Chop Wood Carry Water

Chopping the Wood and Carrying the Water You ask, “What is the quality of Life?” seeking to justify the part you play Feeling …to try to make it any more or less than short and sweet

From the Song “Short and Sweet” by David Gilmour More than a thousand years ago, a Chinese Zen Master wrote:

Magical Power, marvelous action!

Chopping wood, carrying water…

Way back then, the essence of survival was just that. Chop the wood or there will be no fire. Carry the water or there will be no drinking or cooking. Simple rules to live by. How do we find this sort of simplicity in a modern world, dealing with rather extreme schedules, mobile communications, high speed travel and an ever increasing expectation of higher productivity?

Thinking and Stress:

Stress comes from thoughts. Constantly worrying about the future or regretting an event in the past stimulates a major surge in thought flow through our minds.

Remember a time when a thought caused a physical reaction. For example, being alone in a large house at night when you hear a bang on the roof. The simple thought of a possible intruder sets the heart beating quickly, shallows the breathing and stimulates almost instant sweating.

When you think stressful thoughts, you are experiencing an ongoing stress response. Your adrenal glands secrete adrenaline continuously prompting a rise in heart rate and blood pressure among other things. Over a long term, the adrenals become fatigued, as do the kidneys, which play host to the adrenals. The negative health effect is poor kidney function, a key player in many degenerative diseases.

So Why the Stressful Thought Patterns A major weakness in our mode of thought is that we do not trust tomorrow. We see a problem coming and it consumes us. Why do we do this?

A close friend of mine, Peter Shearer, who teaches many personal development, team development and leadership programs puts it beautifully. “As much as you’d like to believe it, there isn’t a group of people wearing dark clothes and tucked away in a small room with no windows in a back alley, plotting disaster in your life.” He’s right.

How many times have perceived problems turned out to be a disaster. What is the worst that can happen anyway? Perhaps a business failure might mean you lose your house. But plenty of people have lived through that scenario and survived, and rebuilt for that matter. So what is there to worry about?

Fear and the Ego I think that perhaps the answer lies with your ego. The ego is motivated by fear; it is created out of fear. It doesn’t like to look bad, doesn’t like to be seen as weak or as a failure. So, when trouble looms, it goes into overdrive trying to avoid disaster.

I remember when I was trying to get a business up and running many years ago. I had spent all my savings and cash flow was tight. My mortgage and my car payment were a constant source of stress. I worried about them a lot and sometimes even lost sleep over them. It took me a long time to realise that this worry was distracting me from my daily task of earning income and seeking new income earning opportunities. In fact, the stress levels stopped me from seeing real opportunities that came my way.

I get the feeling that this is a common scenario. I didn’t want to be seen as a failure. I feared failure so much that I could not move forward. Consequently, the business never really produced what it promised and cash flow was always a struggle.

Letting Go The real challenge is to let go of the future. It isn’t here yet. For many people, tomorrow will not arrive. Trying to predict the future is nothing but a gamble. Worrying about it is a complete waste of adrenaline.

Today is the only time we can participate in. What we do today will certainly effect tomorrow. But, if we are frozen with fear about what tomorrow may bring, then we are reducing our chance of having a positive impact on tomorrow.

Planning People often say to me, “What about planning? You cannot run a business without making some plans.” I agree whole-heartedly. Planning is an activity that you may participate in today. But, once the plan is complete, you can only do the things that the plan requires to be done today. Leave tomorrow for tomorrow.

A plan is simply a desired direction or a path to be traveled. The targets set to match the plan are purely a motivating force and a measuring device. They are not there to rule your life. An old management consultant once said to me, “Plan your work, then work your plan”.

So what to do today?

The answer is simple; just do today what has to be done today. Whilst you do each activity, be in the moment. Do not let your mind entertain thoughts of tomorrow or yesterday, especially stressful thoughts. Just be in the moment. Pay Attention.

Pay Attention!

When you pay attention, the quality of your work increases and your stress levels decrease. Imagine trying to chop a pile of wood with a sharp axe and not paying attention to the task. I’d say the loss of a toe is a real possibility.

When you are talking with someone, listen. Pay attention. When you are driving to work, concentrate on the act of driving and on the scenery of the journey. Pay attention. When spending time with your family, be there with them 100%. Pay attention.

When a stressful thought about a pending problem enters your mind, tell it to go away and come back when its time is current and not before.

There is too much to do, too much to attend to, on this day. You have no time for tomorrow. So Pay Attention!



The Problem and The Solution The wonderful thing about Universal Law Is balance. Every problem has a solution. That solution will arrive, at the very latest, at the time the problem hits its peak. It always does. The challenge most of us have though, is that we are so consumed by worry and anxiety that we fail to see the solution.

You probably know a person who appears to lead a trouble free life. Closer inspection might reveal an array of problems and challenges, with matching solutions all along the line.

It simply comes down to trusting in the flow of the Universe.

Think back for a moment to a major problem experienced in your life. How does it effect you know, if it does. Perhaps you learned something from it and are now a little wiser. But if you are reading this, you are surely still alive and breathing, so you are ok. I don’t mean to demean tragic events like the loss of a loved one. But even with an event so harsh in your past, you are still here, still living your life, still moving forward. You are ok.

I have been asked about the case where a loved one is ill. To worry about something like that is natural. However, you must also remain keenly aware of what you can do for that person and attend to doing those things. You can do no more. If you are sad, sit with your sadness; don’t add to your stress by straining your mind in a search for solutions. If a solution exists, it will appear. At times like this, support your loved one with love, comforting words and touch and positive thought. If you are sad, sit with your sadness and allow yourself to feel it fully.

Seeing the Solution Often, a solution can appear as something really cryptic, but it will appear nonetheless. I was watching a movie once with Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock called “Forces of Nature”. He is traveling home to get married to a long time girlfriend whom perhaps he did not love as much as he thought. Circumstances see him meet and end up traveling with this wild and wily woman (played by Bullock). They experience many dramas along the way and as they go he finds himself falling for her.

Lying on a bed in a motel room, fighting with himself over a decision to leave her and take a ride with some friends, or stay with her, he turns on the radio. As soon as the radio comes on, the Cosby Stills and Nash song, “Love the one you are with” is playing, right at the chorus which goes, “If you can’t be with the one you love honey, love the one you’re with.”

I cannot tell you how many times that has happened to me. I think the car radio is one of nature’s favorite solution delivery devices. If your mind is clouded by rampant thoughts, you miss these little gems. The solutions pass right on by.

Finding Peace and Happiness The solution is in paying attention to what you are doing now and not thinking about anything else. Now is now. Today is today. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Simply chop the wood and carry the water. That is the essence of survival.

Train your mind with meditation and a concerted effort to stamp out wasteful thoughts. If you are typing a letter, simply type the letter. Nothing else! If you are talking to someone on the telephone, pay attention and really listen. If you are driving, drive. Try doing it without the radio for a while. It is funny how you will, all of a sudden, receive a gut instinct to turn at a certain street and find out later that you unknowingly avoided a traffic jam.

It is really just like surfing. Once you are on the wave, all you can do is ride it. You cannot go faster than it and you cannot catch up to the next wave. And, if there is a better one behind the one you are on, it is not yours. Surf the wave you are on.

Some Thoughts from Others “Even when walking a in a party of no more than three I can always be certain of learning from those I am with. There will be good qualities I can select for imitation and bad ones that will teach me what requires correction in myself.” Confucius “To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” Sun Tzu “Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.”

Rabbinic Saying “The greatest force in the human body is the natural drive of the body to heal itself – but that force is not independent of the belief system, which can translate expectations into physiological change. Nothing is more wondrous about the fifteen billion neurons in the human brain than the ability to convert thoughts, hopes, ideas and attitudes into chemical substances. Everything begins, therefore, with belief. What we believe is the most powerful option of all.” Norma Cousins “Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.” Henry David Thoreau “Work consists in whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” Mark Twain

To learn more about this author, visit John Toomey's Website.

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