Day 13 – Roll Up Your Sleeves And Get Your Hands Dirty

Have you ever wondered why do You like so much to assemble the stuff You buy from Ikea? I can give you 2 reasons: first, it’s something practical, that You do with your own hands, and second, because it gives You that satisfaction You get when You see the immediate results of Your work.

And you get to tell your friends: “see that desk over there? I did that! (Although you didn’t make it from scratch, it still gives you that satisfaction :)”

Day 13-Roll Up Your Sleeves And Use Your Hands

How To Do This: Today, do at least one activity that involves using your hands in a useful, creative way (no, writing on your laptop doesn’t count 🙂 ) Use your hands in a conscious way. Whether it is cleaning your house, gardening, cooking, sewing, painting, pottery, fixing a squeaky door, or simply playing in sand, today pay attention to your hands and the wonderful things you can create with them.

Why Using Your Hands In These Virtualised Days Is So Important

It seems to be a lot more to handiwork than meets the high-tech, computer focused, modern eye.  Researching for this post I’ve stumbled upon the website of a fascinating guy who dropped a “white-collar” job in a think – tank to start his own small business of fixing bikes.

Matthew B. Crawford, “a philosopher / mechanic destroys the pretensions of the high-prestige workplace and makes an irresistible case for working with one’s hands” in his New York Times Best Seller book “Shop Class As Soul Craft”. (I didn’t read the book yet, as I’ve just discovered it, but I’ll surely do it soon.)

More on the book and and the experiment a journalist did with working with one’s hands, like chiseling stones, you can find in this interesting article on The Guardian.

My experience with this: 

Many a days when I was doing only intellectual work that didn’t involve my creativity, I felt tired, bored and couldn’t stop asking “what’s the use”?

The same was the case during my long years of study, when often I couldn’t find the link between the complicated mambo-jumbo and the “real-life” needs. When I couldn’t find a useful end to it, my brain would refuse to understand and memorize anything.

Whenever I tried practical activities, where the end result was visible and useful, I simply loved it. A couple of years ago I was working with a school in a nearby village and I got the chance to learn how to do basic pottery. I simply loved it! (That’s where the cover pic was taken.)

I also love to do gardening whenever I have a chance, like you can see in this pic from the one month intensive program at the Humaniversity in Holland.

Wrapping up: The Benefits of working with my hands I’ve discovered so far:

– being in the present moment all through the process;

-the aliveness that comes with the curiosity about how the end result will look like;

-the satisfaction at the end, being able to proudly say “I did that!”, priceless! 🙂

If You add some extra awareness to your chosen handiwork activity, I guarantee You will get a lot more benefits. This exercise is, IMHO, another awesome shortcut to reconnecting to our gut feeling. 

So that’s why I challenge You to try it, at least for today. And of course, I would love to hear about it in the comments bellow.

If You missed yesterday’s exercise, check it out.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s suggestion.

With all my love,

Raluca

PS: Now turn off the computer and go get your hands dirty! 🙂