I’m always on the lookout for new things. I love learning, growing and expand my horizons.

I have a fairly hefty collection of feeds in my RSS reader and I was noticing more and more of them talking about Leo Babuta and his ZenHabits website, so I figured I should check it out.

When you read something that turns your thinking around and helps create a new way of doing things in your life, it’s tempting to over-egg the proverbial custard by calling it ‘life-changing’. But, in a way, that’s exactly what ZenHabits has been.

I’ve always thought of zen as being more of the kind of eastern mumbo-jumbo that helps martial artists to focus and that many westerners scoff at, a bit like karma1. But zen is at once so much more than that, but so much simpler.

Zen is not some mysterious order of blokes in funny outfits telling everyone to be like them. Instead, it’s just more of a simple way to be aware of what’s going around you and to keep things on an even-keel.

I’m a stress-head by nature. I thrive on stress, but it also, well, stresses me out. I inherited a very short temper from my dad, something for which I’m not proud, but always figured I’d just have to live with. But even in the short space of time I’ve been following the zen ideas, I’ve been able to stay calmer, more collected and immediately more productive.

Zen isn’t for everyone. It’s not a cure-all and there is no ‘zen switch’ that you can press to suddenly feel calmer. To truly embrace zen you have to believe in what it can do and invest yourself in it. Only then will you see the benefits of living a zen life.

I’m in the very early stages of developing my zen life, but I can already see the benefits and I’m loving it.

Have you ever tried zen? How did you find it changed you as you learned and adapted along with it?

  1. I should point out that I actually vaguely believe in karma; certainly I believe that what goes around comes around. []