Be the captain of your spiritual journey. That’s the central theme of Herman Hesse’s 1922 classic Siddhartha. Hesse’s message of blazing your own trail is so important in today’s world where spiritual seekers too often look to the outside world for spiritual guidance and in doing so lose touch with their internal compasses.

The book begins with young adult Siddhartha leaving his comfortable life in search of spiritual enlightenment. His best friend Govinda joins him. One day they meet the Buddha who tries to convince them to join his already large following. But Siddhartha tells the Buddha that while he believes his teachings to be supremely wise, he feels strongly that each individual must learn by following his own internal compass.

Govinda decides to join the Buddha while Siddhartha declines. The rest of the novel chronicles Siddhartha’s circuitous journey through life. After years as a pious beggar he meets a beautiful woman who says she’ll only be with him if he has wealth. So he becomes a successful businessman, lives in the city and enjoys the high life.

How Siddhartha attained peace

After many years he finds this life spiritually unsatisfying and devotes the rest of his days to being a lowly ferryman on a river. Using the river as a metaphor for life, Siddhartha becomes enlightened. In their old age, he and Govinda have a chance encounter at the river. Govinda reveals that after several decades of following the Buddha he is still spiritually lost while Siddhartha has attained peace. Such a powerful message.

Why is it so common for spiritual seekers, like Govinda, to look “out” to the world for guidance, in the form of books, lectures and teachers, etc.? I think it’s because the spiritually minded tend to be more on the sensitive, vulnerable side. In fact, one could say that most people seek the spiritual way precisely because they feel more vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life than “regular” people. They think a lot. And ponder a lot. And feel a lot. This sensitivity and vulnerability tends to cause a good deal of psychic pain that leads people to look “out” to the world for answers.

Becoming anxious at Eckhart’s conference

I had my own revelation about this a few years ago while attending a conference put on by Eckhart Tolle in Huntington Beach, California. The event consisted of several spiritual luminaries giving talks on different topics over a three day period. People like Jack Kornfield, Marianne Williamson and Eckhart himself.

I distinctly remember that after listening to several speakers on the first day I noticed I felt anxious. It dawned on me that I felt this way because in listening for hours on end to people telling me what was important for my spiritual journey, I had become disconnected with my own inner center. Why? Because I was concentrating on someone “out there” telling me what was important.

Meditate to strengthen your inner connection

What did I do? I hightailed it back to my hotel room and meditated. My experience is that nothing better connects me to my deeper self than meditation. I highly recommend it to any of you reading this who don’t already practice.

Anyway, for the next two days of the conference I picked and chose the few speakers I thought might really resonate with me and skipped all the others, which was most of them. It was a powerful lesson, the most important thing I learned at the conference.

Now I’m not saying that teachers and books and all the rest can’t be helpful. They can. I listen to either Eckhart Tolle or Michael Singer almost every day. Just for ten or fifteen minutes. I find their messages simple and congruous with my own internal growth. More importantly, though, I meditate almost every day for fifteen minutes.

Your inner self knows your path

The point is, when you are listening to your favorite spiritual teachers or reading their books, be mindful about staying connected to your inner self throughout. Don’t outsource your spiritual development to them or anybody. Be vigilant about never losing touch with your internal world. Because that inner voice/spirit/soul knows the right path for you infinitely better than any outside teaching.

Does blazing a Siddhartha-like path require some strength and inner work? Yes. And I’ll reiterate that developing a regular meditation practice will help you immeasurably in strengthening your connection to your true, conscious self.

But the best news of all is that if you do take the helm of your spiritual journey you’ll feel infinitely less anxious, floating and untethered inside.

The overall moral of the story here is obvious and has been said in myriad ways by others for thousands of years: The answers to life’s challenges are found by going inside, not looking out to the world. Something for all of us to keep top of mind as we travel the spiritual path.

P.S. — I highly recommend reading Siddhartha. It’s only 150 pages and an easy read.

The main spiritual traditions all seem to be saying some version of the same thing: The highest goal of humans is to eliminate the noisy, negative, chattering mind, the sum total of which most people identify as their “self.”

That sum total of one’s self-image includes thoughts about your past (went to X college, played Y sport, had Z jobs, had a bad temper, good son to parents, etc.), thoughts about your present (successful/unsuccessful career, make a lot/not enough money, single but wish I was married, too heavy/think my body is great) and thoughts about your future (worried I won’t have enough money to retire/send my kids to college, will never find the right career, will never get married/have kids…).

This leads to possibly the most vexing question in all of spirituality: Once you quieten your crazy, thinking mind, what’s left?

In other words, if all these traditions are correct, that our thoughts are not who we are, it stands to reason that once you quieten those thoughts what’s leftover is who we are.

So the $64,000 question is this: What is that entity in us that is us once the mind is tamed?

Some, like Eckhart Tolle, say that what’s left is simply consciousness. His analogy is that our true self is the sky and the clouds are the thoughts and feelings we have.

The sky is timeless and never changes, while the clouds, like thoughts and feelings, constantly come and go.

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What is the ‘Real You’?

Michael Singer would say that the real you is the entity inside that merely witnesses your thoughts and emotions. So, for example, the real you isn’t the one who’s jealous because your wife is flirting with her attractive boss at a cocktail party. The real youis the consciousness that is aware that you’re experiencing this feeling of jealousy.

This concept of the true self being merely consciousness is almost impossible for most people to comprehend. Why? Because most people are so stuck inside their thought bombarded heads that they can’t fathom that people are comprised of two entities: their thoughts and feelings and their awareness of those thoughts and feelings.

This idea of the self as consciousness is also murky for many serious spiritual seekers, myself included. One way I’ve found to better “get” this concept is to actually experience people who have reached this high spiritual path, people like the aforementioned Eckhart Tolle and Michael Singer.

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No Ego

When I watch Eckhart give a talk, I sense no ego. There’s no Eckhart. There’s just…consciousness. And inner peace. Watching Eckhart has the effect of calming me, regardless of the words he’s speaking. They say that the great gurus from India also emanate this sense of peace, light and egoless presence.

But describing the true self as consciousness or awareness seems antiseptic and uninspiring to me. To me, those words don’t capture the totality of what the true self is.

Which brings me to Ram Dass, the great spiritual teacher who passed away last month. In reading some of the testimonials about his life, I came across his description of how he viewed his true self. When I read it, bells went off inside me. He said that he was simply loving awareness. Not consciousness or presence or regular awareness, but loving awareness.

What’s the difference? Some people may see awareness/consciousness as somebody sitting around looking like a glassy-eyed zombie. My belief is that when the mind is stilled and the ego eliminated, what’s left is, by definition, loving awareness.

And that only through a still mind and egoless presence can one become a channel for love. And some would even say, including me, a channel for God to come into the world.

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The Two Takeaways

I know. These are some pretty heady, metaphysical concepts here. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the two takeaways from all this are simple and easy to understand.

• Number one, you attain the ultimate human form, loving awareness, by stilling the mind, which diminishes the ego.
• Number two, the best technique for stilling the mind is regular meditation. Any of you who’ve read my previous articles may think I’m a broken record on this, to which I say, guilty as charged.

All meditation involves is sitting quietly and placing your attention on something happening in the present moment, like your breathing. Then when your mind grabs your attention and throws you into thought, you simply notice that that has happened and bring attention back to your breathing.

Can that be difficult at times? Sure. For one reason: The human mind loves to wander. But like anything else, the more you meditate, the better you get at it.

With time, your mind will become stiller and your ego less dominant in your life. And with that, more and more of you will become loving awareness, the highest plane any of us humans can reach.

As I’ve stated before, I believe the Tao te Ching is the wisest book ever written. Believed to be written in the 6th century B.C. by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, the Tao is nothing less than a handbook on how to live life. Its sage advice for writers is found in chapter 24:

“He who clings to his work will create nothing that endures.

If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go.”

Definition of the Tao

Before elaborating, a few words about what the Tao is. Here’s the definition given in the Merriam-Webster dictionary: “The unconditional and unknowable source and guiding principle of all reality.” Some equate it with God, others with nature. You get the drift.

So what does this have to do with writing? This: Every writer I’ve ever known has struggled with “letting go” of their work. For Medium writers, that comes in the form of submitting an article and then waiting breathlessly for that email with the glorious title “Medium Writer Program — Your story has been recommended in topics on Medium.” EUREKA! Or constantly checking how many views, fans, and comments it’s getting.

Hollywood

Nowhere is this constant longing for validation of one’s writing more endemic than in Hollywood where I wrote for fifteen years (The West Wing, some bad one hour dramas and selling pilots and screenplays). Just about everybody I knew, including me, would finish a script then hang around the phone the next days and weeks waiting to hear the verdict from our friends, agents, and studio executives. “Did you like it?! Do you think it’ll sell?!”

It doesn’t matter if you’re writing for Medium or HBO, the result of sitting around wondering what everybody thinks about your work is the same: It’s a pointless, soul-killing, energy suck.

Be like Larry

So, what do I propose writers should do? Follow the example of the late, great Larry Gelbart, the creative force behind MASH, one of the most successful television series of all time, and several films, including Tootsie.

You know what Gelbart did when he finished a script? He gave it to his agent and immediately started working on his next project. He completely let go of his work, figuring whatever would happen, would happen. He knew that pestering his agent and constantly wondering about the status of his scripts did nothing but waste time and divert him from his next script.

I’m not saying Medium/freelance writers shouldn’t spend time on the marketing end of things with their work. Some of that is fine and necessary. But if you’re spending half your time checking your Medium stats and hocking your stuff on Facebook, Instagram and all the rest, it is almost certain that you will write, as the Tao puts it, “nothing that endures.”

This ain’t easy

I’m also not saying that it’s easy to pry yourself from your Medium stats page and other ancillary activities. There are three reasons why writers do this.

One, what others think about your writing almost wholly determines its “success” — i.e., whether it’s curated by Medium or your script sells to Warner Bros. So it’s only human to check out your Medium stats or wait by the phone about your script. None of that, however, changes the fact that it’s a useless energy suck that takes you away from making your next writing project the best it can be.

Two, more than almost any other profession, writing is personal. When baring your soul, as we writers often do, the stakes are much higher than most other professions. I don’t think many accountants wait on pins and needles for their boss’s thoughts on the seventh tax return they’ve turned in that week.

And three, let’s face it, writing good stuff is hard. You need to kill a lot of brain cells to write a compelling piece. You know what’s easier and less taxing? Wasting time by clicking on your stats page.

Give everything to each piece then let go

To sum up, what Lao Tzu is saying is to give your utmost attention and effort to whatever you’re working on. And when you’re finished, put it out to the world and let the universe/God/the Tao do with it what they will. Then put your utmost attention and effort into making your next piece of work the best it can be.

Does that take discipline? Yes. Will it help you become the best writer you can be? Without a doubt.

My wife and I lived in Paris in March and April of 2006. Here are two important lessons I learned from the experience.

The Universe rewards risk-takers

First, the greatest of great things often happen when you throw caution to the wind and take a big risk. In our case, I had just finished working on the writing staff of an NBC show about an elite unit in the Pentagon and my wife had just left her job working for the owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The risk for me jettisoning Hollywood for two months was that I could miss out on meetings with television executives for jobs that would be doled out during the network staffing season that occurs every May. But I had decided to write a screenplay about Teddy Roosevelt and figured Paris would be an ideal place to do it.

My wife had already lined up her next job but had to ask her new boss if he’d be okay with her starting a few months later than planned. Turned out he was fine with it.

Spending money, not making it

The big risk was obvious: We wouldn’t be making any money while in Paris and we sure would be spending it. But I had saved up a bit from my years working as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., so I didn’t see that as a deal-breaker.

The biggest hurdle was that my wife was financially conservative. In other words, she was a huge worrywart about money and ending up in the poor house. Her parents were like that and their parents were like that, and on and on. My parents were also like that, both being children of the Depression. For whatever reason, though, it didn’t bother me.

So after a lot of my wife saying, “Do we really have the money to do this? Don’t you think this is irresponsible of us?”, I finally said, “Screw it. Let’s do it.” To which she responded, “Okay!” So we rented an apartment through VRBO, bought our plane tickets and off we went.

Paris as our playground

The result? We had the time of our lives. I’d get up early, get an exquisite espresso and croissant and then write all morning. My wife would sleep late most mornings, trying to catch up on ten straight years of working her butt off. It worked perfectly because once she got up, I’d be finished writing and we’d head off to explore Paris. One day it was the Picasso Museum. The next day the Rodin or the Louvre or Montmartre…We walked everywhere. And of course, interspersed through it all were sublime meals.

The moral of the story? We took the risk and were more than amply rewarded. If you’re in the position to do something like this, go for it. You only live once.

The French live right

Second, and maybe even more important, I learned that we Americans have much to learn about life from the French. Here’s one anecdote that captures this.

We lived in a quaint four-story apartment building in the Latin Quarter, about a two- minute walk from the Pantheon and five minutes from Notre Dame. We saw three construction workers in the courtyard several days in a row fixing something (I can’t remember what). One day as we headed out around noon, we saw these guys eating lunch. A brown bag with a ham sandwich and a thermos full of water? No.

Luxury lunch in the courtyard

These guys, in their construction shirts and overalls, had made a makeshift table, covered it with a WHITE TABLECLOTH, on top of which were a couple baguettes, some cheese, charcuterie, and…drum roll please…A bottle of red wine! My wife and I looked at each other and laughed in amazement. In a million years would you ever see that anywhere in America?

Can the French, especially Parisians, be crazy? And rude? And exasperating? You bet. But it’s like the Buddhist conception of suffering: once you accept that it exists, it’s not nearly as bad.

But the bottom line on this is inescapable: The French know how to live. They don’t sit around worrying about their station in life or obsessing about whether the boss thinks they’re working hard enough. They enjoy themselves. They sit at cafes and talk to each other. With the best food and wine in the world, one would think France would be a country of obese alcoholics. Not so. For the most part, they eat and drink in moderation.

An American at peace in Paris

As someone who grew up in a Type A American family, this way of life was a salve for my soul. Strolling through Paris, I felt none of that insidious, invisible, suffocating pressure that permeates so much of America.

And the good news for my wife and me, and you if you ever take the French plunge, is that you can take it home with you. If you’re there long enough, that essence of French living can embed itself in you and survive the return to America. All these years later, we still drink a lot of espresso and wine, too. We did cut back on the baguettes. Too many carbs. C’est la vie.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s final declaration in his treatise on what makes for a successful life is timeless, universal and applies to us all. It is this:

“To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!”

So true. Helping someone else “breathe easier” in their life is paramount, in my opinion, and should be asignificant part of anyone’s view of success. For their sake and the world’s.

Unfortunately, American society doesn’t share my view. Success in America is far too often measured by how much money one makes, what kind of car one drives, how big one’s house is and how important one’s job is.

It’s not that Americans don’t think that helping people is a good thing. They do. It’s just not very far up the pyramid in their definition of success.

My struggle with American-style success

This American view of success has been my personal Achilles heel for much of my life. I grew up the youngest of six kids with a father who exemplified the American ideal of success. My dad rose to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and served on the board of directors of several more. He was a corporate titan in California in the 1970s and 1980s, which happened to coincide with my formative years.

How did that rub off on me? For one, he told me repeatedly as a kid that I could be president of the United States if I really wanted to. I kid you not.

This chasing of American success led to spending my teen years focused on getting into the best college I could, which turned out to be Princeton. That was followed by fifteen years in Washington, D.C., working for current Speaker Nancy Pelosi and also as a lobbyist. Then fifteen years in Hollywood working as a writer for television (The West Wing and some other less well known shows).

Throughout all of it was the consistent pressure to be a “success.” But none of it felt quite right to me. I felt like I should aspire to powerful positions in Washington and running important shows in Hollywood, but never felt it deep in my gut.

Meditation woke me up

It wasn’t until I started meditating regularly seven years ago that it really sunk in that traditional American success isn’t something to put at the top of one’s aspirational pyramid. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with working hard and reaping the benefits of one’s labor. What I am saying is that if the benefits your shooting to reap are money, fame, power and status, you are doomed to a life that will always feel lacking. There will always be a sense of emptiness and inner unease.

I’ve seen it in people I worked with in Washington who reached some of the highest levels of power in the government, and also in Hollywood where colleagues rose to run popular television shows. Most aren’t happy people.

I firmly believe it’s a natural law of the universe that chasing money, power, fame, etc., CANNOT lead to inner fulfillment. They are mutually exclusive.

Which brings us full circle to Emerson’s definition of success: “To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.” Most people who live this credo do feel peaceful inside. They are the ones who go toward, not away, from a friend who’s getting divorced or who just got a cancer diagnosis or who regularly checks on their elderly neighbor whose wife just passed away.

The givers always win in the game of life

My other natural law of the universe is that these people who consistently reach out to help others “breathe easier” are paid back with benign karma that comes in many forms, but that shares one common trait: These givers feel good about themselves and feel a sense of peace inside.

Of course, what I’ve written here is nothing new. Versions of the “Good things come to good people, while bad things come to the selfish and avaricious,” have been the subject of novels, religious texts and philosophical works for thousands of years.

I’ve written this piece as yet one more reminder that what has been true throughout the ages, still is: Being good to your fellow man/woman is good for everybody. As a natural law of the universe, it’s heartening to know that that will never change.

If you’re like me, you’re reading this headline and saying, “Great. Yet another Medium article about how to ‘vastly improve my life by doing this one easy thing!’” Well, this one really will ‘vastly improve your life by doing this one easy thing!’

Here’s the idea: Write out 1–2 goals you want to accomplish in the upcoming week. Do it on Sunday as that is the day before what most people consider to be the start of the week, Monday. Put those goals on a post-it note and slap it down wherever you will see it most often — your desk, bedside table, bathroom counter, etc. Two main points on this idea.

First, you limit your goals to one or two because that far increases your odds of actually achieving them. If you have five to ten goals, chances are you’ll get lost in the fog of your busy life and accomplish none of them. By choosing just one or two you narrow your focus and create a mindset of “Come on, you only have these two goals for the week. You have to at least get those done.” How does this manifest during your week?

I’ll give you my own example from this week where my goals were: 1. Write three Medium articles, and 2. Write out my core exercise training program.

I’ll start with the second goal. I’ve been seeing a personal trainer for the past month to start me on a training program emphasizing strengthening my core (abs, lower back, glutes…) He’s given me several exercises and stretches to do and I needed to put all of that info together into one comprehensive daily program or I knew I wouldn’t do them. I’d been busy and putting this off the past few weeks. But I knew that making it one of my weekly goals would force me to, in the words of Larry the Cable Guy: Git-R-Done. The result? I Got-R-Done.

My Medium article goal even better illustrates the value of this idea. How? I wrote two articles Monday through Thursday. I’d hoped to write the third on Friday, but alas, my mojo left me and I got nothing done. Weekends are normally a hard time for me to write because of my three munchkins (11, 9 and 3-year-old kids) and all of their sports activities, etc. But I only set two goals for myself this week and therefore felt I had to get this done.

So take a wild guess as to what day it is as I’m typing these words? Yep. Sunday. Otherwise known as Last Chance Sunday. My daughter has a basketball game in an hour coached by my wife, which = you-know-who is in charge of my 11 and 3 three-year-olds. In other words, I need to put the pedal to the metal and get this article done soon because I know the day will get out of control after the game. So onward we go…

The second main point concerns the type of goals you set. Don’t think they have to be related only to concrete areas like work (“Sell two cars this week”) or working out (“I want to swim laps four days this week…”). Include the things in your life that truly matter to you. For example, if you’re a busy tech entrepreneur immersed in a startup, maybe one of your weekly goals would be to have dinner with your significant other at least twice. Or put your kids to bed at least twice and take them to school once.

If you’re a stay-at-home-mom overwhelmed with kids in diapers, maybe one of your goals is to get a massage. Or read a set number of pages in your book.

If you’re unemployed, maybe you set a goal of sending your resume to at least ten places. Or set a goal of rising at seven each morning and working out to start your day off on the right foot.

This idea of setting goals in all areas of your life is best expressed in Stephen Covey’s fantastic book First Things First. I highly recommend it.

Finally, if you want to set three goals in one week, go ahead. Just make sure that the third one is ultra-easy. Something like calling your mom once.

The busy world we live in is making it harder and harder for couples to find things that bring them closer. People get home from a hard day at work and just want to decompress on their own, either burying themselves in their phones/laptops or zoning out in front of the TV. This kind of life far too often leads to relationship inertia in the intimacy department. Wine is the perfect antidote. Why? Three reasons.

First, drinking wine takes little time or effort. You have to buy a bottle, open it, pour it then drink it. TOGETHER. Voila.

Second, wine is fun. And I don’t mean fun as in drinking two bottles every night and getting rip-roaring drunk. I mean fun in that there are myriad grape varieties (varietals) and styles of wine to learn about and try. And most fun and intimate of all? Learning to pair wines you like with foods you like.

Finally, let’s face it, wine is inherently romantic. As the great Roman poet Ovid wrote:

“It warms the blood, adds luster to the eyes,

and wine and love have ever been allies.”

My easy 5 point plan

I’ll elaborate on all of these points with the following five-point plan for incorporating wine into your relationship in the easiest way possible! My only qualification for doing so is that I’ve been drinking and learning about wine for 25 years. And for the last 14 years, my wife and I have been drinking all kinds of wines with all kinds of foods and having a great time in the process. We have three little kids and life can be crazy, but wine has given us a fun thing to bond over.

[An obvious disclaimer: if you or your partner have a history of alcoholism or drug abuse, best not to do this.]

On to the plan.

1. Buy “Windows on the World Complete Wine Course” by Kevin Zraly

Windows on the World is known as the best book ever written for learning the basics of wine. I read it many moons ago and it gave me the foundation I needed for my wine education. The bulk of the book is devoted to learning about the different wine regions of the world and the grapes grown in each: Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhone Valley and Loire Valley in France; Tuscany, Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto in Italy; Spain, Germany, Australia and, of course, California. And many others.

If this geographic/grape thing strikes you as odd, that was my reaction when I first read the book. I’d always thought a wine book would devote at least 80 percent to the specifics of tasting wine. Nope. That’s about five percent, if that. In fact, I can give you the barebones of tasting in nine words: look at it, swirl it, smell it, taste it. Learning about wine is mostly about getting to know the different grapes, where they grow best around the world and, most important, trying a bunch of different wines and discovering which ones you like and which you don’t like.

The book is easy to read and not long. You can get it on Amazon for twelve bucks.

2. Find a good wine shop

Next, Google “best wine shop near me.” Yes, most big grocery stores have decent wine selection these days, but in the beginning, it’s best to find a good wine shop with knowledgeable staff. These people love wine, which makes it both enjoyable and educational just yakking with them about their favorite subject.

And by the way, if you want to just get right to it and not take the time to read Windows on the World, you can start with this step.

3. Buy a few bottles

On a weekend day, go with your partner to the wine shop and buy a few bottles of different grapes. If you’re both inclined toward whites, try a chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and a grape you’ve never tried before. Possibly a dry German riesling, a Gruner veltliner from Austria or an Albarino from Spain.

FYI, I rarely, if ever, spend more than $10 on a white wine. My go-to white for the past few years has been Pontificis, which is a blend of three white grapes from Southern France — Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne. It costs seven bucks and I love it. It’s available only at Trader Joe’s.

If you’re both into reds, try a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Pinot Noir and a Syrah. Cabernets can be hugely expensive, but you can get a decent bottle from Sonoma County or Washington State for as little as ten or twelve bucks. Plan to spend $15-ish on the Pinot Noir. The cheap pinot noirs ($7–12 range) are almost universally awful and do a disservice to this fantastic grape.

BTW, you don’t HAVE to buy ANY of the wines I just suggested. I’m just trying to give you a starting point if you don’t have any. The main thing is to just get your butt into the wine store and buy a few bottles that sound interesting and fun to you and your partner.

4. Buy a Vacuvin Wine Saver

You won’t finish every bottle you open in one night. The Vacuvin pumps the air out of the bottle, which can preserve the wine for several days.

A few years ago the Wall Street Journal tested several wine preserver systems, ranging in price from $10 to $400. They found that the Vacuvin, the $10 one, worked the best. It’s what I’ve used for years. You can find it on Amazon or most likely at your wine shop. Also, goes without saying, but buy a wine opener.

5. Pair wine with food

The adage goes that wine makes food taste better and food makes wine taste better. So true! Food and wine are meant to be consumed together. This is where you can really give your relationship an intimacy boost.

How? For starters, many couples are so busy that they don’t have the energy or the wherewithal to eat dinner together. The fun of pairing food and wine will give you the incentive to take the time to eat together…at least a couple nights a week.

Because all couples aren’t alike, I’ll break the wine-food advice into two groups.

First, this is for couples who are crazy busy and usually order take out:

-Chinese/Thai — Dry Riesling (Kabinett style)

-Pizza — Chianti from Tuscany (Sangiovese grape)

-Mexican (Taco Bell, etc.) — Dry riesling or sauvignon blanc

-Hamburgers (Wendy’s, etc.) — Grenache from Spain or France (great value)

How much to spend

A comment about cost: You shouldn’t have to spend more than $12 on any of these. Just ask your wine shop helper to get you something in this range. Again, you’re just starting out and getting the lay of the land with the various wine types. If you both end up LOVING a certain varietal (Cabernet? Pinot Noir? Riesling?), you can go crazy someday and splurge on a really nice bottle. That in itself would be a cool, intimate activity.

For couples who do some cooking at home, here are some basic dishes and wines:

-Pasta with red sauce — Chianti, Malbec (Argentinians have the best value)

-Baked Chicken — chardonnay

-Big salad, oil, and vinegar dressing — Gruner Veltliner, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay

And obviously, just Google other foods you both like and the wines they pair well with. There’s a ton of easy information online.

Finally, here are three ideas for weekends when you can really relax, not rush and enjoy the pairings:

1) Steak with cabernet sauvignon. This is the big daddy of wine and food pairings.

2) Oysters with muscadet or Champagne. This is another classic. If your grocery store doesn’t sell oysters, go to your local Whole Foods or other high-end grocer and they will. Get a dozen or half-dozen and some cocktail sauce. Have the oysters with the muscadet or Champagne as an appetizer before dinner.

3) Baked salmon and Pinot Noir. This is one most people don’t know about and is absolutely fantastic. (If you’re a single guy, interested in someone and you’re at the point where you feel comfortable inviting her over for dinner, DO THIS!)

It’s so easy. Go to your shop and ask your wine person for a decent bottle of Pinot Noir for $15–20 from the Central Coast of California, Santa Barbara County or Santa Maria, CA.

Then buy a pound of salmon at the grocery store (just get farm-raised; I could write a whole article on farm vs. fresh, etc., but that’s for another time.) At home, put your oven on 400. Get a basic baking dish and spread a little oil on it. Put the salmon in the baking dish. If you have soy sauce, spread a little over the salmon and rub it in. Put salt and pepper on the salmon. Put the salmon in the oven for 18–20 minutes.

Make a salad and some rice and you’re golden. If you’re too lazy to make rice (I am!), go to Trader Joe’s and buy it frozen. They come in packets of three and all you do is put one in the microwave for three minutes. The rice tastes great and comes in brown or jasmine variety.

Closing thoughts

Wine is fun. Drunk in moderation, it’s also healthy, with multiple studies showing it’s good for the heart and reduces the risks of some forms of cancer and other diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s (Ashley Sobel, Healthline.com, 8/27/19).

Most important, it’s a whole world you and your partner can experience together. Cheers.

I live a stone’s throw from one of the top birding sites in America, the Back Bay in Newport Beach, California. As I watched and listened to the birds there a few days ago on one of my writing breaks, it occurred to me: This is so peaceful and relaxing, I should write a piece about this. Here it is.

First, to get you enthused about actually trying this, you should know that there is scientific evidence that listening to birds reduces stress. Scientists at the University of Surrey in England have been studying the “restorative benefits of birdsong,” testing whether it really does improve our mood. They discovered that, of all the natural sounds, bird songs and calls were those most often cited as helping people recover from stress, and allowing them to restore and refocus their attention. (Stephen Moss, “Natural high: Why birdsong is the best antidote to our stressful lives,”The Guardian 5/4/19).

Birds pull you into the moment

But forget for a moment the health benefit, I find watching and listening to birds to be a beautiful, spiritual, meditative experience. Why? For one, it pulls me into the present moment. The birds I’m listening to are singing right now. And the sounds are so mesmerizing that my mind (for once!) doesn’t want to drift off. My focus wants to stay right there, on the sublime songs.

Second, there is something so sweet and innocent about birds and the sounds they make. When you look at them chirp away, it is so obvious that they have no idea what they’re doing. They’re just doing it. By instinct. And not to get too “out there” about it, but it’s like God/Nature/The Universe is expressing itself through these tiny, cute creatures. They’re just vessels of God.

Which is why birds are so inspiring to me — because I believe we humans are at our best when we “just do it,” and don’t get caught up in all the crazy thoughts and emotions that block us from being vessels of God/The Universe or whoever you think is directing the cosmic show.

What to do

So how do you do this bird listening thing? That’s pretty self-evident. You go outside and listen.

Couple other suggestions, though. First, birds singing is obviously most pronounced in the morning. So one thing to try is getting your coffee, going outside in your bathrobe and slippers and just sitting and listening. And this doesn’t have to be some hours long activity. Just a few minutes will put you in a better place.

Second, it’s best if you can actually see the birds as they sing. Watching them allows you to truly soak in their zen-like innocence.

Finally, I wouldn’t concern yourself with identifying the birds and making lists of them, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you get into all the facts about birds and species, it will tend to divert your attention from the main intention: Experiencing the birds and their ethereal, majestic presence. As Eckhart Tolle says, someone who knows absolutely nothing about honey but who has tasted it knows far more about honey than a guy who wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on honey but has never tasted it.

Trust me, watching and listening to these adorable creatures that weigh all of one ounce will put you in a better mood.

If you’re going through a difficult period in your life (the end of a relationship, loss of a job, family problems, etc.), mindfulness, when utilised properly, can prove to be one of the healthiest ways to navigate through the storm.

So how do you practice mindfulness? I’ll get to that shortly.

First, it’s worth exploring the reasons why people often don’t use mindfulness during bad times. Often it’s simply because most of us don’t like the idea of being completely present with our pain. Because, after all, that’s what mindfulness is — presentness — and we’d much prefer to avoid pain rather than face it.

Furthermore, many people make the misconception that the central aim of mindfulness is to make one feel better, calmer, and more peaceful. And while that’s often the result of practising mindfulness, it’s not the fundamental purpose.

The paramount objective of mindfulness is to be present for each moment of your life, whether those moments are good or bad.

Many of us struggle to be mindful during times of turmoil. Our lack of present moment-awareness manifests itself in the form of excessive thoughts — obsessive, involuntary, mostly pointless musings that distract us from whatever’s happening to us right now.

So a logical question you might have is: Why the heck would I want to be present when I’m feeling awful about something? That is the million-dollar question, and it gets to the crux of this entire piece.

The answer is that not being present with your difficult feelings often only exacerbates the problem, making your situation markedly worse. How does that work?

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Obsessive Thinking Compounds the Problem

Let’s take an example.

Your boyfriend breaks up with you and you feel shattered inside. Your days are spent lost in thoughts that pinball from what a terrible person he is, to worrying that you’ll never meet another good guy, to thinking you’re not attractive or good enough for anybody, to how much you miss him — and then right back to what a terrible person he is.

On and on this goes. For weeks. Months. Sometimes years.

And you might ask, “So what’s wrong with that? That’s a normal reaction to being broken up with.” True, it is normal. But it’s not the healthiest way to deal with your painful breakup.

Why? Because all of that ruminative thinking is only adding to the original source of pain: Your boyfriend broke up with you. So how might a more mindful approach to such a heartwrenching experience look?

Well, it’s as simple as consistently saying to yourself, “My boyfriend broke up with me and I feel absolutely awful inside because of it.” And just feel that, and only that. Meet those feelings head-on. Don’t resist them or think about them or do anything with them. Just feel them. Because those feelings are there in the present moment. They’re real.

And do you know what’s not real? All of those conjured thoughts about you, your future with guys, etc.

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Letting the Storm Blow Over

Now here’s the good news: When you handle the situation like this, the black cloud hanging over you, in the form of the deep pain you’re feeling, will start passing through the sky… and then disappear.

But you might say, “Well, we all get over breakups and deaths and bad times. So the black cloud eventually does pass over.”

That’s right. But the key is, when we approach hardship with mindful awareness, that black cloud will pass significantly faster. Because when you’re obsessing about your boyfriend and if you’ll ever meet anyone again, etc., what you’re really doing is feeding that black cloud which allows it to just hang there, making you miserable.

When you’re present with just what you’re feeling, the cloud loses strength and passes through faster.

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Jon Kabat-Zinn On Pain

It’s worth a quick digression here to note that the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founding visionary for mindfulness in America, which was initially centred on dealing with physical pain.

In the late 1970s, Kabat-Zinn asked the doctors at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center to send him their patients whose pain problems weren’t responding to any traditional treatment or drugs. It was from this work that Kabat-Zinn created the now world-renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program (MBSR).

Bill Moyers did a piece on Kabat-Zinn’s MBSR program at UMass Medical Center in 1993. Among many moving stories, the one that stood out to me was that of a fisherman from Gloucester who fell off a roof and cracked several vertebra. No longer able to work and in near-constant pain, this man was at the beginning of the eight-week MBSR program was absolutely miserable.

But Kabat-Zinn taught him how to be present with his pain, and not try to shoo it away or think about how terrible it was making him feel or how his life was ruined forever.

Did Kabat-Zinn make his pain disappear? No. Not completely. But after eight weeks of meditation and mindfulness training, this guy was a different person. Smiling. Laughing. His old self.

Why is this relevant here? Because physical pain and emotional pain need to be dealt with in the same way: by being present with what is actually being felt in the moment. When that is done on a consistent basis, the pain is vastly reduced and often subsides much quicker.

Try This

So give this a try. It’s not complicated.

The next time you’re in an especially bad place, go inside and place all of your attention on exactly how you feel at that moment. Don’t try to get rid of the feeling or ruminate about how unlucky you are or how this situation is going to ruin your future. No.

Go inside and feel that pain. Be present with it. Acknowledge its existence.

And just keep saying to yourself, “Okay. I feel like absolute crap right now and that’s it.” Leave it at that. Don’t let it go beyond how you feel at that moment. Because how you feel at that moment is the only thing that exists. Everything else is just your egoic mind creating thoughts that will make you miserable and prolong your agony.

Is this hard to actually do? Sometimes. But you’d also be surprised at how easy it can be.

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Closing Thoughts

I’ve gotten into all sorts of spiritual pursuits over the past decade or so. Meditating regularly, reading all the books and taking the courses and listening to all the great teachers like Eckhart Tolle and Michael Singer.

And I can honestly say that the most valuable thing I’ve learned that has had the most direct and positive effect on my life has been this practise of being mindful in tough times.

I believe the Tao Te Ching is the wisest book ever written. This is the first line:

“The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.”

That one sentence carries a gold mine worth of spiritual wisdom. How? I’ll get there quickly (I promise).

First, some context. The Tao is thought to be written in China by Lao Tzu some 2,500 years ago. It is nothing less than a handbook on how to live life.

Definition of the Tao

So, what is the Tao? Here the definition is given in the Merriam-Webster dictionary: “The unconditional and unknowable source and guiding principle of all reality.” Some equate it with God, others with nature.

Which leads us back to that first line: “The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” The fact that Lao Tzu chose to begin his sublime treatise on life with this sentence reveals the import he places on its meaning.

What that sentence means is that the Tao/God cannot be understood by talking about it or thinking about it or reading about it or writing about it. So how does one come to understand the Tao? By sensing it.

This is enormously important for those trekking the spiritual path. I know many people who derive great pleasure and stimulation from talking and engaging about spiritual issues and concepts. They love to talk, for instance,about the conscious self and how that is the real self vis-à-vis the egoic, voice-in-the-head self. And on down the line of the myriad topics in the spiritual realm.

Don’t talk, get quiet inside

I’m not opposed to talking, writing, etc., about spirituality. That’s most of what I do on Medium! What I do caution against is allowing the stimulation gained by talking/writing, etc., to become one’s primary spiritual pursuit.

Because as Lao Tzu so eloquently puts it, you can’t understand the Tao or God by talking about it. The only path to the Tao and God is through the silent stillness inside you.

This concept of going inside to find the big answers is universal. Luke 17:21 quotes Jesus as saying, “…The Kingdom of God is within you.” Well, you don’t enter that kingdom by listening to the cacophony of chatter spewed out by your conceptualizing mind. You get there, as you do with the Tao, by entering the state of no-thought, or still, presence as Eckhart Tolle calls it. In other words, you sense the Tao/God.

The fundamental problem with many spiritually-minded people is that they spend 80 percent of their spiritual energy conceptualizing and only 20 percent on getting quiet inside and sensing their true self/the Tao/God. Those numbers need to be reversed if true spiritual growth is to be achieved.

Why do so many people focus on the conceptual aspect of spirituality? Because going inside and getting quiet is HARD. Really hard. Our minds love to race. They’re like rambunctious five-year-old boys: They don’t like to sit still.

Meditate to get quiet inside

The best way to teach your mind to sit still is to develop a regular meditation practice. I’ve been practicing regularly for seven years and it’s made me a better dad, husband (even my wife agrees!), friend and overall human being.

I created a simple program designed to get people into regular meditation practice in the easiest way possible. It’s free and can be found at davidgerken.net. I also recommend the books and recordings of Jack Kornfield, Jon Kabat-Zinn and Peter Russell.

Read the Tao!

Finally, if you haven’t already, do yourself a huge favor and read the Tao. It’s easy to read and is only 4,000 words, which is shorter than many magazine articles. The Stephen Mitchell translation is the best.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite passages:

“Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand all things?”