how might choosing a few hardships in advance train us and prepare us more for that hardship that will most certainly come?!
We need far less than we know - depriving ourselves reminds us that it’s so.
Choose more hard, stairs not elevator, walk not sit, less is more when it comes to comfort. Make time to rest and restore on vacation - recreation brings re-creation. Then get after it!! The more we put into life, the more we get out of life.
Say more yes to the hard and more no to the easy - to live your
BEST LIFE EVER.
Make it a great week!
Steve Luckenbach