Friday morning comes again with 8:30 yoga class at Wild Mountain Yoga with Center owner, Katie Carter. Lately, there has been a consistent before and after yoga experience.

before class:
“I should be writing.”
“I’m tired.”
“I really should water the plants.”
“Did I shave this week?”
“Maybe I should just rest instead.”
“Why don’t I just practice at home?”

after class:
“ohhhh yeahhhhh” emphasized by a full body perma-grin

This is my reference point for experiential simplicity. And really, I’d say that having an experiential reference point has been an incredibly powerful tool for me. When I get away from that full body perma-grin, I know what I want to come back to. I know what state of being is the most helpful for maintaining my priorities.

I read an article in Business 2.0 today about the man, Gamal Aziz, behind the MGM Grand rebirthing in Las Vegas. They called his approach “working backward”, but what struck me was the vision of success. It wasn’t relative, it wasn’t comparative (i.e. well, I’m more productive today than yesterday…). It was almost like his fantasy vision, and with resources as extensive as they were at his disposal, he was able to create his vision. It’s been wildly successful. (successful in terms of financial bottom line. I’m not going to belabor my primary criticism of this method, namely, major demolition–read: waste–of perfectly functional buildings = high resource cost.)

I appreciate his integrity in sticking with his vision as a recipe for success, not benchmarks and measurements. Similarly, I desire to stick to my vision of simplicity. Not relative or comparative, simply 100%.