What drives you crazy?

A philosophical perspective on leafblowers

Photo by Callum Hill on Unsplash

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I love fall. I love the chill after the sweltering summer heat, the smell of the air, the excitement of all the holidays, and the beauty of the changing colours. To me the leaves are beautiful whether they are in the trees, falling gently through the air, or making patterns on the ground. But with the leaves come the leafblowers, and every time I encounter those machines in action, I go a little mad.

Those of you who know me from my mayoral campaigns share my passion for freedom, for beauty and for much of city life. You also know that I’ve left city politics for now, and am exploring other ways to enact positive change in my own life and the world around me.

One of those ways is by helping others find relief from their pain, whether from difficult relationships in their lives, or the politics that affects us. I’ve found that using a meditative practice called The Work gives me and my clients incredible insights that both improve our experience of life and show us possible solutions to previously intractable problems.

So what does that have to do with leafblowers? Well, I don’t know about you, but for me there are countless minor irritations — like leafblowers — that I encounter in my day. Sometimes I breeze right by them, and other times they bring me down and ruin my afternoon. The accumulation of minor irritations, especially in a chaotic environment like a city, can make it tough to have a peaceful, joyful day.

You’ve probably heard the quote “the personal is political”. This statement contains more truth than we may know. I’m tried changing the world from the outside, but I’ve discovered that working from the inside out is both more joyful and more powerful. 

Below I’ve shared how my experience of leafblowers changed as I used The Work on my belief about them. Take a look and please comment with any questions — or challenges! And if you need a laugh, take a look at the video at the bottom that makes me giggle every time I think about it.

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The Work on Leafblowers (for a thorough explanation of The Work go to www.thework.com)

Step 1: Name the belief and a situation where you believe it.

My belief is “Leafblowers are a sign of a broken society”. It came upon me the other day when I was jogging past two people on neighbouring properties using leafblowers.

Step 2: Ask “Is it true? (the answer is either a yes or no)

I sit with the thought, and I believe it’s true. So my answer is yes.

Step 3: Ask “Can you absolutely know that it’s true?”

I sit longer. I consider whether I can absolutely know it’s true. I realize there’s no way of knowing that is 100% true. So my answer is no.

Step 4: Ask “How do I react when I believe the thought that leafblowers are a sign of a broken society”?

When I ask myself what happens when I believe it, I think back to the moment I saw them. With the belief, I feel heavy and depressed. I hear the noise, smell the gas, see the leaves, and all I can see is a giant waste. I feel powerless and see our society as so messed up that we would produce something like this. I feel intensely leafblowers shouldn’t exist and it hurts my brain that they do. I want to scream in frustration and impotence. I feel anger towards all the people I picture using leafblowers — not just the ones in front of me. I start to go into angry judgements about society and I give up on the world and feel there’s no point to activism. I feel these beliefs in my body — I clench my teeth, I turn my head to avoid seeing them, my heart feels heavy. My joy in my running evaporates. I also judge all my past good feelings as worthless, silly and foolish, and feel as if the only truth is that everything is terrible.

Step 5: Ask “Who would I be without the thought that leafblowers are a sign of a broken society”?

I sit and consider who I would be without the thought, it takes awhile to find it. When I do, I feel the motion of running. I feel like I could run right past the leafblowers and not get hooked, like I could leap right over them. It becomes a kind of joyful game to get past them as quickly as possible. I also see I can cover my ears to protect them if I want — with the original thought I’m oblivious to what I can do, but without the thought I see I can get some instant protection from the noise. The leafblowers become more like barking dogs or even crashing waves. I also see my delight when I go past other parts of life on my runs (Christmas displays, children playing, sprinklers) and in comparison can find a kind of curiosity or fascination in these funny machines as I run past them.

Without believing the thought I suddenly remember the hilarious video below, it makes me burst out laughing and the silliness of the leaf blowers becomes funny and light. I start to feel mild interest and curiosity about who is working on banning leaf blowers. I see that I could write to landscaping companies if I want to ask them, out of curiosity, if they could use them less or not at all. I wonder if it would be possible to invent leafblowers that aren’t noisy. These thoughts about possibilities are light and easy and curious, they don’t feel like heavy futile nightmares the way they do when I am believing the thought. The leafblowers just become momentary obstacles that I can shield my ears from or escape quickly if I want. Without the belief the leaves are still beautiful, as is the wind, and the patterns made by the blowing air.

Step 6: Find examples of “turnarounds” — opposites to the original beliefs.

Turnaround #1: Leafblowers are a sign of a whole society

Considering this, I see that there is so much to our society, so many parts, so many people and institutions and jobs. And lots of good things like drinking water, sewage treatement, electricity, heat, incredible varieties of food, song, dance and neighbourhoods. All of us are made of multitudes, we aren’t just one thing. With this thought it’s like I can see a giant puzzle of society today and leaf blowers are one tiny piece that makes the puzzle complete. I also see that it’s a temporary thing — leafblowers weren’t always here and they might not always be in the future, they are just part of a whole society right now. They leafblowers are also connecting me to a whole society — the people, metals, fuel, all the many components and processes that had to come together to create the leafblower. They are also a sign of a whole society because for a leaf blower to be produced and working is indicative that the supply chains and chains of command are functioning. 

Turnaround #2: Leafblowers are not a sign of a broken society.

Considering this, dystopian films come to mind. In those films, when society has fallen, there is broken or rusted machinery everywhere. Usually there are zombies around the corner. Functioning leafblowers and healthy employees are not a sign of a broken society the way burned out cars and zombies are. Without the belief I see that the people using the leafblowers are employees earning a paycheque. The landowners are people who care about their property and pay to have it maintained. And leafblowers are really just tiny machines in the grand scheme of things. There’s no greater significance to them. They are just machines buzzing like flies or little yellow minions. 

Turnaround #3: My thinking about leafblowers is a sign of my broken thinking about society.

This one’s a little bit complicated — the turnarounds about our thinking come more easily when we’ve learned to use The Work. This example is called the turnaround to the self — where we see where the problems are within us. 

When I see the leafblowers, immediately a whole host of painful thoughts come into my mind about leafblowers (see step 4). Then I leap into broken thinking about society. I forget the real society and I go into a ton of judgements and beliefs about society: eg rich people who hire landscapers are selfish, landscaping companies are evil, I am impotent and powerless, there is too much concrete, we are doomed. All of my thinking in that moment is painful, and the painful thoughts about leafblowers is actually a sign of all the painful beliefs I still have about society. My broken thinking about society tries to put society in a box, tries to say I know what society is. My thinking limits society to this one economic model that does not define human society. Even though on the outside I’m trying to encourage others to expand and bust out of this economic model that produces leafblowers, on the inside I’m totally confining society to that same model. In reality, not only is the leafblower a small part of society, but even the economic model that produced it is a small part of what society really is. The people operating the leafblower are so much more than the leafblower. And human society — all the trillions of interactions with each other, with nature, with spirit, the diversity of it all around the world, is so much greater than what I’m seeing when I’m in my broken thinking about it. It’s very liberating and joyful to see beyond that box I trap myself in when I’m believing my thoughts about leafblowers and society.

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Here’s my favourite video about leafblowers (not that I watch any others!). It’s the place where I can leafblowers make me laugh my head off instead of scream.

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End note: I invite you to make a list of the little things that bother you in your day. Notice whether they weigh you down. And if you want to see them another way, reach out to me. You can book a free discovery call where I can explain the approach I use with my clients, or dive right in with a 60 minute session where I guide you through what’s bothering you so you can come out the other side with a lighter step and a smile on your face.