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Suffering is OptionalHow I learned to stop arguing with reality and pick up my children's socks by BYRON KATIE
Before I woke up to reality, I had a symbol for all my frustration: my children’s socks. Every morning they would be on the floor, and every morning I would think, “My children should pick up their socks.” It was my religion. You could say my world was accelerating out of control—in my mind, there were socks everywhere. And I would be filled with rage and depression because I believed these socks didn’t belong on the floor, even though, morning after morning, that’s where they were. I believed it was my children’s job to pick them up, even though, morning after morning, they didn’t. I use the image of children and socks, but you might find that for you the same thoughts apply to the environment or politics or money. We think these things should be different than they are right now, and we suffer because we believe our thoughts. At 43, after 10 years of deep depression and despair, my real life began. What I came to see was that my suffering wasn’t a result of not having control; it was a result of arguing with reality. I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always. When you question your mind for the love of truth, your life always becomes happier and kinder. Inquiry helps the suffering mind move out of its arguments with reality. It helps us move into alignment with constant change. After all, the change is happening anyway, whether we like it or not. Everything changes, it seems. But when we’re attached to our thoughts about how that change should look, being out of control feels uncomfortable. Through inquiry, we enter the area where we do have control: our thinking. We question our thoughts about the ways in which the world seems to have gone crazy, for example. And we come to see that the craziness was never in the world, but in us. When we understand our thinking, we understand the world, and we come to love it. In that, there’s peace. Who would I be without the thought that the world needs improving? Happy where I am right now: the woman sitting on a chair in the sunlight. Pretty simple. The apparent craziness of the world, like everything else, is a gift we can use to set our minds free. Any stressful thought you have about the planet, for example, or about life and death, shows you where you’re stuck, where your energy is being exhausted as a result of not fully meeting life as it is, without conditions. You can’t free yourself by finding a so-called “enlightened” state outside your own mind. When you question what you believe, you eventually come to see you’re the enlightenment you’ve been seeking. Until you can love what is—everything, including the apparent violence and craziness—you’re separate from the world, and you’ll see it as dangerous and frightening. I invite everyone to put these fearful thoughts on paper, question them, and set themselves free. When the mind is not at war with itself, there’s no separation in it. I’m 65 years old and unlimited. I’m no longer interested in what my children do with their socks. If I had a name, it would be Service. If I had a name, it would be Gratitude. Byron Katie is a bestselling author and teacher of a method of self-inquiry known as “The Work” (thework.com). Her newest book is Question Your Thinking, Change the World: Quotations from Byron Katie.
The New BaywatchBeach boys (and girls) unite to give our oceans a break by GRANT SHILLING
It’s been a weird week. I’m up in Tofino to catch a few waves… and a dead sperm whale rolls onto the beach. Next, I notice that a 55-metre construction crane—taller than the totem pole whose many faces stare across the water from Opitsat—occupies the spot where the BC Packers fish plant once stood. The crane, the first ever in Tofino, is part of the ongoing construction of million-dollar condos by the sea. The better to view dead sperm whales from, presumably. Later, warming up around the woodstove at a friend’s cabin, the radio tells us about Garbage Island, an enormous flotilla of plastic trash twice the size of Texas, floating in the Pacific Ocean. If this weren’t enough, there’s also news of the planned sale of thousands of acres of prime forest bordering surfing territory on the south coast of Vancouver Island, courtesy of the B.C. government. What’s a poor surfer to do? Well, surf, of course. My friend Ralph and I get up the next morning to check the waves and forget our cares. But on the path to Chesterman Beach, we discover a recently poured concrete pad. Ralph, a salty former crab fisherman and elder statesman of longboarding, looks at the pad dubiously. Just what is this? One more intrusion into the natural domain? Haven’t we had enough of this already? There are no waves at Chesterman, so we carry on to Long Beach. It’s just the two of us out there—a rare treat! Plus one lone sea lion catching waves and tumbling towards ecstasy. Still, the pad sits like a concrete Buddha in my mind. So I ask myself, “What would Surfrider do?” A non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and preserving our oceans and beaches, the Surfrider Foundation was formed based on a simple premise: nobody is in a better position to measure the quality of the marine environment than a surfer. In surfing there is the aloha spirit: friendly, hospitable, and welcoming, and guided by love and affection. The goal of Surfrider is to appeal to that spirit. So Surfrider is, if you will, the “green” soul of surfing. The organization was founded in California in 1984, but its roots run deeper. Environmental awareness had been growing within the surfing community since the late Honolulu surfer John Kelly created Save Our Surf to protect the beaches of Waikiki from development in 1961—a problem the south coast of Vancouver Island faces today. Surfrider was brought to Vancouver by Adrian Nelson, a Vancouver-based graphic designer. Adrian, now 29, would travel to Oregon and Washington to surf, but slowly started getting involved in beach clean-up contests, including the Surfrider Foundation Clean Water Classic held in Westport, Wash., a popular destination for mainland B.C. surfers. “I just fell in love with their philosophy,” recalls Adrian, who estimates he spends 40 volunteer hours a week as chair of the Vancouver chapter, working on upcoming events and coordinating their outreach programs. “It’s the only environmental organization that includes the word ‘enjoyment’ in their mission statement.” There was already a Surfrider chapter set up in Tofino, but the transient population there made it difficult for the organization to gain a foothold. Realizing the Tofino chapter needed support from other areas, Adrian launched the Vancouver chapter in ’05. He estimates there are 200 members and activists in the Vancouver branch alone. A third chapter operates out of Victoria. With the exception of a few windswept days per year, there are no chances for surfing on the mainland. However, Vancouver has no shortage of windsurfers, kayakers, dragon-boaters, and sailors. “The name ‘Surfrider’ is a bit misleading,” Adrian explains. “You don’t have to surf to be a member or take part; you just have to have a passion for the ocean and beaches.” Surfrider Vancouver programs include Respect the Beach, an award-winning educational program for schoolchildren that lets the kids get their hands dirty on beachcombing field trips. Surfrider is also involved in a water quality program aimed at more effective methods of measuring pollution levels in the waters surrounding the mainland. Meanwhile, the Victoria chapter is keeping an anxious eye on the planned development of the south coast of Vancouver Island. Last fall, B.C.’s Ministry of Forests and Range allowed Western Forest Products to remove a titanic 28,000 hectares of land from the Tree Farm Licence system, and sell it for real estate development. It’s some of the last heavily forested oceanfront land in the province, and includes the popular surf destination Jordan River. What’s more, the deal was sealed without any public consultation. Malcolm Johnson, the editor of SBC Surf magazine and a member of Surfrider Victoria, is more than a little concerned about development plans for the south coast. “Preventing sprawl is key,” he stresses. “The idea of surfing in front of subdivisions doesn’t appeal to me. I’d rather be looking back at hillsides covered in trees. And I don’t think that’s a solely aesthetic opinion... being able to go out there and be in the midst of an intact and functioning ecosystem is such a rare thing in this day and age. The value of that experience is so much more than money. It’s priceless.” Meanwhile, back in Tofino, Ralph and I head back to Chesterman Beach for an evening session of surfing. The cement pad we noticed earlier has been transformed. It now hosts a bike rack—courtesy of Surfrider Tofino—for the numerous surfers who pedal to the beach with their boards. It’s a welcome—and blessedly small—development. Grant Shilling is the author of The Cedar Surf: An Informal History of Surfing in British Columbia (cedarsurf.com). He dreams of becoming the province’s most sustainable surf bum. 
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To date, Surfrider Victoria has been actively endeavouring to have bylaws passed that will up-zone the areas, meaning any developer who buys property will have to go through public process and consultation before any changes take place. “Ideally,” says Claire MacDonald, chair of the Victoria chapter, “we would like to see the beachfront at Jordan River made into a park, and we will continue to watchdog the situation.”
