Whinging About The Trivial

The Buddhists believe that life is suffering.

While this might sound like a pessimistic view of the world, most of us would agree that day to day life isn't always smooth sailing. We all seem to have something to bitch and moan about but the vast majority of the time it's not about events of major significance. We find ourselves complaining and moaning to others about the trivial often as a way to connect with them (i.e. "I have problems like everyone") or as a way of gaining sympathy (i.e. "my life is so hard compared to yours, you really wouldn't want to be in my shoes") or because the minutia are not counterbalanced with enough meaning in our life ("all I do all day is put out fires. What a life. Woe is me"). 

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But instead of constantly talking about how tough the minutia of day to day life can be, we can choose to focus on how lucky we are:

1. When I catch myself whinging about the mountainous laundry, I think how lucky I am to even have clothes.

2. When friends complain about the dilemma of what to cook for dinner, I remind them how lucky they are to even have good food to eat.

3. When I sigh at having to unpack the dishwasher, I remember how lucky I am to even have dishes to unpack.

4. When I resent having to fill the car up with petrol so frequently, I remind myself how lucky I am to even have a car.

5. When my kids are driving me up the wall I remind myself how lucky I am to even have kids, let alone happy healthy ones. 

These 5 examples might seem pithy, but when you think about it, compared to the vast majority of the world, we live in a bubble of privilege. My trips to third world countries in my younger days are a sobering reminder of how fortunate I am and how I really have nothing to complain about.   

This week I had a really big blow in my personal life. The news floored me, but if I was really listening hard to the signs the universe was giving me, I should have seen it coming. My friends reminded to swallow the bitter pill and "learn the lesson" in it. At first I was outraged by their response. I wanted sympathy. But if I find the positive in what happened, and learn the lesson, the outcome will be profoundly beneficial on numerous levels. When the blow happened,  it made me realise how embarrassingly trivial the rest of my usual daily complaints were- the laundry, the dishes, the noisy kids, the incessant bills. But someone living in poverty or suffering terminal illness would view my recent blow as trivial. Relativity puts things into perspective. I could chose to spend my day whinging to all and sundry about umpteen things and focusing on all the negatives, but what will it serve me? Instead, I'm working on putting out what I seek to attract: a positive, meaningful life. 

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Ask yourself, how many times a day do you fall into self-pity mode over the trivial? Do you use complaints as the basis of conversations with friends?  When you catch yourself complaining about the trivial to a friend, family member or to yourself, I challenge you to get into the habit of swapping it around and finding the positive in the situation. 

A day in the life of a raw milk dairy farmer

Few things turn me on more than visiting farms from where our food comes from. There something about going to the source, being at ground zero, meeting the farmers who toil away to feed us and hearing from them first hand about what's involved and their trials and tribulations. It's about connecting us with our food. It's about teaching my children the link between soil to plate.  For those of us who don't grow our own food  (and let's face it few people nowadays do) farm visits are the next best thing. 

Whenever I'm back in Qld visiting my parents I enjoy taking a trip out with my kids to Grant and Glenys Currey's raw dairy farm about 40 minutes north of the Gold Coast. They started their business Wallan Vale Dairy at the same time I started my own business Star Anise Organic Wholefoods 6.5 years ago. It was around that time that time I bought some raw milk from a local organic store on the Gold Coast and simply called the number listed on the bottle. I said "Hey, I like your product, and see you live not too far from my parents place. Can I come and visit you?" From there developed a beautiful friendship over the past 6 years. 

Grant's story is an interesting one. Grant comes from a long line of dairy farmers. However his fathers' operation was somewhat different. His father sold his milk to one of the conventional big milk companies who pasturised it for commercial production. When Grant took over the farm he could have taken the easy path and continued down the conventional road but he wanted to do things differently. He wanted to get back to basics and produce a pure organic raw milk the way nature intended. He spent 3 years converting the farm to certified organic status. He has 66 milking cows on 100 lush green acres and his point of difference to his competitors is that his cows are 100% grass fed. No grains whatsoever. For they appreciate that grains make cows fat and sick. And during the dearth of winter when green pasture is low, they hand feed the cows grass and hay even though grain would be a much easier option. But they don't take short cuts. "And if the cows are a little restless when we milk them, instead of appeasing them with grains like other farmers do, we play them classical music." Now that's what I call dedication. They also don't subscribe to antibiotics unless a cow is ill and their milk is subsequently discarded. 

Grant wakes at 3pm to start his day. There's cows to be fed, milked and bottled all under extremely sanitary conditions. The milking shed is so spotless you could eat off the floor. Then there are the chickens that freely roam producing 2 dozen eggs a day that need to be attended to. And the bee hives for raw honey are a new addition. It's hard physically demanding work, 7 days a week. 

In addition to raw milk they also make raw cream, colostrum (always ensuring that they only bottle up what's left after the calves have had their fill) and butter (all artisanally made on the premises for cosmetic purposes only as the law in this country prevents completely raw milk being sold for consumption purposes). These products are sold at Miami High School organic markets every Sunday.  So if you go there, please do stop to say hi! Their raw milk and raw cream is also sold at Flanneries and a few other stores all in the Gold Coast area and just south of the border including: 

> G.J’s Organic Meats, Labrador
> Gold Coast Organic Meats, Benowa
> Olive Branch, Tamborine Mountain
> Healthy House Coolangatta, Coolangatta – Organic Pantry Foodworks, Burleigh
> Tugan Fruit Market, Tugan
> The Organic Store on Bilambal Road, Bilambal

The Currey's are also thinking about making an artisan ricotta with their milk. When I mentioned this to my dad his eyes lit up and he recounted stories to me of how his family in Cyprus made ricotta from raw sheeps or goats colostrum for its powerful nutritional properties. This lost art has fallen by the wayside in my family and I hope to resurrect it one day. 

The Currey's have had more than their fair share of hurdles along their path. A couple years ago their farm was almost taken away from them and they almost lost everything they had. 

I'm writing this post not to promote this dairy farm for the purposes of expanding their business, as they are already at capacity and shy away from publicity of any kind (with no social media or slick marketing campaigns). I'm writing to simply share with you a story about real, honest people producing real, honest products. I'm writing to get you thinking more about where your food comes and what's been done to it before it got to your table. I'm writing this piece because people like the Currey's need to be celebrated and supported. The small artisan producers like them who are dwarfed by big business but who plough away in the conviction that what they are producing is real and right and are doing more good than harm in the world. People like these are the backbone of the ancestral health movement. I'm proud to call them my friends. I'm proud of what they produce. I thank them for their contribution in navigating the very tricky raw milk path in Australia. 

"Sometimes it takes something cataclysmic for us to change paths..."

For the most part we are creatures of habit. We stay the course. We fail to listen to the little warning bells the universe sends us day to day. Or maybe we sense the discomfort but are too afraid to change course. Too afraid for countless reasons. Until one day it happens. Seemingly out the blue. You didn't get into the uni course you so desperately wanted, or your partner up and leaves you, or you lose your job, or you didn't get that promotion, or you succumb to debilitating illness, or you lose a substantial amount of money, or something  occurs that feels nothing short of cataclysmic.  

The ground beneath you shifts so dramatically that the world as you know it is no longer the same. The door to your old life slams so hard it shatters before your eyes. There's no way back. You're officially in no mans land.  The place of transition. The place where you've let go of the old (often by sheer force) but haven't yet grasped onto the new. The place where you feel stuck and confused. Standing on the edge of a precipice looking down onto completely unchartered territory. Frozen with fear. The universe gives you a gentle push. You're now free falling. But you see a trapeze in the distance. By reflex, you reach for it. For there's no other way. You move in this new direction. Like navigating a foreign country without a map. Overwhelmed and exhilarated all at once. You doubt yourself but you tell yourself all you have to do is to get through that single moment.  One single second. And you do. And then the next second and the next. You start to feel the wind through your hair as you swing from trapeze to trapeze. You feel a sense of lightness and freedom you hadn't felt in a long time. You are on a new path you hadn't even known existed. What lies ahead? Mind racing, anticipation building. Somewhat haphazardly, you find your groove. You discover a new chapter, a new way, a new life. It was unexpected but the universe was nudging you towards it all along. You just  needed a monumental push to kick start your journey. 

Do you remember a time when life struck you a massive blow? It's those blows that force us like a sharp slap in the face to change direction or do something pivotally different. 

Hardships are the catalysts that catapult us to greater heights. 

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Without them we wouldn't grow as strong or bright. Everything happens for a spectacular reason even though it might not be apparent at the time. But I bet you that each time the ground beneath you radically shifted, you look back now and think "that was the best thing that ever happened to me!" Sometimes it takes nothing short of a thunderbolt to make us sit up, listen and do things differently. But hard lessons make for adept students. Next time adversity strikes remind yourself that a more beautiful (silver lined) path lies just ahead.