Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. In this podcast episode, I want to share with you a chapter from Buddhist Boot Camp called "Life is a Piece of Cake." During the book tour across the U.S., UK, and Australia,
people kept telling me this is one of their favorite chapters. These podcast episodes are available without commercials thanks to the generosity of listeners just like you who show their support with automatic one dollar contributions each month
through patreon.com/BuddhistBootCamp. Join me on Patreon for our monthly live, video, Q&A sessions, during which folks from all over the world tune-in to ask questions and discuss ways to implement some of the more challenging concepts discussed in Buddhist Boot Camp and Faithfully Religionless into their daily lives. Sign up for my monthly blog at BuddhistBootCamp.com to be notified
of upcoming live events, video Q&As, updates, and food-for-thought. Speaking of food, when a friend recently asked me if there is anything I would change about my life, I instinctively said, "Absolutely not!" I mean, I am more content than I've ever been, and happier than I ever thought would be possible. He said, "Well surely you would "like to have more money, a bigger house, or something?" And I said, "No." I mean,
I'm already happy. Who knows what more money would do to my life? A bigger house would just be more to clean. Who wants that responsibility? You see, I moved from Israel to the States when I was 14 years old, and I thought this was going to be the land of opportunity and abundance, where everyone was going to be happy. And yes, this is the land of opportunity and abundance, but many people aren't happy. They keep wanting MORE. And adding MORE to their lives is just never enough.
So I saw it like this: if life is a cake recipe that we are trying to perfect, then I got my recipe down just right for now. With the ideal amount of flour, sugar, baking soda, et cetera. More sugar, for example, does not necessarily make a better cake. In fact, it might ruin it. So if you're not happy with your life, figure out which ingredients make it bitter, and take
them out. Don't believe commercials that tell you to spread more frosting on top of the cake, because then you would simply wind up with a bitter cake that has frosting on it. I hear people say things like, "If I just go on vacation to Hawaii, then life would be better." The problem is that when you return home from the islands, or, in other words, when you're done licking the frosting, your bitter cake will still be there waiting for you.
But, and this is the really good part: if you get the ingredients just right, then your life is awesome with or without frosting. Anything fun you do on top of that is, well... icing on the cake. We all get to try a new recipe every morning, especially if we live our lives to the fullest. So even if your cake ends up bitter one day, that's okay, make it differently tomorrow. Just never blame other people if your cake doesn't turn out.
We each bake our own cake. Here is a secret: while everyone's recipe is a little different, the main ingredients for a successful batter are love, gratitude, kindness, and patience. And the most common ingredient that makes people's cake bitter is fear, so don't use it. When something unexpected happens in your life, just yell out, "Plot Twist!" And then keep going. Happy baking, everybody. Aloha! Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Faithfully Religionless and Buddhist Boot Camp.
For additional information, please visit BuddhistBootCamp.com, where you can order autographed books to support the Prison Library Project, watch Timber's inspiring TED Talk, and join our monthly mailing list. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and invite you to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions. Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love. 🙏