The next step – Kung Fu

Posted on September 22, 2012 by admin

I have been spending quite a bit of time lately thinking about my next step. Ideally I would like to try to do all my work on a ‘Give Freely Receive Freely’ basis. I have already started with my clinical work and also with my qigong classes, courses and workshops, and it has been going ok. It hasn’t been a massive success, but it hasn’t been a miserable failure either – I believe the idea has potential and CAN work. This leaves one major area of my work to try GFRF with and that is my Kung Fu teaching.

I have a number of reservations about trying GFRF with my kung fu teaching, one is that while a lot of people love the idea of GFRF there are others who just don’t seem to get it and they feel awkward about it. My view is that GFRF is the fairest deal there can possibly be for both the provider and receiver, but I don’t want people to shy away from using it because of unfamiliarity or discomfort. Being faced with making your own choice about price can be quite confronting when you have not spent any time thinking about it and my aim is not to confront, but how else can I introduce the idea?

Another concern I have is that while I have contact with the students attending my classes every week, I often do not have a lot of contact with the parents of students. All too often I think paying for the classes can be easily forgotten about. It is a problem I have now with set prices that I have to chase up some parents right till the end of the term to be paid. This takes a lot of time and effort which quite frankly I don’t have to spare. I actually wonder if by putting the responsibility on the parent to decide how much to pay, they might also be more prompt in paying and understand better that it is their responsibility to support what I am doing for their child rather than my responsibility to chase them for payment. It comes down to the idea that under GFRF both parties to the transaction become free givers rather than takers from each other (see my earlier blog post here). But then again… it may not work out that way in practice.

Another concern is that I think people often underestimate the true cost of providing things (in this example kung fu classes). There are many overheads to cover: rent, power, equipment, wages, advertising and so on, even really simple things like GST make a big difference. Also I think people tend to underestimate the amount of time it takes to provide things like classes, looking just at the actual time the class takes when in fact there is a significant amount of time spent on administration, preparation, travel time and so on. Owners of small businesses tend to be the exception as they have experience with all the things that need to be done to keep something running and what they cost, but for other people I think they often look at things from the perspective almost of the person providing the service receiving all the money.The reality is far from this. The truth is that many of my classes are marginal with some even running at a loss, but I continue with them because I believe that learning kung fu has a lot of value for people by developing fitness, confidence and social skills (there are some really good studies that show that children allowed to play fight go on to be better socially adjusted than those who are not allowed to play fight). I also believe that we have a great kung fu syllabus and organization that will grow over time if given the chance. I can only do so much with the classes if they are not profitable though, and there is so much more that I would like to be able to offer in terms of competition, advanced training and performance, but I can’t until I have more financial resources to support them.

Similar to my concerns mentioned earlier, I wonder if GFRF may actually provide a solution to some of these problems as certainly it would allow any families who cannot afford my current prices to be able to attend at a price that they can afford, increasing class sizes. Also the GFRF model would allow those who can afford more, to give more if they want to help support the ongoing running and further growth and development of the kung fu organization.

So there are significant pros and cons on both sides. I guess one final factor is that I want to move to GFRF because I like how it changes my relationships with people. I have noticed in my clinic work and qigong teaching that whether the client or student pays more, less or exactly the same as they did previously, there is a subtle change in how the interaction feels. It might sound a little corny, but there seems to be more warmth, love and respect in the interaction from both sides; and that really is how I want to live my life.

I’m still nervous about it though… Due to the overheads and the time commitment involved in running classes it could easily go wrong and make it difficult for me to continue. I wonder maybe if it is too soon for me to try this, but I also think if not now when would I start? What I’m thinking of doing at the moment is trying it out at just one location where I have kids and teens classes and see how that goes… but I’m still not even sure about that. I have a few weeks to think about it before the next term begins.

Positive focus vs negative focus

Posted on September 11, 2012 by admin

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about different aspects of the Give Freely Receive Freely concept and how it applies to our current economic and political system, and how it can address those problems at a fundamental level. As I’ve thought about all the different applications of GFRF I have been planning in my head a whole series of blog posts discussing the different issues, how the GFRF relates to dominant recent political models such as communism, socialism and capitalism, why previous attempts to live in ways similar to this have generally been unsuccessful and what I think needs to be tweaked in order for this to be successful in the future.

I have been really interested in the wider implications of groups of people choosing to interact in this way and it has been an interesting experience thinking about these wider issues. But when I think about writing all the blog posts they seem to stretch out before me infinitely, each one takes a long time to write because there are quite complex issues to address (and even then I am only really giving them a very superficial treatment, I currently have a half written post about greed being the basis of our financial system and why this is not a good thing), and there are MANY different fundamental issues to be looked at. It seems like it will take me so much time and effort before even getting in to the really valuable stuff, which is my experience with actually trying to make it work in the current environment.

I have just realized that I had fallen into the trap of focusing on the negative instead of the positive. When you focus on the negative you see endless problems which take infinite work to deal with. On the other hand, when you focus on the positive, the path becomes clear and simple. This is what I want to focus on from now on in this blog.

From now on I want to refocus on my own efforts to live in this way and my experiences with it. I think spending time thinking about the wider societal implications was a useful experience for me, and in a way maybe something I needed to do to convince myself that what I am doing is good and would actually be good for everyone else if it was adopted on a wider scale, because if it wouldn’t work on a wider scale then I probably shouldn’t do it small scale either. I am satisfied now that I have thought things through far enough to know that it could or would work on a large scale, and if it did, it would create a utopian society that most of us have not even dreamed of (lots of standard capitalist theory indoctrination to work through to get to this point). I feel like I can now with good conscience put those thoughts aside and focus more simply on my own efforts in the here and now to live as close to the ideal as I am able to. I may refer to these wider issues from time to time as I go, but at this point I want to set aside all the problems and focus on the solutions which is living based on love, compassion and sharing instead of greed and selfishness.

This is a big shift, and one which I think has been enabled by my experience trying my best to give freely and receive freely. Little by little I think actually experiencing this has started to change my perspective and reshape me as a person.

I think the true power of GFRF is to change the individual, I want to live this way regardless of the society around me, so I’ll stop worrying about those social problems and get on with living my own life in my own way.

I think I can feel my life getting simpler already 🙂

Is the love of money really the root of all evil?

Posted on June 13, 2012 by admin

You’ve probably heard the saying “The love of money is the root of all evil”. It comes from the bible in 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 10. It’s quite a bold statement, identifying a single cause as the root of evil. But is it true? and if so why?

I think to understand the statement we need to look at it carefully. It doesn’t say the love of good food is the root of all evil. It doesn’t say the love of fast cars is the root of all evil. It doesn’t say the love of houses, clothes, fashion, jewelry, holidays, entertainment, international travel or art is the root of all evil. It specifically identifies love of MONEY as the root, not these other things which we sometimes associate with money implying perhaps that it is possible to love these other things without it leading to evil – but not money.

Whats wrong with money?

So whats wrong with money? Well money is pretty useful in many ways, it is hard to imagine a means of exchange that would allow the for efficient movement of goods and services without some form of money, whether that be printed pieces of paper, chunks of metal, beads, or more recently recorded electronic data. It would be hard to obtain many of the wonderful things we have available to us today if we had to directly trade goods and services with each other for everything we wanted. I am not sure what Lenovo would want from me in exchange for this laptop I’m typing this post on, and I have no idea what I would trade directly with my internet provider for their services which I will use to upload this post to my blog. Money allows us to participate in exchange for a wide variety of goods and services whether or not the provider of those goods and services wants anything we can provide because as long as we can exchange what we provide what someone else wants we can use money as a common denominator and medium of exchange.

When you think about it, money is actually pretty wonderful, so what is wrong with loving it? I think the problem becomes apparent when we dig more into what money actually is. Essentially money is ‘made up’, there is no intrinsic value in the electronic bits of data that represent money for most of us today. If you try to eat it, you will gain no nutritional value. If you try to use it to protect you from the weather, you will gain no shelter. Money is an abstract representation of underlying value, BUT it does not truly have any value itself.

How does a money focus obscure or detract from true meaning and value?

I think when we begin to love money, we begin to separate ourselves from understanding and loving REAL things with REAL VALUE in our lives. Essentially we start to miss the point and love something that is not real which leads us no longer understand the true value of things.

There are many examples of this in life which are easy to identify and for us to understand.

When an artist decides that they will create their art with a primary focus on how much money they will make from it, most people consider that this in someway debases and devalues their art. It no longer has the depth of meaning, beauty and integrity of art that has been produced with some other primary motivation. A classic example of this are the Hollywood movies where the decisions have made by executives with only money in mind, they may still be quite entertaining, but they end up being a bit bland and generic compared to a film where someone has been allowed to express their own authentic creative vision. Somehow they seem to lack soul.

The extreme example of this would have to be prostitution where sex is bought for money. While this is becoming legal in more and more parts of the world, most people still consider that this cheapens the experience of sex as it becomes separated from emotions of love, commitment and so on. What physically takes place may be exactly the same, but because the motivation is money, somehow the meaning changes.

I think this general principle carries over into all areas of our lives. Whatever we do purely for money is somehow cheapened and not as highly valued as the things we do for some other reason.

Of course there is no reason why you can’t earn money from doing the things you love, and I think this is true of the happiest people in this world. They have found things that they love and feel good about doing, and found a way to be paid the money they need to get by in this world while doing it. But if you asked them why they do what they do – they would not say it is for the money. You might get answers along the lines of that they are following their passion, they like making a difference in people’s lives, it makes them feel good, they have a creative vision they want to fulfill and so on. In fact you would likely find that these same people would be doing the things that they do even if there wasn’t any money involved because they appreciate the intrinsic value of it and happily they also get paid to do it.

The problem comes when money becomes the prime motivator, and this can occur even in areas where the individual previously had a non-monetary motivation. When the focus shifts to the money, the value and meaning of the activity goes out of focus. This often results in people doing things they don’t really want to do – for money. They feel they just have to. How many people work at jobs they hate and which seem to have little meaning for them, but they do it for the money? It is likely that the job has value, and that they may even enjoy the job if they were able to reconnect with that value as their motivation; but the money focus takes the meaning out of it.

Also how many people would take food away from hungry people, or take someones house from them? Very few, when these things happen there is usually an outcry because people sense the injustice of the situation and do not wish others to be harmed. But how many people will allow someone to buy a product they cannot afford, or charge fees for services at a level that people who need them cannot pay? Many people do every day. Somehow the layer of abstraction and separation from meaning that money provides makes these things much more palatable as the effect on the other person is not as obvious.

And then of course there are those people who actively embrace their love for money and make it their prime objective. Are these people happy? They can seem that way at least for a while as they achieve a measure of success within their own definition. But what are the things that really make us happy in this life? The exact details are probably different for different people but I would guess there are a few common factors: good food, adequate shelter, good health, loving relationships with family and friends, a means of expressing yourself and believing that what you do has purpose and meaning. I think all too often those who put money as their goal find at some point that they have sacrificed one or more of things in their pursuit of money.

How do we overcome this problem?

So how then do we overcome a love for money? I think we need to connect or reconnect with the value and meaning of our actions. When we do this we are more likely to act with integrity, compassion and passion. I am sure that many people are able to do this within an ordinary job or payment system, but for many of us it is a real challenge as the constant need for ‘money’ even just to pay for the basics of food, shelter, clothing etc can cause us to take our eye off the real value of things.

Various religious orders have addressed this issue by swearing vows of poverty, renouncing all property and wealth and living only on the donations of others. In this way they can be sure that their actions are not motivated by money. These same religious orders tend to isolate themselves from the rest of the world so that they can concentrate on their prayer and meditation.

I think the ‘give freely, receive freely’ concept can give these same benefits without the same need for religiosity or isolation from the world. In fact it encourages us to engage fully with the world around us and focus on giving as much of value as we can to the people we interact with, but as we do not know what we will receive in turn, it helps us to keep our focus on the true value of what we are doing isolate this from the exchange of money which may or may not take place as a result of this.

My experience

I know for myself as I have begun to experiment with giving and receiving freely in my clinical work I have found that it is easier for me to focus purely on the client and the treatment they are receiving. I do not feel the same need to keep track of time, to make sure I don’t go overtime or equally to make sure that I fill the whole appointment time up so that they will get good ‘value for money’. Instead I am able to focus more on exactly what they need. If I have done all I feel is best for them at the moment and there is still time left, I don’t need to pad out the treatment – as they are only going to pay me what they want to anyway. Equally I no longer have to think of my ‘time as money’ and make sure the client doesn’t take too much of it either. Of course I still need to keep track of time from the point of view of scheduling and allowing the client to get to other appointments they may have as well, but not having a set price somehow removes this strong association between my time and money.

I really like that aspect of it. Time really isn’t money, it is far more precious than that. Removing money from the time equation makes each moment of life more alive and meaningful.

Conclusion

So is love of money really the root of all evil? I think there is a really good case for saying that it is, especially if you put it into context as robbing actions of their true meaning and value as the root of all evil.

Does this mean we have to forsake money and all the good things we can obtain with it in order to overcome evil? I don’t think so. I want the good things in life, and I think it is healthy to have them, money makes exchange so flexible I think it can make it easier for more of us to obtain those good things. They key is to find a way to be connected with the meaning and intrinsic value of what you do and not let the abstracted value of money take your focus away from what really matters in life and what really makes you happy.

I have painted a few things in pretty broad brushstrokes in this post. I may have got a few things wrong, and hey – I’m just new to this concept of exchange myself, I’m sure there is a lot more I will learn as I continue to experiment with it and my views on things may change. But what are your thoughts on this topic? Please feel free to leave comments below.