… I am an artist, writer, and currently an undergraduate student at MCLA (Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts). I am presently making my home in the wonderously beautiful and magical Berkshires of Western Massachusetts.
I practice the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin and have been a member of SGI-USA (the United States branch of the Buddhist lay organization Soka Gakkai International) since 1989.
This blog is a chronicle of my attempt to make positive & lasting changes in my life… my own personal “Walden” experiment! It’s all about my pursuit to live deliberately, simply, wisely and frugally.
Please note: I continue to live in the modern age, which means that I will keep using my computer, paying for my DSL service, and watching television. In my quest to live deliberately, however, I’ve found that I am using these technological advances more wisely.
Regarding my spreadsheets:
When I started attending MCLA in 2006, I created a spreadsheet to track my credits, GPA and the classes I needed to complete in order to obtain my BA. My advisor has been very pleased with the way I’ve proactively taken responsibility for my education and I’m pleased with the way I have organized everything.
Since then, I have built up the confidence to see the light at the end of this tunnel. I have even had tremendously positive experiences at school to feel capable of getting involved in extra-curricular activities and to even take on freelance jobs related to my major. I realized that I’m beginning to live the life I’ve always wanted. This became the impetus to see how I could transform other areas of my life to manifest other things that I want in life.
The main things I wanted (and needed) to tackle were my money and my weight. Admittedly, I had been mindlessly spending money since receiving my SSDI and literally paying for the consequences. I never knew how much my living expenses were and I never, ever balanced my checkbook. How could I live on a fixed income without budgeting or tracking my expenditures?
And as for my weight, I was born overweight (over 10 lbs.) and have never been a “normal” weight. After years of mindlessly eating and yo-yo dieting, I recently topped the scales at 300 lbs. (not my highest weight, but definitely not what I wanted to weigh). I had always put on my driver’s license that I weighed only 175 lbs. and I made a determination this year to actually weigh that much. I didn’t want to diet, by today’s standard — I wanted to develop a healthier lifestyle that would support me weighing less.
Initially, I created spreadsheets to track the following:
- time – daily, weekly & monthly activities, course schedule and menstrual cycle
- money – my checking account activity, and later adding a budget & other accounts
- body – my daily weight, daily caloric intake, exercise tracker & a food database
I added other spreadsheets, but then quickly realized that I don’t need to track anything other than these 3 areas of my life. Now that the experience of being mindful in these areas, I have scaled back further by tracking only the essential information with regard to my time and body. Primarily, because I began to recognize my healthy routines or created new healthy routines, I find I don’t need to my caloric intake, exercises, or daily activities. However, if I feel “out of control” in any of these areas (i.e., slipping back to my old habits or not continuing my new habits), I know I can go back to my spreadsheets and start tracking again.
I must credit John Walker (co-author of AutoCad) for getting me started with my spreadsheets. When I was researching making lifestyle changes in order to lose weight in a healthy manner, I came across his free eBook, The Hacker’s Diet. Not only did it remind me of what I already knew about healthy weight loss, he really gave me an analytical perspective on making life changes. He created spreadsheets to track and monitor his program, and has made them available (again, for free) to his readers. I am not using his spreadsheets because I choose to go a more personalize route, but I am utilizing the principle of them. Specifically, he points out the importance of using a treadline on his graphs, especially since your daily weight can fluctuate. In creating a treadline of the data, you can truly see your overall progress. Anyway, that was my starting point, and I am forever grateful that Mr. Walker has shared his work with the world.
Recording my life in spreadsheets gives me the opportunity for reflection and contemplation, which in turn allows be to live more deliberately. As Thoreau quoted Confucious, “Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again.” Tracking my life on spreadsheets has become an important part of my renewal. It keeps me grounded on the physical plane of reality, just as my Buddhist practice grounds me spiritually. These planes of reality are not mutually exclusive in the least because there is an interconnectedness in the universe. It is of the utmost importance to know this in order to live deliberately.
