This week in Sunday Life I car share

Photo by Charlotte Abramow

I own a power drill. It has moved house with me – shifting from one shelf under the sink to the next – three times. And you know how many times I’ve used it in our five years together? Twice. Which is normal apparently. The average drill emerges from under the sink for 12 minutes in its lifetime.

This sad statistic confirms a festering sentiment out there in the world: owning stuff is annoying and increasingly cluttery and inefficient. It’s like that itchy jumper you had to wear as a kid. It scratches at you incessantly, prompting a violent desire to strip.

But buying stuff is only a fraction of the equation. The real pain is living with it – storing the waffle maker in the bulging corner cupboard, servicing the lawnmower, packing up the Barbie campervan when you move house. And how can I explain it…it’s also the way it all just sits there idle, making you feel guilty like a dog needing a walk.

As Rachel Bosman author of What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption said when we spoke via email this week, “you don’t need to own a drill, you just need a hole in the wall…so borrow the drill, don’t own one”. Beautifully put. And indeed neighbourhood share schemes are popping up everywhere – in Australia there’s The Sharehood and Landshare, which launched in February and connects people wanting to grow veggies with folk who have a spare patch.

In March, sharing – instead of owning – was dubbed one of Time magazine’s Ten Ideas That Will Change the World. Since then much as been made of our itch to “live light”. Bosman confirms it’s not (just) an ethical or environmental crusade. It goes deeper than that.

This week I gave the concept a crack by signing up for car sharing, mostly because I find owning a car incredibly annoying. I also find this statistic staggering: on average we use our cars 8 per cent of the week. The rest of the time they hang about idle accumulating duco damage and parking tickets (at least mine does).

A while back I asked what technique or course or mantra or philosophy or book or practice or sport or “thing” you’re engaging in that’s making life richer and deeper for you, and facilitating a deeper connection to what matters. You sent through the most mad responses and ideas. Thank you thank you thank you!! Time to share….

Sian: Reading “Born to be Free” by Jackie O’Keefe

Robin: I started a ritual every night, where I light half a stick of incense and honor the day that just passed (whether it was “good” or “bad”), this moment, myself and all life. I felt a little silly doing this at first, but it has really woken me up – forcing me to realize that there are only so many days. Sobering.

Ann: We re-joined the rock climbing gym last week. My husband and I met there 6 years ago, and then when we got married and my kids got busier, we stopped going and let our membership lapse. We are really loving the time together and I am reminded of why I loved rock climbing from the first time – it makes you be in the present moment to solve a problem, focus on technique, push yourself past the limits you think you have. It’s physical and spiritual at the same time for me, a lot like yoga.

Jodi: Writing to my friends, family and loved ones. I write at least five letters a week. It makes me feel close to people and I do it without expecting anything in return. People LOVE letters or any kind of mail that isnt bills or something that makes them feel bad.

I write about breakfast a lot. My breakfast choices stray left of the cereal box. I eat meat muffins. And pumpkin with sardines. And stirfried sprouts with egg. And so I’m often met with the reaction: but that’s not what breakfast is meant to be, that’s not how breakfast goes?!

Isn’t it?

photo by Sarah Illenberger

I personally think that fat and protein are best at breakfast and that sugar should be avoided at all costs because it sets the day up for a rollercoaster ride of cravings. A protein-less breakfast leaves you unsatiated. And yet that’s the kind of start to the day we’ve been sold. Reader Dani alerted me to this article by Anneli Rufus. It’s a good succinct overview of a lot of material I read about how:

breakfast = dry cereal dripping in sugar in LARGE part because big corporations have sold us into believing such an equation.

But know this:

Breakfast foods are dictated by corporate interests + masturbation paranoia.

Breakfast is a much politicised meal. Rufus writes “Cold cereal, donuts and orange juice are now breakfast staples because somebody somewhere wanted money.”

• cereal as we know it was born out of a desire to produce something that would stop us masturbating!  Not. Kidding. Seeking to provide sanitarium patients with meatless anti-aphrodisiac breakfasts in 1894, surgeon and anti-masturbation activist John Kellogg developed the process of flaking cooked grains. Hence Corn Flakes. And Rice Crispies.
• in pre-Corn Flakes time, breakfast wasn’t cold or sweet. It was hot and hearty.
• pre-industry, we loaded up on protein-rich eggs, sausages, ham and belly-fat bacon along with ancient carb classics: mush, pancakes, bread.

This excites me no end. The other week week I got to chat to Andrea Beaman. Andrea is a US chef and health coach. She appeared on the first (and fifth) series of Top Chef. She’s the food expert on CBS News and she trained with INN, as did I. Just to put her in context. She knows food, OK.

But this is the thrilling bit: Andrea healed her thyroid disease with… food.

Yesireee. She refused to take medication and, after two years of careful, healthful eating, she was fixed. I remember reading about this a while back and getting so heartened. I’ve always believed this should be possible, despite being told by countless specialists that I’d been on medication for life (they also told me I was infertile, but goddamn if I didn’t turn that around).

I had to chat. So we did. I figured you’d like to hear what we shared…(and let me just say, there’s no need to tell me that I um and ah a lot. I know. It was early and I hadn’t slept.)

podcast Andrea [ 32:25 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The concept is friggen fabulous. It fits with everything I believe in. I haven’t got there yet. I’m trying. I lapse. My stress still puts spanners in works for my progress. As do my hormonal fluctuations. But stories like Andrea’s inspire me. As you might know, I believe my thyroid disease is a symptom of the way I lived for a long time. I damaged my body with my previous lifestyle habits. Ergo, I believe, I can fix it with better ones. This is why I do what I do (bang on about sprouts and bone broth and quitting sugar).

The key bits I took from my chat – and that I believe work, too – are flagged below:

* you need to experiment with different eating styles. Andrea played with macrobiotic eating and it worked for her for a while. Me, I’m finding a grains-free approach better.

* cholesterol-rich foods are needed for thyroid health. Eggs! Eggs! Fat! Eggs!

This week I decide less

by John Rensten / Getty Images

I have two seemingly unrelated theories about life.

First, successful people eat boring breakfasts. Crude, but true. Look around the busy exec-y types you know – they eat vegemite on toast, or porridge. Every day. And don’t put any further thought to it. It’s only ratbags like me who deliberate wildly between boiled eggs, quinoa porridge and left-over Indian.

The second, kids – despite their protestations – don’t actually want to be asked what after-school activity they prefer for next semester, or what they’d like on their sandwich today. I don’t have kids, but I was talking about this with friends-who-are-parents last weekend. As one said, “It was better, wasn’t it – for everyone – back when we were told ‘hey, kids it’s devon and tomato sauce today’. We’d move on to wrestling with our sister. What have we done?” We’ve bludgeoned kids with decisions, that’s what.

I’ve touched on this issue before in this column: the chore that is making decisions. But, seriously, it’s the sexiest topic doing the psychology rounds at the moment and so I thought I should re-penetrate with the latest findings. They all say the same thing: we’re a society suffering “decision fatigue”. The New York Times magazine this month ran a long feature on the subject and there’s emerged a spate of books to choose from about the art of choosing. At every turn, we have to make more decisions – whether to reply to an email, to pay for extra legroom, to subscribe to the weekly newsletter. We’re expected to have an opinion on everything and it’s leaving us choicely buggered.

A study earlier this year found, unlike, say, running fatigue  – which sees us hit a wall – decision fatigue sees us do dumb things, like reverting to default or safe options, or to making decisions that keep our options open…which just prolongs the fatigue. After a day spent making decisions, judges in the US were found to default to more severe parole sentences in the afternoon. They were decision-spent, so set conservative sentences that kept options open (they could always reduce them later). Another study found when we have to choose the customized extras for our car, we deliberate conscientiously at the start of the form, then eventually “give in” to the default options (nattily, companies put the more expensive decisions at the end of forms).  Or, of course, we put off deciding.

But, friends, I’m interested in solutions here. And preferably ones that are dictated to me. Because this is the point: the less pithy decisions we make, the more decisive energy we have for the important ones.

Fix #1: set your life up to make less decisions.

Eat the same breakfast. Wear a suit. Buy the same brand of frozen peas.

* this post has been updated*

…and I thought I’d tell you about it in advance of it’s release in a few weeks. And to give you the chance to sign up to be alerted when it arrives.

Basically, because so many of you kept asking how I quit sugar eight months ago, I thought it best to put together a bit of a guide.

It’s one of those issues that just grabs at people. I think most of us know we eat too much of the white stuff…and we wish we didn’t…and we wish there was a short-cut, simple way to get on track…that wasn’t too painful. I get stopped at markets, at the bank, on planes, and am asked about how I quit.

It’s an issue that hurts people. I think everyone is very hard on themselves about how much of it they eat. And would like to be freed of the bind, even just for a while.

Anyway, I’ve spent several weeks (months?) writing up answers to everyone’s questions and compiling an 8-week program. I reckon it takes two months to quit, and there are specific steps that I took – after researching all the material – that make it effective and (relatively) smooth.

If you want, enter your email here and I’ll send you a little email alert when it lands.

(I promise your email won’t be used for anything else!)

And so…the I Quit Sugar ebook

It includes:

* an 8-week program with weekly things to do to get sugar out of your system, and that best beat cravings – both emotional and physical – and detox issues

* an overview of why quitting sugar is a good idea (the scientific explainers that you can hold up to your mates when they think your bonkers for even trying the idea out).