Posts Tagged ‘Vegan’

June 3, 2010

The logic of a plant-based diet, as per Star Trek

There’s a bar in the French Quarter that I’m quite fond of called Flanagan’s. It’s low key, away from the madness of Bourbon, often pretty quiet on a Friday or a Saturday night. The random people who hang out there are usually up for random conversations, and the bartenders are always laid back, cool to chat.

About a year ago I was in there and got talking with one such bartender. He was probably in his late-20’s, had a shaved head, a Sparta beard, and plenty of visible tattoos. I had just recently turned vegan, and I was doubting that this was the type of guy who’d be able to relate. But then I heard him discussing a detox diet with the cook, who could have been the bartender’s twin except for a significant height difference.

So we got talking about food, and it turns out that the bartender himself was vegetarian. I asked him why.

“Star Trek, man.”

Come again?

“Star Trek! The Vulcans are all vegetarian. They don’t find it logical to eat meat.”

I was never big into Star Trek, but I knew that Spock was Vulcan, and I knew Vulcans made decisions based on logic and reason, with no interference from emotion. And Mr. Bartender went on to tell me that the Vulcans thus thought it illogical and wasteful to spend all that time and effort feeding an animal, only to kill it and eat it.

“Why feed your food when you can just live off the feed itself?”

December 31, 2009

Five Lessons Learned in 2009

By far, 2009 was the best year of my life to date. My personal growth accelerated to unprecedented levels, I met lots of new people and tried lots of new things. Here at the end of the year, I feel I know myself a whole lot better than I did twelve months ago.

Here are five valuable lessons I learned in 2009:

Inside Out

Things look a lot different from the inside looking out than they do from the outside looking in. I came to understand this when I tried vegetarianism. It was purely for selfish reasons that I decided to experiment with plant-based diets, but after making the switch, all those other reasons (health, animal rights, environment, etc.) began to make a lot more sense.

A.J. Jacobs discovered the same truth, as recounted in his book The Year of Living Biblically. He dove in at the deep end and tried all sorts of religious customs that he previously thought ridiculous, and found positive meaning in many of them. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it, as they say.

Having learned this lesson, I’m much less prone to prejudge people and their customs, and I often find myself questioning whatever preconceived notions I may have.

Honesty

I learned a lot about honesty, especially in regard to relationships. I used to find it tough being honest at the start, as I was preoccupied trying to impress the other person and avoid tension. But keeping secrets and holding back opinions always came back to bite me in the end. I eventually learned that it’s much better for everyone to lay their cards on the table early and figure out if the relationship can thrive in spite of the differences. Both parties are spared a lot of time and trouble that way.

Volunteering is win-win

I finally started volunteering in 2009, spending time helping out with various organizations around New Orleans at least once a month. Going in, I had the sense that I should volunteer simply because it was my duty: Since life was going great for me, I should sacrifice some of my free time to help the less-fortunate. Sacrifice is the key word there: I assumed I would get little, if anything, from the experience.

How wrong that assumption proved to be. I quickly discovered that helping people in need gave me a great sense of perspective. It became much easier to appreciate my own blessings and to express gratitude. Best of all, I learned that the best people in the world can be found volunteering. Seriously, if you want to meet good, honest, kind-hearted people, you’ll find them helping out at your local food line or homeless shelter.

Growing ain’t easy

Personal development is tough because you’re constantly pushing yourself to the limit to see how far you can go. A lot of self-inspection and courage is required. You have to be willing to fail and suffer embarrassments. If it’s not a struggle, take that as a sign that you could be trying harder.

Also, if you really want to grow, be prepared to go it alone. Lots of people will think you’re crazy, and many who don’t will still keep their distance. No need to be bitter about that though. Most people just want to stick with the status quo and not ruffle any feathers. Understandable, since that path proves much easier in the short term.

Accepting others

I feel I took this to a new level this past year. I used to get upset if someone was rude towards me, but now I just feel sorry for people like that. They’re simply not very good at being nice. In the end, that hurts them much more than it does me.

I also used to get frustrated with people who squandered their potential, but now I better understand and accept that nobody can be forced to grow. Same deal with small-minded people. There’s a lot of truth in these proverbs:

  • You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.
  • When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

I find that by focusing on my own growth and development rather than trying to change others, I become more understanding and accepting of other people’s shortcomings, while also expanding my circle of influence.

That was 2009. Here’s to more valuable lessons sought and learned in 2010.

December 11, 2009

Three people who inspire me

I get inspiration from all kinds of people, but the three I list here are personal favorites. I’ve learned a lot from them in recent years. Let me know who inspires you and why in the comments.

Deepak Chopra

“If you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world.”

As Wikipedia puts it, “Deepak Chopra is an endocrinologist, lecturer, celebrity and author of books on spirituality and mind-body medicine.” His self-described life purpose is to reach critical mass for healing, personal and social transformation, and enlightenment.

Chopra appeals to me because he blends science and spirituality effectively; his teachings makes sense from both perspectives. I’ve read two of his books: The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and Life After Death. I still read summarized chapters of the former weekly, while the latter completely changed my beliefs about the afterlife.

It was my cousin who turned me on to Chopra about eighteen months ago when he sent the following video and subsequently blew my mind:

Chopra links:

Tim Ferriss

“Fear is your friend. Fear is an indicator. Sometimes it shows you what you shouldn’t do; more often than not it shows you exactly what you should do.”

Tim Ferriss does a lot of things well. His talent lies in deconstructing all kinds of skills and mastering them in no time. Among other things, he speaks six languages, holds a world record in tango, and in 1999 won the Chinese national kickboxing championship after just a month of training.

Fortunately for us, he’s keen to share tips and ideas, and does so via his blog and his book, The 4-Hour Work Week. I first read the book a little over a year ago, and learned a lot about developing an entrepreneurial attitude, efficiency vs. effectiveness and the Pareto principle.

In this TED talk, Ferriss talks about quickly mastering swimming, languages and tango:

Ferris links:

Steve Pavlina

“Life’s problems do not exist to beat you down. They exist to help you grow.”

Steve Pavlina runs a blog called Personal Development for Smart People and last I heard he was the highest-earning personal development blogger in the world, pulling in in excess of $100k per month. He doesn’t do things by halves when it comes to personal development, preferring to immerse himself in experiments such as polyphasic sleep and a 100 percent raw food diet.

Through reading Steve’s blog, I’ve been inspired to make many positive changes in my life, such as moving to a plant-based diet and working to improve my public speaking skills. He’s also made me reconsider much of what I believed to be true about the world and introduced me to a whole bunch of different concepts that have proved beneficial.

In short, he’s helped me become a better person.

Pavlina links:

October 1, 2009

Self-Discipline

In case you didn’t know, I love me some self-discipline.

I love it because I believe self-discipline — and the hard work that results from it — is far more crucial to success than natural talent. And that’s comforting, knowing that even if someone is faster than you or smarter than you or better looking than you, you can still be just as successful as they are, if not more so.

But to get there you have to be disciplined, and you can’t rely on someone else to keep you in check. You have to do it yourself.

Don’t eat the Marshmallow

Here’s a speech given at TED in February 2009 by a guy named Joachim de Posada. It’s just over six minutes long:

The key quote from that speech:

That child, already at four [years old], understood the most important principle for success, which is the ability to delay gratification. Self-discipline.

That Stanford study did a great job illustrating the correlation between self-discipline and success. It essentially proves that if you can knuckle down and make some sacrifices in the short-term, you’ll be much better off in the long term. That’s the importance of self-discipline.

Born or made?

After watching the video you might be thinking that, because those kids were so young, those who succeeded by not eating the marshmallow were simply born with good self-discipline while the other kids were out of luck. That’s probably true to an extent, but you best believe that self-discipline is a skill. And like any other skill, you can work at it and get better at it.

I’m a good example of that. Self-discipline helped me overcome shyness; it helped me run a marathon in under four hours; it helped me finish top of my class in college; it helped me find a great employer here in New Orleans to sponsor my visa; it helped me build a Hornets website that is now affiliated with ESPN and greatly appreciated by Hornets fans; and right now it’s helping me become the best public speaker the world has ever seen. (Okay, maybe I exaggerate a little with the last one, but I know that through hard work, focus and regular attendance at Toastmasters, I’ll eventually be really good at public speaking.)

Sometimes I like to practice self-discipline just for the hell of it. A few years ago I went without eating for three days, just to see if I could. Yes, that was kind of a crazy thing to do, but besides feeling really hungry afterwards, I also felt powerful.

If could will myself to not eat for 72 hours, I could will myself to do anything!

I’ve had similar experiences this year being vegetarian and then vegan. I decided to try those diets out of curiosity, and they turned out to be excellent exercises in self-discipline. I’ve stuck with veganism because it works great for me. I especially like that such a diet gives me the opportunity to practice self-discipline every day. In fact, I believe this daily practice pays dividends for me in other parts of my life; I’m constantly reminded that I can do anything if I just put my mind to it.

Improving your self-discipline

So how do you work on your self-discipline? Actually, you might be very self-disciplined in certain areas of your life, but severely lacking in others. How do you balance that out?

I’d suggest the first thing to do is to prioritize. There’s not much point being self-disciplined about something if it’s not going to result in a positive difference in your life. That’s the difference between effectiveness and efficiency. Just because you do something well doesn’t mean it’s worth doing. Aim to be effective, not just efficient.

Once you’ve figured out your priorities and you can see what parts of your life you need to be more self-disciplined in, here are a few things you can do:

  1. Start small: You can dream big all you want and have lofty ambitions for yourself, but start small so you don’t get overwhelmed. Build some confidence and momentum first, then go from there. As you become more self-disciplined, you can set your initial goals higher.
  2. Form a habit: You form a habit by doing something regularly. If you want to be more self-disciplined when it comes to your health for example, you could commit to always taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Or you could commit to making your own healthy lunch every day. Commit to doing something like that every day for thirty days. After thirty days, if it’s making a positive difference in your life, you’ll know it, and that will help you keep going. If it isn’t working, well you gave it your best shot and you have nothing to be ashamed of.
  3. Use metrics: What gets measured, gets managed. Make sure you have some way of measuring your progress. If you’re trying to save money, start recording how much you save every week and see how that matches up to your goals. If you can boil it down to some hard numbers and see the truth of your situation, you’re more likely to take action to improve it.
  4. Make your goals public: This works for me. I’ll usually tell everyone what I’m trying to do. I’ll throw it up there on Facebook or Twitter. Then, if I allow myself to fail and not reach my goal, I have to explain to all those people why I failed. The thought of having to do that is usually a good incentive for me to keep pushing until I succeed.

Those are just a few things you can do. There are plenty more. You’ll probably find a few that work for you and lots that don’t. The key is to keep looking. Don’t be afraid of trial and error. And remember that it’s okay to fail as long as you learn something from it (and there’s always something to learn from failure).

If you get used to practicing self-discipline, you’ll find it much easier to reach your goals, and with every one you reach you’ll have more confidence and you’ll be much better prepared to handle whatever life throws at you.

September 26, 2009

Vegan and Vegetarian: Questions and Answers

I get asked a lot of questions about being vegan. This is an attempt to answer those most frequently asked. I’ll be happy to answer any additional questions in the comments.

Why did you decide to give up meat?

In a word: curiosity. I became interested in the benefits of vegetarianism in 2008, most of it sparked from reading Steve Pavlina’s experiments with plant-based diets. I was especially curious about the increased focus and mental clarity which many people reported experiencing after moving to a vegetarian or vegan diet. I decided I would try vegetarianism for 30-days to see if it could work for me. I gobbled up some good gumbo at a friend’s New Year’s Eve party, then dived into my month-long trial.

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