I attended a workshop this weekend by David Romanelli, author of Yeah Dave’s Guide to Livin’ the Moment: Getting to ecstacy through wine, chocolate, and your ipod playlist.
I have’t read the book…yet. I will. I found Dave’s insights and anecdotes to be refreshingly grounded—he seemed to be a real person with a real message. It wasn’t abstract like some of the workshops I’ve gotten myself caught up in. He talked about important things, like: breathing, laughing, taking time to enjoy life. He also shared Vosges chocolates with us as a demonstration of how to get lost in a moment—that it’s important to get lost in moments, even if just for one bite-worth of time each day.
The workshop was at my gym, Midtown Athletic Club, and although the heated power vinyasa with mats packed so close that your neighbor often sweats on you, is not my style anymore—-overall, I’m glad I did it.
I talk with so many people in any given week who are so stuck in busy crazy realities, that it is very easy for me to panic and recoil against the rigidity of jobs and fitting into American society. I see you being prisoners of your schedules and obligations, and I don’t know how to help you get out—-the “yeah but” answers you give me to every suggestion regarding how to ease yourself into a more easeful life, just stop all progress in your tracks.
Dave Romanelli talked about the addictions we have to being connected, to achieving more and better things, and to over-filling our lives. He admitted his own technology addiction. One of the major things he discussed was about how happiness is reached—and it’s not by acquiring. We all have a little bit different formula for happiness, but when we’re all just trying to fit the American success model, we are not as likely to find it.
I’m going to read the book when I get it, and then I’ll let you know what else I learn.
One of my favorite lines of Romanelli’s:
You can go a few weeks without food.
You can go a few days without water.
You can only go a few minutes without breathing, but it’s what we focus on the least.