Living: Jeet Kune Do Style / by Kenneth Buff

As I said in my previous post, I love to talk to people. What I didn't cover in that post is that I love to take the information that I learn from talking to people (or even just from observing them) and apply it to my life. I like to think of it as a sort of social Jeet Kune Do. For those who don't know, Jeet Kune Do is a martial arts form that Bruce Lee invented. It takes the useful parts of various other forms of martial arts, and does away with the parts it finds not useful. This is what I like to do with my life. I'm the guy who actually takes you up on your suggestion (Hey, Buff [I'm a teacher, so everyone I know calls me by my last name], you ever tried a dark chocolate roasted Twinkie? You should. It's delicious). If I like it, I'll keep doing it. If I don't, I'll chop it up to a learning experience (I guess spanx are not a good substitute for actual fitness).

I've done this for the majority of my adult life. The oldest example I can think of that I still do today is how I eat my bananas. This was several years back (way back in 2008), a friend of mine had seen a youtube video about how to peel a banana. In the video the guy talks about how he was at the zoo, and he saw a monkey peeling a banana upside down, from the non-stem part first. And so the dude tried it, and he found that it was much easier. He found that all you have to do is pinch it from the bottom and it just starts to peel. Once I saw this, I was immediately sold. I tried it out, found that opening a banana "upside down" is in fact way simpler, and I've been opening mine this way every since.

I do this with almost everything. I'm constantly looking for ways to simplify, and improve my life. As most of you who frequent this blog know, I'm a writer, so I try to follow other successful writers to see what they're doing. One such writer I follow is Hugh Howey (author of WOOL). He's a super interesting dude, who's got all sorts of life philosophies. I've read all his non-fiction books, I follow his blog, I follow his Facebook page. Hugh shares pretty much everything that he does that he thinks might be useful to someone out there, from his wardrobe (he limits his style of clothing to make it easy to decide what to wear in the morning), to his fitness (he does the five Tibetans every morning), to his diet (he eats yogurt with raisins for breakfast everyday). And I've taken a lot of what works for him and have applied it to my life, doing what makes sense for me, and tossing the rest to the side—the way Bruce Lee would have done it.

I already have a pretty simple wardrobe (when I'm at work it's jeans, Converse, and a polo. Off work it's shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops), but Hugh's is even simpler: cargo shorts, flip flops, solid color v-neck. I considered the idea of an ultra simple wardrobe, but seeing as how making a decision on which t-shirt I should wear is like a 60 second decision process (at most) there really wasn't any incentive for me to go this route (but Hugh donning flip flops year round did inspire me to hit Amazon up until I found a pair of flip flops that were in my style. Prior to seeing a male that I knew embrace the flip flop, I'd written it off as an ugly piece of clothing. Now I see it as an extremely comfortable and utilitarian piece of footwear). Once Hugh suggested doing the five tibitans every day, I said, "Okay, I'll try that." And I did, and I've been doing a modified version of them for over a year. I started off doing all five, but after a few months I nixed the spinning in circles bit as I didn't see any benefit to, well, spinning in circles. Later I added pushups to the mix, bringing my four Tibetans back up to five. Over the summer I hurt my shoulder doing one of the moves improperly, so I nixed two more, and now I'm down to three, which I still do every morning, and have seen real measurable results (my muscle mass has never been better, and my back has never felt stronger). I also tried the plain greek yogurt with raisins. I did this too, for over a year. Being a special education teacher, I don't have as much time as I'd like, and as simple as pouring a handful of gourmet raisins into a bowl of yogurt sounds, it was actually becoming too much for me to force down (maybe it was that I had to switch raisin brands? I don't know), so I ended up switching to Greek Gods' strawberry flavor and Greek God's black cherry. In case you're wondering, neither are as good as bacon and eggs, or biscuits and gravy, but for the dude (or girl) on the go, it works.

This is how I live my life. Constantly open to new ideas on how to do things, whether it be dress, cooking, cleaning, or any other lifestyle thing. I personally love it. You can't know what you're missing until you try something new. And if you live your life without trying new things, well, then honestly what's the damn point? If you hit 40 and you've done everything that you're ever going to do, why keep going? I want to live my life constantly learning, and applying what I learn to my life, and to the lives of those I affect (my family, my students, and my readers). To me, there's not a better way to do it, but if someone thinks there is, I'll be the first to try it.