The Low Density Lifestyle Book is Here and On Sale for the Holidays!!

Just in time for the holidays, and to help you, your friends and your family live a healthier and happier life, from now until Dec. 31, the Low Density Lifestyle book and ebook are on sale!

When you buy one copy of the Low Density Lifestyle book at the regular price of $19.95, you will get a second copy free! And the ebook, normally $12.95, is on sale for $9.95.

Don’t delay – get your copy now, and make your holidays a Low Density Lifestyle one! Just scroll down to the order info below and you’ll be able to make the purchase.

Get your copy now of The Low Density Lifestyle, in book or ebook format!

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Download and read a free sample excerpt from the book by clicking here:

Low Density Lifestyle Book Excerpt

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The Low Density Lifestyle is the revolutionary new book by Dr. Michael Wayne, author of the groundbreaking book, Quantum-Integral Medicine: Towards a New Science of Healing and Human Potential.

The Low Density Lifestyle is experiencing and living in a more relaxed, less stressed, and calm, clear and focused manner on an everyday basis. It is also a way that can lead you to better health and happiness, along with living a more fulfilled and enlightened life.

This is a book about many things—health, wellness, happiness, fulfillment, doing what you love, movement, being a creative thinker—but at the same time, it’s about one thing: living to your maximum potential.

The goal with this book is to help you become a more complete human being. We are meant to live a healthy life, a more fulfilled life, a conscious life, and a more awakened life—this is what it means to be a complete human being.

And this is what is meant by living a Low Density Lifestyle: it is a model for living.

Get your copy now, and get ready to change your life!

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Download and read a free sample excerpt from the book by clicking here:

Low Density Lifestyle Book Excerpt _____________________________________________________________________

The Store:

To order, click on the Add to Cart button underneath what you would like to purchase and then just follow the simple instructions. Except for The Low Density Lifestyle book, all other orders are digital, which means they can be instantly downloaded:

***To order a signed copy of the book, the cost is $19.95 + shipping (enter your country and zip/postal code to find out shipping costs):

Our holiday sale: Now through Dec. 31, for each copy of the book you buy, you will get another copy free! Just click on the button below, fill out the info, and we’ll take care of the rest!

***To order the instant download ebook, the cost is $12.95:

Our holiday sale: Now through Dec. 31, the price of the ebook is $9.95. Just click on the button below and fill out the info and you’ll pay just $9.95!

***In addition to the book, we now have available a variety of special reports, each for $5, and each instantly downloadable!:

***Special report #1:What is Chinese Medicine and How Can It Make You Become Healthier? (10 pages) $5

***Special report #2: The Top Herbs for Healing and the Top Ten Herbs for Stress Relief (9 pages) $5

***Special Report #3: How to Live a Low Density Lifestyle: The 12-Step Guide (6 pages) $5

***Special Report #4: How To Be Happy: 7 Steps to Help You Get On the Path of Doing What You Love and the 12 Secrets to Happiness (9 pages) $5

***Special Report #5: How to Develop Your Creative Intelligence and Vision: Do You Have What It Takes To Become A Visionary? (10 pages) $5

***Special Report #6: The Truth About Artificial Sweeteners and Why They’re Bad for Your Health (11 pages) $5

***Special Report #7: Stress and Relaxation: 10 Warning Signs You’re Stressed Out, and 30 Ways to Relax (8 pages) $5

Dream…Believe…Love/Happy Xmas(War is Over)

As we enter into the Holiday season, I thought a good way to end the year – this is the last article of the year (I’ll resume with the Masters of Enlightenment series right after the New Year) – is with the above video.

It’s a video montage I created in celebration of the spirit of the Holidays.

It’s an homage to peace, love, trust, hope, belief, and the knowledge that we can make this a better world, a peaceful, sane, healthy and happy world, a Low Density Lifestyle world.

I call it Dream…Believe…Love.

If only everyone lived by that credo…

Below is another video that captures the spirit of the Holidays.

This is a song that when it came out in 1971 was branded as radical because it was written and sung by a notorious peace activist, John Lennon. Yet now, the song is heard every year at this time.

And that’s because it tells us of hope – about a world of peace, which is what the Xmas spirit is about, and also what a Low Density Lifestyle world is about. So now the song is a hymn that is heard every Xmas holiday season.

As well it should.

The only sad thing about the song is that it was written by a man who is no longer with us, a visionary who perceived what a Low Density Lifestyle world looked like, and articulated it very clearly.

Happy Xmas/War is Over – Thank you John Lennon.

And I want to thank each and every one of you…

Have a wonderful Holiday season, and see you next year.

50 People Who Are Changing the World

Over the last few days during this series on What Would a Low Density Lifestyle World Look Like?, I’ve been discussing war, peace, and making the world a better place.

I said how we’re all in this together, so ultimately, it’s up to all of us to help make this a more livable, lovable and sane world.

There are many people who have made it their mission to make this world a better place, a Low Density Lifestyle kind of world. In this article you can learn about 50 of them. Maybe one day your name will be on the list.

This list and article is from the Utne Reader.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. On paper and in person his visage exudes optimism, righteous ambition, and immeasurable humility. Which is why, as we searched for an iconic figure to represent this, our second annual list of visionaries, his name immediately jumped to mind. That’s because the visionaries we were drawn to made the cut not for being revolutionary inventors, innovative environmentalists, vociferous outcasts, or intrepid reformers—although you’ll find all of these enviable character types on the following pages—but for the unwavering, inexhaustible sense of purpose they bring to their work.

Labors of peace, love, and justice are rarely recognized by our celebrity-obsessed media, and by extension most of us. Quiet resolve does not fill tents at the circus. Principle doesn’t make for a sexy photo. Selflessness, unless it is exhibited by heroes in the heat of a crisis, is often presented as weakness. Yet it is only the strongest among us who can stay true to a vision.

This section is a tribute to that resolve. Here’s hoping it inspires your dreams.

Christian Bök
Experimental Poet
This poet isn’t content with words on a page—he prefers to work under mind-bending constraints that truly stretch his linguistic limits.

Dave Zirin
Sports Columnist
In his “Edge of Sports” column and other multimedia outlets, Zirin brings a progressive eye to the world of athletics. He’s the thinking fan’s sportswriter, using our various fields of battle as a sociological lens.

Noah Baker Merrill
Cofounder, Direct Aid Iraq
This humanitarian activist won’t let Americans forget Iraq. Even (and especially) as the country and its people fade from U.S. headlines, Baker Merrill builds bridges of friendship and restitution.

Wafaa El-Sadr
Founder, International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs
When Wafaa El-Sadr first encountered people suffering from AIDS in 1982, there were fewer than 5,000 known cases of the disease. In just a few years, the annual rate of infection would hit 130,000. If there was a ground floor for the epidemic, El-Sadr was on it.

Parvez Sharma
Filmmaker
Sharma traveled a broad swath of the Islamic world to film A Jihad for Love, a first-of-its-kind documentary about gay and lesbian Muslims who are struggling to reconcile their faith with their sexuality.

Mark Kastel
Cofounder, Cornucopia Institute
When you buy organic, you want to trust the label. Kastel and his small but dogged Cornucopia crew make sure that organic food producers are walking their talk by snooping around their barnyards and their balance sheets.

David Oaks
Director, MindFreedom International
People who suffer from mental and emotional problems often have few personal advocates, let alone political or cultural influence. Oaks’ group, MindFreedom International, stands up for them by campaigning against forced medication, abuse of rights, and the media biases that really get these “psychiatric survivors” down.

Maya Enista
CEO, Mobilize.org
Maya Enista wants to create an AARP for the millennial generation, helping people people see millennials as having more value than just helping with your social networking.

Richard Nash
Founder, Cursor
This indie book publishing icon is turning the entire industry on its head in his bold new venture. And guess what—you, dear readers, are the stars of the show.

Mark Gorton
Founder, The Open Planning Project
The goal of urban planning should be to serve people, not machines, and Gorton’s leading the charge to inspire people to kick automobile dependency and take back the streets!

Raj Patel
Author, Stuffed and Starved
In Stuffed and Starved, Patel smartly unpacked the myriad problems with our corporate agriculture and food system, but his interests—and opinions—go even broader in his new book, The Value of Nothing: His sharp social critique extends to economic justice issues like class, wealth, and poverty.

Julie Cajune
American Indian Education Advocate
As part of Montana’s groundbreaking initiative, Cajune provides educators with the tools they need to close the cultural awareness chasm and bring American Indian histories to the masses.

Tyrone Boucher and Dean Spade
Cocreators, Enough
This whip-smart, social-justice-minded pair has created a welcoming forum for the most taboo of subjects: wealth, class, and what it feels like, day-to-day, to resist capitalism.

John Wilbanks
Executive Director, Science Commons
This philosopher-turned-engineer heads up Science Commons, a group that works to spur innovation and discovery by making scientific research and resources easier to share.

Partha Dasgupta
Economist
Dasgupta saw what gross domestic product (GDP) wasn’t measuring—the state of a country’s environmental resources, education, and human welfare—so he came up with a new system. And his “inclusive wealth” concept is starting to catch on.

Daniel Kish
Cofounder and Executive Director, World Access for the Blind
By teaching FlashSonar navigation and emphasizing self-direction, this nonprofit’s bold approach to managing blindness proves there are no limits to what can be done without sight.

Julia “Judy” Bonds
Codirector, Coal River Mountain Watch
Bonds is a matriarch to the movement against mountaintop removal, the coal mining practice that is literally flattening parts of Appalachia. In her work with Coal River Mountain Watch, she engages in direct activism against “King Coal” and teaches others how to do the same.

Lance Ledbetter
Founder, Dust-to-Digital
Ledbetter’s record label has been resurrecting 78s and re­releasing the work of unheralded American folk, blues, and jazz musicians since 2003.

Jonathan Kuniholm
Prosthetics Engineer
Since he lost his arm serving in Iraq, this graduate student and research assistant hopes to revolutionize the prosthetics industry by bringing open source design to the masses.

Kristian Olson
Program Leader, Global Health Initiative
Kristian Olson, program leader of the Global Health Initiative (GHI), fights neonatal death in low-income areas of the world using low-cost resuscitators and incubators made from old car parts.

Cory Doctorow
Copyright Activist
A figurehead for “copyfighters” everywhere, Doctorow is on a crusade against a corporate monopoly on patent law. He thinks replication feeds a culture of creativity and might even be programmed into our DNA; it should be encouraged, not criminalized.

David Bacon
Documentary Photographer and Journalist
Bacon has made a life of documenting the important, inspiring struggles that rarely make the news, bringing to life the stories of undocumented workers, labor activists, and foreclosed homeowners.

Patricia van Nispen tot Sevenaer
Executive Director, ILA Microjustice for All
Billions of people around the globe lack basic legal protection and representation. Van Nispen tot Sevenaer’s innovative Microjustice model is turning the tide, one person at a time.

Sarah Schulman
Author, Ties That Bind
In Ties That Bind (see review, p. 91), this lesbian social critic urges progressives to confront homophobia within their families. Only then will we be as gay-friendly as we think we are.

Tom Regan
Author, The Case for Animal Rights
The philosophical leader of the animal rights movement helped construct a legal framework around the issue—and whatever your stand, he’ll make you rethink it.

René Girard
Emeritus Professor, Stanford University
According to this French-born intellectual’s mimetic theory, imitation is the root of human culture. More Americans ought to mimic the Europeans who rightly celebrate Girard as a brilliant, original thinker.

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
Author, Staring
Disabled people attract stares—and this social critic posits that the attention sometimes transforms a would-be stigma into empowerment.

Will Allen
Founder and CEO, Growing Power
This MacArthur genius’s nonprofit Growing Power is pioneering ways to feed fresh food to those who live in the “food deserts” of our inner cities.

Enrique Peñalosa
Urban Planner
The mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, put the city on the map for its innovative transportation policy. Now he’s a consultant, and his big ideas about livable cities are in demand.

Sarah Haskins
Comedian
This social critic’s “Target Women” segments on Current TV do the nearly impossible: They make feminist critiques informative and darkly funny. For skewering society’s hang-ups and mocking celebrity culture, she deserves a reward—like, say, equal treatment.

Scott Harrison
Founder, charity: water
Harrison is a former nightclub owner and party hound who decided to do something for others. His group charity: water has provided clean water to more than half a million people in Africa, Asia, and Central America.

Rana Husseini
Author, Murder in the Name of Honor
As a journalist, Husseini shed light on honor killings in her native Jordan. As an activist, she works to end them.

Dune Lankard
Founder, Eyak Preservation Council
A native Eyak Athabaskan from Alaska, Lankard became an environmental activist after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Standing up to opponents, some from his own community, he’s a brave and powerful voice among greens.

Hiroshi Sunairi
Founder, Tree Project
Taking seeds from trees that survived the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast, this artist-cum-entrepreneur has encouraged people to plant them all over the world. By creating beauty from devastation, the creator cultivates peace.

Goretti Kyomuhendo
Founding Member, FEMRITE
The first female Ugandan author awarded a grant from the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, the accomplished author of Waiting was on the ground floor of this dynamic association for indigenous female writers.

Nawal Nour
Founder, African Women’s Health Center
During her ob/gyn residency, the Sudanese native and MacArthur genius developed a center for African women who have been circumcised. She continues to run that reproductive health care organization in Boston.

Kim Bobo
Executive Director, Interfaith Worker Justice
A longtime spiritual activist, the author of Wage Theft in America is on a crusade to mobilize people of faith in the battle over fair pay, benefits, and equal treatment for low-wage workers.

Wendy Brawer
Founder, Green Map Systems
By highlighting a community’s green features—compost drop sites, green space, community gardens—Brawer’s maps become tools for environmental and community activists, pointing the way to sustainability.

Brian Conley
Founder, Alive in Baghdad
This videographer, who first traveled to Iraq in 2005, collaborates with local journalists to document daily life under siege. Conley has since expanded his “brand” to Syria and Mexico.

Jigar Shah
Energy Innovator
As the founder of SunEdison, Shah pioneered a new finance model for solar power. He’s now set his sights “beyond the carbon economy” by heading a climate-change initiative, the Carbon War Room.

Virginia Gardiner
Industrial Designer
The London-based Dwell contributor and inventor continues to improve on her LooWatt, a portable, green toilet that captures odor and turns waste into fuel.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Media Activist
The radical feminist and artist is gearing up for A Queer Black MobileHomeComing, a traveling “intergenerational community documentation and education project” that challenges our culture’s heteronormativity.

Tiny a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia
Cofounder, POOR magazine
Tapping her life experiences in the Bay Area, this self-proclaimed “poverty scholar” uses a grassroots magazine—as well as her performance art project welfareQUEENS—to tell those street stories the mainstream rarely cares to hear.

Diana Balmori
Founder, Balmori Associates
This architect built a reputation designing green roofs, which she calls the “fifth facade” of buildings. Balmori’s visions keep growing more ambitious, melding futurism with sustainability.

Brewster Kahle
Cofounder, Internet Archive
Thanks to this digital librarian’s nonprofit, researchers, historians, and scholars have permanent access to reams of essential historical data. And he’s just getting started.

Bob Stein
Founder, Institute for the Future of the Book
A digital pioneer who introduced the CD-ROM, Stein is now turning his attention to the ways social networking can turn publishing into an interactive give-and-take between readers and authors.

Sumaya Kazi
Founder, CulturalConnect
This South Asian American entrepreneur created an online media company responsible for five weekly e-magazines that spotlight young professionals of color making their mark.

Robert Bullard
Environmental Justice Advocate
One of the first activists to insert race and class into the environmental debate, this too-often underappreciated author has written 15 essential books, including Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina.

Jeff Chang
Author, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop
No writer covers the intersection of hip-hop and politics better than Chang—and he’s got the Obama administration’s ear regarding U.S. arts policy.

Together We Can Change the World

In the last two days, I’ve discussed the vision of War is Over, and then on the next day I talked about War Not Being Over.

We all know which of these two is true.

But we can change the world and make it a better place – a peaceful, sane, healthy, happy, fair world. A Low Density Lifestyle world.

Together we can change the world, because we’re all in this together, as the above video, which will touch your heart, your mind, and your soul, shows.

All it takes is empathy, hope, looking beyond, thinking positive, valuing truth, speaking up, listening, saying what you mean and meaning what you say, challenging the impossible, and a host of other things.

Perhaps I’m being an optimist. But if you don’t have optimism, what do you have?  After all, it’s the optimists who will change the world, because they believe it can be done.

Watch the video to learn more. And then decide which of these you put into practice on a daily basis.

Happy Xmas, War is Over, Goodbye John

A little more than 29 years ago, on Dec. 8, 1980, John Lennon left us. I thought of him the other day when I was walking through a store and heard his song Happy Xmas/War is Over.

This is a song that when it came out in 1971 was branded as radical because it was written and sung by a notorious peace activist. Yet now, the song is heard every year at this time.

And that’s because it tells us of hope – about a world of peace, which is what the Xmas spirit is about, and also what a Low Density Lifestyle world is about. So now the song is a hymn that is heard every Xmas holiday season.

As well it should.

The only sad thing about the song is that it was written by a man who is no longer with us, a visionary who perceived what a Low Density Lifestyle world looked like, and articulated it very clearly.

Earlier in this series on what a Low Density Lifestyle world would look like, I told you about the work of Yoko Ono.  She has been someone who has worked tirelessly for peace, for the cultivation of the imagination, and for the integration of the two, originally with her husband John Lennon, and then by herself.

She has also kept the spirit of John alive. On the recent anniversary of his death, she wrote the following:

Affirmation for Planet Earth

Yoko Ono Lennon
December 8, 2009

On the anniversary of the passing of my husband, John Lennon,
I would like you to share an affirmation with me.
Think it, say it, with firm belief,
knowing that we are all one.

In the name of truth, peace and love:
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Our planet is healthy and whole,
We, the people of Earth
See clearly, Hear clearly, Think clearly.
Make the right judgement, right decision and the right move
For the benefit of our planet and others.

We are now bathing in the light of Dawn,
Standing in the Heaven we have created together,
Sharing the Joy
With all Lives on Earth
And of the Universe,
As we are all one, united with infinite and eternal love.

For the highest good of all concerned, So be it.

With all my love,
yoko ono lennon

December 8, 2009

Tokyo, Japan

And two years ago, on Dec. 8, 2007, she wrote the following:

December 8, 2007
by Yoko Ono Lennon

I miss you, John.

27 years later, I still wish I could turn back the clock to the Summer of 1980.

I remember everything – sharing our morning coffee, walking in the park
together on a beautiful day, and seeing your hand stretched to mine -
holding it, reassuring me that I shouldn’t worry about anything because
our life was good.

I had no idea that life was about to teach me the toughest lesson of all.

I learned the intense pain of losing a loved one suddenly, without
warning, and without having the time for a final hug and the chance to
say, “I love you,” for the last time. The pain and shock of that sudden
loss is with me every moment of every day.

When I touched John’s side of our bed on the night of December 8th,
1980, I realized that it was still warm. That moment has haunted me for
the past 27 years – and will stay with me forever.

Even harder for me is watching what was taken away from our beautiful boy,
Sean.

He lives in silent anger over not having his Dad, whom he loved so much,
around to share his life with. I know we are not alone. Our pain is one
shared by many other families who are suffering as the victims of
senseless violence. This pain has to stop.

Let’s not waste the lives of those we have lost. Let’s, together, make
the world a place of love and joy and not a place of fear and anger.
This day of John’s passing has become more and more important for so
many people around the world as the day to remember his message of Peace
and Love and to do what each of us can to work on healing this planet we
cherish.

Let’s: Think Peace, Act Peace, and Spread Peace.
John worked for it all his life.
He said, “There’s no problems, only solutions.”

Remember, we are all together.
We can do it, we must.
I love you!

yoko

Yoko Ono Lennon
8 December 2007

Below, there are a series of videos just to show how popular John Lennon’s song has become. The first video is of Celine Dion singing the song; then Melissa Etheridge; then Tom Jones singing Happy Xmas at a concert at the Vatican; then the Three Tenors - Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras – singing it in Vienna; and finally U2 singing an acoustic version in 1988 on TV on The Late, Late Show.

A Voice of Sanity in a High Density Lifestyle World

In a world in which people are stressed to the max, feel overwhelmed, and are caught up living a High Density Lifestyle existence; and in a world in which things seem topsy-turvy and what is wrong is right and what is right is wrong, voices of sanity are desperately needed.

That’s why we need people who live a Low Density Lifestyle to speak out and to be bold with their vision, because they are the voices of sanity, and the voices to lead us out of the wilderness.

And that’s why I’ve had this series on What Would a Low Density Lifestyle World Look Like? - to inspire the Low Density Lifestyle folks to help point the finger to the way to live a sane existence.

In the above video, you can see the actor Woody Harrelson’s poem Thoughts From Within set to music and images. In the poem he speaks simply, clearly and eloquently to help us understand how we’ve lost our way.

Woody is giving a Low Density Lifestyle perspective to a High Density Lifestyle world. Perspectives like these are voices from the wilderness, voices of clarity. They shine a light to help us see through the darkness of a High Density Lifestyle existence.

Woody Harrelson, best-known as Woody on the TV show Cheers, but also star of many well-known movies, including Indecent Proposal, Wag the Dog, and The Messenger, lives a Low Density Lifestyle. He’s a peace activist, a vegan – in the recent film Zombieland, when the script required him to eat a Twinkie, he replaced it with a vegan-faux Twinkie made from cornmeal – and in October 2009, he was conferred an honorary degree York University for his contributions in the fields of environmental education, sustainability, and activism.

I hope you enjoy the video and it inspires you to become a voice of sanity in a High Density Lifestyle World.

Be Bold, Make No Excuses, Have No Fear

A few days ago, in this series on What Would a Low Density Lifestyle World Look Like?, I stated Be a Leader, Not a Follower.

In that article, I said how a Low Density Lifestyle world would be one of people with vision willing to take bold action, of being leaders not afraid to follow their dream and not afraid to come up with big ideas.

The challenge though is that even when you come up with a big idea or  a vision, fear may stop you from moving forward with it. There will be many excuses as to why you can’t do it, and then fear will paralyze you from even coming close to implementing it.

The mind will often play tricks on you, and come up with all kinds of convoluted reasons for why you can’t do something, using all kinds of twisted logic to keep you from realizing your greatness.

Ultimately, it’s a matter of getting past your comfort zone. It can be very uncomfortable stepping outside of what is known in order to go into uncharted territory. It’s often easier to make excuses as to why you can’t do something, as opposed to just doing something, especially something bold.

So watch the video above featuring athlete Matt Scott. I guarantee that you will be inspired to get out of your chair, put the excuses aside, and take bold action.

The Commencement Speech of Paul Hawken

Paul Hawken is someone who is doing what he loves. He is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and best-selling author.

His books include The Magic of Findhorn, The Next Economy, The Ecology of Commerce, and Blessed Unrest.

His work includes starting and running ecological businesses, such as the tool company Smith and Hawken, writing and teaching about the impact of commerce upon the environment, and consulting with governments and corporations on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy.

He life is dedicated to changing the relationship between business and the environment, and between human and living systems in order to create a more just and sustainable world.

Among other things, he is also someone who lives a Low Density Lifestyle.

On May 3, 2009, Paul Hawken gave the commencement address at the University of Portland. Like the commencement speech of Steve Jobs that I published not too long ago, Hawken’s speech was an inspirational talk designed to encourage the audience not only to do what they love, but to have it be something that could make a positive impact on the world.

To close the series on Doing What You Love, I give you Paul Hawken’s speech in its entirety:

Commencement Address to the Class of 2009
University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there.

Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown — Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity.  Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of
people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

7 Steps to Help You Get On the Path of Doing What You Love

In yesterday’s article, I discussed how if you want to do what you love, you may have to create your own work. In essence, to do what you love you may have to become an entrepreneur.

But to go off on your own is a scary thing for many people. Even if you’re not happy working at a job, there’s a certain comfort level and feeling of security it gives you.

But if you’re not happy working for someone else, you can have all the comfort and security in the world, and you will never feel appeased. You will always have an uneasy feeling gnawing at you.

And the reality is, if you’re working at a job, working for someone else, you may never feel like you’re doing what you love, because it just may not be the fullest and truest expression of who you are.

I talked in an earlier article about Carpe Diem, of Seizing the Day. That is what it takes to let go of the comfort zone and to venture into the unknown.

But it’s not really an unknown, because it’s fully known: it’s who you really are. It’s living your dream and your passion, and being true to yourself.

And to get past the fear, it just takes a certain mindset.

Here are 7 things you can do right now to get past the fear and attain the mindset of being willing to do what you love:

1. Reclaim your mind.

This might seem a little strange, right? Who would think that they don’t own their own mind? The truth is that most of us live with partially free minds. We act on our intentions as long as our comfort zone is not violated. We rebel when the risk is minimal.

In order to reclaim ownership of your mind (and stop renting it out) you have to demand of yourself nothing short of a completely free, unadulterated mind. Underline this in your mind: “I won’t let anyone else have control or dictate the contents of my mind. Only I have that power.”

2. Put yourself on auto-response.

The ability of the leader to take action, despite not having a clear course, is a highly coveted skill in the entrepreneurial world. A leader takes action while others wait around for the situation to become more favorable. He has the “auto-response” of “I’ll figure it out.” When faced with a tough decision, or unclear path, he takes action instead of waiting for orders.

The more you’re able to take action despite having all the facts, the faster you’ll get results. You’ll adjust your course when you make mistakes and ultimately get there much faster than the person waiting around for the perfect plan to materialize.

3. Think holistically.

All of our decisions are interconnected. A choice in our health could create an improvement in our productivity. A shift in our spiritual practice can cultivate a calm state, where your focus increases. A move toward working for yourself will dramatically impact your freedom of time and movement, and greatly improve your happiness. All of our decisions are interconnected and a smart renegade knows this. She or he tries to make high leverage holistic decisions that will have a ripple effect across all aspects of their life.

Think holistically. See how the changes in all areas of your life impact each other, not just in business, but in the areas of health, fitness, finances, mental/emotional and spirituality.

4. Question authority.

Too much skepticism will make you unbalanced, and will honestly probably turn you into a conpiracy-theory nutcase. A healthy amount of skepticism, on the other hand, is essential to working intelligently.

One of the oldest living renegades, Siddhartha Gautama (also known as the Buddha) once said, “Do not believe anything that you’ve been told, unless it agrees with your own common sense.” The same advice applies 2,000 years later. Listen to yourself first, before you listen to the experts. Test before you assume.

5. Focus on interdependency.

We all have certain communities of people or tribes that we naturally connect with and are attracted to. Seek out these people, help them, start conversations with them. These are the people that are most likely to identify with you, therefore the most likely to also support and promote your work.

Find a way to connect with influential leaders or members of your tribe today. Whether it be through sending them a message on twitter, contacting them through their blog or emailing them directly. And if you can, try to get one of these people to mentor you. It can’t hurt to ask and you’ll be surprised at how genuinely helpful some of these people can be.

6. Defrost your passion.

If you’ve been stuck in a cubicle-farm for some time, or have been in a less than ideal work situation, you’ve probably given up hope on some level. Being surrounded with people you’d rather not work with, grey walls, no windows and bad coffee tends to dampen your spirits. This dispirited condition may have progressed so far that you have trouble remembering what it’s like to be excited about your life.

That’s got to change. It’s time to reconnect with what you’re truly passionate about and wake up to the possibility that you can start making your own rules. Life doesn’t have to be a struggle of paying your dues with the occasional bit of fun. Realize that you don’t have to live in the way you think is required.

7. Be ridiculous.

There’s obviously a certain societal value to being practical. But what’s easily overlooked is the value of being highly impractical. You have to be willing to take risks, and keep your head in the clouds to be a successful trailblazer. You have to strike a balance between having roots (practicality) and wings (innovating).

Realize that all major revolutions in the world were first seen as crazy, ridiculous and absurd. If you want to innovate, you’ll have to accept that the majority of the population will view you as a lunatic. You secretly know, though, that your level of lunacy is quite possibly your most valuable skill.

So there you have it – 7 things you can do to help you get past the fear and do what you love. Once you do so, you’ll be happier, healthier and feeling more fulfilled.

Doing What You Love Could Mean Becoming an Entrepreneur

If you are doing what you love, you may have to create your own work.

It’s not always easy to fit into a defined and set job if you are doing what you love, because it often means that you are listening to your own muse and setting out on your own path and finding your own way to express who you truly are.

It can also mean that you prefer the freedom of working for yourself, so that you can set your own boundaries, as opposed to having them  set artificially by a job.

If you decide to go your own way and create your own work, you are following the time-honored path of entrepreneurship.

It is the entrepreneurs who are the innovators, who move forward even when the naysayers say it can’t be done.

They love what they are doing so much that they believe in themselves even when others don’t, and aren’t afraid to fail.

In fact, failure is not part of the vocabulary of an entrepreneur, because as long as they are doing what they love, whatever the outcome, they are succeeding.

They see failure as not pursuing their dream.

The reality is, is that entrepreneurs can change the world – watch the above video and you will be inspired as you realize this is true.

Just by pursuing their dreams, entrepreneurs are changing the world, by also inspiring others to pursue their dreams.

And with their creative imagination and innovative drive, entrepreneurs are changing the world, by creating new ways of doing things, or by making adaptations to current ways of doing things.

Entrepreneurs are also changing the world by shining the light of hope where there once was darkness.

It takes a Low Density Lifestyle mind to be an entrepreneur with a fertile creative imagination.

Which isn’t hard to do. It just starts with doing what you love.

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