Right alongside death and taxes, debt has seemingly become an inescapable part of Canadian life. During the second quarter of 2011, household debt levels reached a record high of $1.57 trillion. According to the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada, if household debt – defined as the outstanding balance of household credit, including consumer credit and residential mortgage credit – was spread evenly across all Canadians, a family with two children would owe an estimated $176,461.

And just like hockey, we like to start young. With the cost of enrolling in a post-secondary institution rising every year, the average debt load of students leaving university and college has followed in lockstep. The Canadian Council of Learning figured that by 2009, the average debt for university graduates was $26,680, while the average for college graduates was $13,600.

So, if you have a pile of debt, the good news is you’re likely not alone. “I feel with youth there’s a sense of shame or guilt,” says Bradley Roulston, a certified financial planner and president of Health Care Financial Group. “But they should know they’re not alone, it’s the economic situation and they have to take the personal feeling out.”

But the bad news is you have a pile of debt. So, resist the temptation to increase the limit on your credit card and use the funds to celebrate your new guilt-free existence. Instead, take the advice of some financial experts we talked to about getting the most out of your income. Whether you’re getting serious about paying off debt or looking to put more money aside for future expenses, it all starts with a budget.

Lost in Transaction

With the proliferation of debit cards, credit cards and other electronic means of burning through income, tracking all discretionary spending can be a challenge. But creating a budget and sticking to it will be key in living within your means. “Most people don’t track personal spending and don’t have any idea how much they’re spending,” says David Trahair, a chartered accountant and author of three personal finance books. Trahair says using an app on a smart phone to track spending will provide instant access to all transactions no matter what account – or cash – was used to pay for the items. “That information, the history of spending is gold,” Trahair says. “It’s invaluable and you have to take that step.”

Good Debt vs. Bad Debt

Trahair’s latest book, Crushing Debt: Why Canadians Should Drop Everything and Pay Off Debt, was released in October but the Ontario-based financial expert isn’t flat out against debt. “Debt, if used correctly is the greatest thing since the microwave, but if it’s abused it can lead to personal financial disaster,” he says. Separating good debt and bad debt is pretty simple, Trahair says, don’t borrow money to have fun. “Bad debt is paying for a $2,000 vacation on a credit card with 20 per cent interest,” he explains. “Good debt is doing something tangible like getting a mortgage for a house or a student loan to finance an education – within reason of course.”

Create an Emergency Fund

Trahair admits it can be difficult to put money away when paying off debt, but in an effort to stop relying on credit for everyday expenses, he says having three months of income set aside for emergencies is a good goal to strive for.

Save for Retirement Later

“It’s so difficult to finance a life during the spending years,” Trahair says. When people are in their 20s, saving for a home, getting married and having children, he says it’s too early to save for retirement. “It may look good on a spreadsheet, but in reality, life gets in the way,” Trahair says. “Getting to retirement debt-free should be the goal. Paying off a mortgage before retirement should be a key objective.”

Buy More Groceries

Dex Dunford is the Young and Free Spokesperson for Servus Credit Union. He says a simple way to stretch a budget is to reduce discretionary spending like eating out at restaurants. “You have to buy more food and eat at home,” Dunford says. “People are studying hard, working hard and get busy, so it’s easier just to grab something to eat, but spending $8 on lunch starts to add up.” He also says it’s important to make a grocery list when you go shopping and stick to it.

Hold the Phone

Even fixed items on a budget deserve a look over. “I worked for two years in the cell phone industry before getting this job,” Dunford explains. “Lots of people don’t have plans that suit them.

Ignore the Joneses

Commercials for fancy cars and television shows portraying young people throwing money around can have an influence on how people spend money. “Not everyone feels that pressure, but you can’t turn on the TV without someone saying your car, your house, your furniture aren’t good enough,” Dunford says. “As young people we don’t need to worry about that. We’re starting careers and can focus on those things later, not keeping up with the Joneses.”

Talk About It

If you ask someone how they feel about money, Roulston says most people won’t want to talk about it, but to create and manage a budget people need to address their underlying feelings about money. “Talk to your friends about it, talk about how you feel about how people spend their money,” Roulston says. “Budgeting is incredibly important and for youth it’s all about creating habits. The sooner you create habits the easier it is.”

Live with Less

Twenty per cent to be exact. “When you graduate and you go from making $10,000 or $15,000 a year to two or three times that amount, it’s all new money,” Roulston says. “Live as if you’re making 20 per cent less and live off that.” The rest can be saved or put on debt, but Roulston says it’s a challenge people in the Great Depression managed. “The average savings for someone who is 89 and lived through the Great Depression was 16 per cent, so let’s do that and a little better.”

Run, Walk or Bike Your Way to Savings

“Don’t buy a car,” Roulston says. “90 per cent of people don’t need a car. You can join a co-operative or take public transit. Avoid the car at all costs.” Roulston says people should even consider moving closer to work, but if a car is needed purchase a used one and avoid the immediate depreciation of purchasing a new car.

5. Quidditch

What you need: A wide assortment of game balls, custom made hoops, tiny brooms, and an all consuming love for Harry Potter

Pretty much everyone has either read the Harry Potter books or seen one of the movies and many will agree that some of the most exciting bits are when Harry partakes in the fictional and decidedly magical sport of Quidditch. Played at blinding speeds atop floating broomsticks, this fantasy sport is as dangerous as it is entertaining. It’s really too bad no-one will ever be able to play this wonderful game in the real world…

Enter, “Muggle Quidditch”

In 2005, Alexander Manshel, a student from Middlebury College in Vermont, decided that he’d adapt the rules of this magical sport so it could be played in the real world. What he ended up with was possibly one of the most endearingly awkward games known to man. Gone are the magic charms, levitation, and amazing feats of daring, replaced by frantic college students running around a field holding miniature brooms between their legs. If you’re skeptical on why anyone would want to play this sport, check out this footage from last year’s Quidditch World Cup:

Muggle Quiddtich is a new game but it’s starting to develop a powerful following. With teams sprouting up from Calgary to Montreal and the first ever Canadian Tournament scheduled for October 15, 2011, this game may soon become a common sight. Check out the International Quidditch Association for rules, videos, and more Potter-related silliness.

4. Chess Boxing

What you need: Boxing gloves, a boxing ring, a chess set with built-in timer, the ability to think after being punched in the face repeatedly

Yes, you’re reading that correctly. Chess boxing is an actual thing that people do, mostly in the UK and Russia.  Here’s how it works, courtesy of the World Chess Boxing Organization (WCBO):

“Chessboxers go through alternating four-minute long rounds of chess and three-minute boxing rounds with a one-minute break in between. A maximum total of 11 rounds are fought out—six rounds of chess and five rounds of boxing. The fight begins with a round of chess. Each player has a respite of 12 minutes during the game of chess, which means the maximum duration of the whole chess game is 24 minutes.”

The sport was created by Iepe Rubingh, a German boxer who was inspired by a French comic book that featured the then-fictional sport. In 2003, the first World Chess Boxing Championship was held in Amsterdam and slowly but surely, dedicated chess boxing clubs have begun to pop up across Europe and North America.

If you’re thinking about joining a club, you’d better make sure your fighting skills are as good as your chess. The WCBO sets minimum ability standards for both the pugilism and board game aspects of the sport. If you have the athletic ability of Lennox Lewis and the chess prowess of Garry Kasparov, you may just be on your way to Chess Boxing glory.

3. Free Running

What you need: an urban environment, good running shoes, and the athletic ability of a circus performer

Part urban jogging, part acrobatics, free running is the practice of using urban environments as a makeshift jungle gym. Essentially, free runners have decided that jumping from building to building is no longer the sole remit of Hollywood movies. Employing a variety of impact minimization techniques and acrobatic skill, free runners scale buildings, jump from roof tops, and pretty much spit the face of gravity.  In the last few years, free runners have taken YouTube by storm with thousands of videos showcasing their prowess.

The activity has become so popular that a number of associations and schools have popped up to educate and organize participants. One such organization, the Tempest Free Running Academy, opened in April 2011 and is home to seven thousand square feet of indoor training space. Designed by Nate Wessel, an X-Games park and ramp builder, the space features massive trampolines, gymnastic spring floors, and foam pit, all built around a Mario-themed urban playground. Check out the brilliant promo video they put together to promote its grand opening.

So if you have the acrobatic ability of Bruce Lee in his prime, absolutely no fear of bodily harm in public places, and a video camera, you could be free running you’re way into YouTube history.

2. Wing Suit Skydiving

What you need: a wing suit, a skydiving certificate with hundreds of jumps under your belt, a total lack of fear

If you’ve ever asked the question: “how can I make base jumping more dangerous?”  then wing suit skydiving is your answer.  A wing suit is a specially made jumpsuit with fabric connecting the arms to the legs so that the skydiver dramatically can influence the direction and speed of their free fall.  Often called “squirrel suits” for their resemblance to the woodland creature, this extreme sport has gain international attention for its intensity and daring. Check it out in action:

The suit adds considerable complexity to sky diving and the United States Parachute Association recommends that first-time wingsuit jumpers have a minimum of 200 jumps under their belt before attempting to use the suit. Additional, special 1-on-1 training by veteran wing suit jumpers is also recommended. So if you’re feeling crazy, have tons of money, and time to jump out of planes on a regular basis, you may just be right for wing suit skydiving.

1. Extreme Ironing

What you need: an iron, an ironing board, some ruffled clothes, the desire to take domestic activities outside the home

No-one likes to iron their clothes; it’s an annoying chore that we must all endure to look spiffy for work. But what if you could take that chore and kick it up a notch by going sky diving or rock climbing while doing it. Well, that’s pretty much the premise behind extreme ironing.

While it takes the appearance of a viral advertising campaign, this “sport” actually goes back to 1997. An English man named Phil Shaw conceived of the idea in his backyard and subsequently embarked on a nationwide campaign promote it by ironing clothes in weirder and weirder places. It became a viral internet hit and soon people from around the world were scaling mountains and diving undersea in pursuit of the most extreme ironing photos. Shaw describes the sport as something that “combines the thrills of an extreme sport with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt.” It’s pretty much the most English activity ever.

If you are desperate for more ironing related information, check out the made for T.V. documentary called Extreme Ironing: Pressing for Victory. That or a simple Google search will turn up thousands of pictures and videos of “ironists” in action.

Huayna Picchu / Peru / August 06 2008

It might seem like a giant thigh-burning lunge from teaching classes in the comfort of a slick modern Edmonton yoga studio to leading clients up to Machu Picchu, the famed “Lost City of the Incas,” for a few early morning sun salutations. But Cole Williston was ready to feel the burn of starting his own adventure travel company. Through Plan It Adventure, Williston guides adventure-seeking yoga enthusiasts on 12- and 22-day trips through Peru. Daily activities can involve trekking through the Amazon rainforest, cavorting with primates in the nature reserve of Monkey Island, mountain biking in the Andean highlands, hiking through the dry-stone walls of Machu Picchu or building a playground for a remote rainforest community. Williston took a break between downward dogs and business plans to talk about giving eco-awareness a hit of adrenalin, helping out the communities he travels to and leaving the planet “more loved than when he found it.”

Making Something Bigger Than Yoga
It was the breathing with movement that made a lot of sense to me. And I was hungry for spirituality. Having been to only a few yoga classes, I knew I needed to learn more. In 2001, I took a three-month training and certification course at the Chakra Yoga Center in Koh Phangan on a beach island in southeast Thailand.

After I got back to Edmonton I taught for a year at Lion’s Breath yoga studio, which a friend Breanna Johnson helped open. Later, Breanna opened her own studio, Shanti Yoga Studio. So I began teaching there, among other places. It took some time to build up my confidence before I was able to move forward on any big ideas but there were elements that started to come together for me: a passion for travel, yoga and community service. I wanted something that I could make bigger than just myself.

Letting the Good Times Roll
Having taught yoga for five years, I convinced myself that I should go to school, so I took out a loan for a massage therapy program. Four months into it, I realized that I wasn’t excited. Plan It Adventure was the next step. I dropped out of the massage program, planned an itinerary and took the rest of the money to travel to Peru. I financed a second trip by teaching 25 classes a week for a couple of months. Frankly, I didn’t have a lot of money left over for advertising, but I knew that I could use my yoga contacts to spread the word.

There have already been so many highlights. For instance, while we were acclimatizing in Cusco – which is 3,300 metres above sea level – we went hiking, mountain biking and whitewater rafting, which also gave us some cardio training. We hiked up Machu Picchu at 3:30 a.m. to beat the lineups and then continued up the nose of the mountain to watch the sunrise. We were the first of maybe 200 other hikers, and we got an amazing view of the Inca ruins and the valley. Near the Peruvian border with Ecuador, we went dune buggying, surfing and to the mud flats. Then we stayed at a really cool yoga bungalow.

“Sell in May and go away.” It’s a popular aphorism among stock market watchers, who believe (with some justification) that equity markets tend to under-perform during the sleepy summer months. This year, I’ve decided to heed that bit of accumulated wisdom, but I’m taking it a step further: I’m never coming back.

My decision doesn’t have anything to do with my anticipated rate of return, mind you. I don’t have a hunch that the global economy is about to nosedive, and I don’t subscribe to the theory that the recovery we’re experiencing right now is just an echo of the one that separated the 1929 stock market crash from the bottom it finally found in 1932. It’s not even about a potential conflict of interest between my personal investments and my professional obligations as a business journalist, although that’s always a concern. No, I’m getting out of the equity markets because I believe that they’re fundamentally unethical, and I want no part of the future that they’re busy underwriting.

It wasn’t always this way. Thanks to a very modest inheritance from one of my grandparents, I was finally in the fortunate position of being able to invest in something other than the repayment of my debts. And given that I’d decided to become a journalist, a profession in which the pay is modest (at best) and the possibility of collecting a meaningful workplace pension almost non-existent, it seemed prudent to try and maximize the return on my investments. That meant the stock market.

But the more I studied the markets, the more I came to realize that there was a tension between my self-interest as an investor and my self-interest as a human being. It’s always problematic to speak in general terms about something as diverse and complex as the global equity markets, but if there’s one characteristic that they all share, from the Dow Jones on down to the most esoteric sub-index on the most inconsequential local exchange, it’s the premium they place on growth. The bottom line (profitability) almost always takes a back seat to the top line (revenue).

If we were living on a planet with an infinite supply of resources, or one in which the costs of environmental degradation, resource depletion and pollution were accurately reflected on a company’s balance sheet, the premium that the markets place on growth wouldn’t be a problem. But we don’t, and so it is. The earth cannot continue to support the level of consumption that we take for granted today in North America, and it absolutely cannot support any further expansion of our global appetites.

Given these environmental constraints, the alternative – the answer – is a steady-state (or zero-growth) economy, one in which our fetish for growth is replaced by a focus on the most effective deployment and use of available resources. Those pushing for a steady-state economy – and they are many, including an increasingly wide variety of economists and even a few politicians – aren’t arguing on behalf of forcible poverty or the deliberate degradation of our quality of life. Instead, they’re merely pointing out the obvious – that we can’t continue to live the way we do without finding a few extra planets to strip mine – and suggesting a reasonable alternative. As John Stuart Mill pointed out in Principles of Political Economy more than a century ago, “the increase of wealth is not boundless. The end of growth leads to a stationary state. The stationary state of capital and wealth… would be a very considerable improvement on our present condition.” That’s even truer today.

The markets, unfortunately, do not subscribe to this view. In fact, by prioritizing growth above profitability, they effectively campaign for its exact opposite. There are many examples of this agenda in action, but perhaps the best one is Microsoft, a stock that remains obscenely profitable but has been punished by the markets for its inability to continue to grow at the pace to which they have become accustomed. As such, it became increasingly clear that my decision to invest in the stock market was fundamentally at odds with my interest in ensuring that the health of our environment and our species aren’t sacrificed at the altar of economic growth . It was one or the other, my principles or my pocketbook.

This might all sound like pointless moral posturing, a campaign in pursuit of a pyrrhic victory if there ever was one. After all, the markets won’t miss me. My investments, such as they are, might amount to half a year’s worth of living expenses. Nobody at Goldman Sachs is worried about my decision to exit the markets – hell, they wouldn’t worry if there were ten thousand of me. But I didn’t make the decision to divest myself from the stock market because I thought it would actually make a difference – I’d have to snort all the cocaine in Columbia to be that self-aggrandizing.

Instead, the decision to divest is about finding a way to do something about the sense of powerlessness that has gnawed at me for the last few years. It’s a feeling that often manifests itself in the form of a recurring dream in which I’m seated on a train that I know, on some deeper level, is headed in the wrong direction. The problem is that it’s dangerous to try and get off at speed and impossible to reverse its course, so I sit quietly and wait for the terrible outcome that I know lies ahead. Mercifully, in my dream I wake up before that outcome arrives, but I may not get a similar reprieve in my waking life if things keep going the way they are. Getting out of the stock market is my way, however small and ultimately inconsequential it is, of doing something about that train.

Anyways, if I’d done this in order to collect congratulatory pats on the back I would have been very disappointed. When I shared my decision with friends and family, the most common response was confusion, followed by something just short of anger. Couldn’t I just select companies that weren’t actively ruining the world, a friend asked? What about ethical funds? But this supposed solution misunderstands the very nature of the problem. There are plenty of respectable companies that trade more often in virtue than in vice that are listed on the global stock markets, but it’s not the players I have a problem with but instead the game itself. Investing in equities, any equities, is to provide consent to a system that I don’t want to support.

One family member suggested that I ought to focus on being ethical with my behaviour, rather than with my investments. But aren’t our financial investments one of the most important forms of ethically-driven behaviour in which we engage? When we invest in British Petroleum and then support a local environmental charity, don’t the two actions effectively cancel each other out? What’s the point in that? More importantly, isn’t the separation of behaviour and investing a convenient – and ultimately self-serving – dichotomy?

Until the market finds a way and a willingness to reward something other than unfettered and unthinking growth, I’m going to give it a pass. What does that leave me with? Here’s the best part of all, because I can still invest in the things I truly believe in: governments. By investing in government bonds, be they provincial, federal, municipal or agency bonds, I can lend my money to the one player that’s still capable, if not yet willing, of addressing the utter mess that we’ve created for ourselves. In the interim, by buying government debt I’m providing the funding for the programs and services that I believe are essential to the vitality of our country and our way of life. I can buy bonds issued by my favourite province, my favourite municipality or even my favourite provincial utility. Sure, as it stands right now buying Government of Canada bonds means that I’m funding a few too many engineless fighter jets and maximum-security prisons for my liking, but given the environmental implications of our growth-obsessed equity markets I’d still rather be in the business of bankrolling a government that I don’t like than a multinational corporation that I do.

Right now, of course, government debt isn’t an investment that pays particularly well. With interest rates at once-in-a-lifetime lows, government debt barely beats the rate of inflation. I’d almost be better off stuffing the cash under my mattress than keeping it tied up at two or three per cent. Still, while I’d like to pretend that I’m voluntarily sacrificing the higher rate of return I could get in stocks in the name of ethics and morality – all self-improvement is at some level about sacrifice, right? – the truth of the matter is that I’m pretty confident I will, over the long-term, be able to get similar returns. Interest rates might be pitifully low right now but that’s not going to last very long if governments around the world continue to print money and otherwise debauch and degrade their currencies.

Meanwhile, there’s no guarantee that I could even beat the measly returns I’ll get in government debt if I were invested in the stock market. Like most investors, I did just about everything that I possibly could to sabotage my returns. I bought high, sold low, panicked when I shouldn’t have and didn’t when I should have. Yes, the annualized rate of return on the S&P 500 over the last 20 years is 8.2 per cent, but that figure doesn’t accurately reflect the returns earned by real – and really stupid – investors like me. In fact, according to a bunch of studies over those same 20 years the average equity investor has only seen annualized returns somewhere in the neighbourhood of three to four per cent – not much better, in other words, than the ten-year yield on a Government of Canada bond. In fact, the combination of rising interest rates and a hands-off approach (GICs and government bonds only) might actually net me a better rate of return over the long-run than my over-anxious and meddlesome attempts at managing my own portfolio produced.

Am I an idiot for doing all of this? Maybe. Probably. But I’m a happier idiot. In the end, for me at least, it comes down to the real meaning of the term “rate of return.” Will equities outperform government bonds over the next five, ten, or twenty years? Almost certainly. The problem is that the markets in which those equities are priced and traded are a fundamental part of a belief system that is doing grievous harm to our natural environment, and I’m no longer willing to give my sanction to the inevitable consequences that flow from that. After all, what’s the point in having more money if you’re poorer for it in the end?

Regardless of what you might have been told, asked to repeat while standing in front of a mirror (pants optional), advised to pin on a vision board or have heard people testify to on talk shows, you cannot control the universe with your thoughts. True story.

Some people might just store that little nugget of wisdom in the old “thanks-for-the-tip-captain-obvious” folder, but the pushers of this sort of visualization success and positive thinking make up a billion dollar industry.

Self-help authors, motivational speakers, life coaches and psychologists who are promising healthier lives and almost infinite wealth through nothing but positive thinking, are raking in obscene amounts of money.

For Barbara Ehrenreich however, the positive pill was just too much to swallow.

Back in 2001, Ehrenreich gained prominence for her investigative writing with The New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America. In that book, Ehrenreich challenged the notion that people could survive when working minimum wage jobs. This time around, she set out to challenge the benefits the business of positive thinking had on society.

Before the columnist and social activist wrote the 2009 book Bright-Sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Reaching out for sisterly support, Ehrenreich was inundated with advice to stay positive. She was told by other ladies with breast cancer, nurses and doctors to remove all negativity from her life because the only way to become healthy again was to maintain a positive attitude.

With a PhD in biology (and a thesis paper penned on the subject of cellular immunology), Ehrenreich was a little sceptical of this medical approach. Although she admits that studies have proven extreme stress can destroy an immune system, that doesn’t mean the opposite is true. Studies haven’t yet proven that a positive attitude will boost an immune system, she asserts.

Ehrenreich didn’t come out of her ordeal with cancer more spiritual or evolved, and she certainly didn’t see getting cancer as a gift. “If you think cancer is a gift, take me off your Christmas list,” Ehrenreich says in a speech at the Commonwealth Club in Palo Alto, Calif. She overcame the illness through medical treatment and moved on.

Back on her feet, Ehrenreich noticed the powers of positive thinking were being espoused in more industries than just health care. When the financial crisis hit in 2008, she was sure there was a connection.

In Bright-Sided, Ehrenreich traces the origins of positive thinking back to the early 19^th century, with roots as a quiet uprising against fire and brimstone theology. Evolving from a marginal healing technique, the sunny disposition turned into a popular strategy for business success as early as 1936 with Andrew Carnegie’s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, which is still in print today.

With a penchant for economic inequality reporting, Ehrenreich effectively guides the reader through positive thinking’s early stages to its zenith in the 1980s when it grips the mindset of corporate America and by extension, society as a whole.

The message being promoted by motivational speakers, self-help authors (think Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret in 2006), psychologists and certain religions, is that people can have anything they desire – and God and the universe want them to have it – as long as they are positive. The only thing standing between infinite wealth, the perfect spouse, a promotion at work and a top bill of health is a few negative thoughts.

In layman’s terms, Ehrenreich debunks the “science” used to prove the effectiveness of positive thinking. However, it’s not the idea of positivity that Ehrenreich takes to task throughout the 200-page book. The real issue that Ehrenreich attempts to shed light on is the “relentless promotion.”

By promoting nothing but positive thoughts and feelings, proponents of this ideology ask people to banish anything (or anyone) negative from their lives. Ehrenreich argues that by not even considering the downside of a situation, people and businesses, set themselves up for great disappointments. It’s this ideological force that, “encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate.”

On a corporate level, Ehrenreich asserts that this mentality helped fuel the financial sector and eventually sent the economy into its downward spiral.

But despite the author’s scathing critique of the powers of positive thinking, don’t mistake her for a grouch. After all, she did write the book on joy – literally. In 2007, Ehrenreich wrote Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy.

Ehrenreich is not against having a nice day or smiling at strangers and she’s not promoting depression or sadness, just realism.

Perhaps the one area where Bright-Sided falls short is a lack of an alternative ideology. In the introduction, Ehrenreich does outline what she wishes for society: “Once our basic material needs are met – in my utopia anyway – life becomes a perpetual celebration in which everyone has a talent to contribute. But we cannot levitate ourselves into that blessed condition by wishing it. We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles, both of our own making and imposed by the natural world. And the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking.”

And on the book’s last page, Ehrenreich reaffirms the rallying cry. “The threats we face are real and can be vanquished only by shaking off self-absorption and taking action in the world. Build up the levees, get food to the hungry, find the cure, strengthen the ‘first responders’! We will not succeed at all these things, certainly not all at once, but – if I may end with my own personal secret of happiness – we can have a good time trying.”

But these, along with a few other of the book’s offerings of healthy scepticism, seem more an attempt to create awareness for what can result from unchallenged optimism.

As Ehrenreich points out in her book however, part of the success behind the positive thinking movement is people’s innate desire to belong to a group. So, without an organized alternative to positive thinking, perhaps the days of vision boards and positive personal pep-talks in the mirror are still far from over.

It used to be that if you wanted to drop a few pounds ahead of an important event, you’d hit the gym. Some people prefer to jog, jump on the rowing machine or maybe lift some weights. But if you’re Beyonce Knowles looking to trim your waistline in preparation for a starring role in a Hollywood movie, you reach for the cayenne pepper. Throw in some lemon juice and a dash of maple syrup. Mix it all together in a glass of water and you’re left with what’s called the Master Cleanse – the gold standard of “detox” programs that seem to be everywhere online these days but rarely show up in medical textbooks.

Knowles reportedly used the program in the run-up to her appearance in the 2006 movie Dreamgirls, and she is far from alone. A growing legion of everyday dieters have followed the path set by the famous songstress, shunning the simple practice of regular exercise and healthy eating in favour of esoteric herbal remedies and strange concoctions that promise to accelerate weight loss and alleviate health problems in several quick, though not necessarily tasty, gulps. “It’s almost like bloodletting, where there’s something in your body that’s toxic to the system so you have to release it,” says Dr. Arya Sharma, a specialist in bariatric medicine at the University of Alberta.

Proponents of the sort of cure-all cleansing regimens promoted by the likes of U.S.-based nutritionist Ann Louise Gittleman share a common trait. “They spend a lot of money,” Dr. Sharma says. “Not that there’s any evidence whatsoever in medical literature showing that anybody who’s ever been cleansed is living happily longer than anybody else.”

That hasn’t stopped the business of purification from thriving like bacteria in a Petri dish. The programs, which boast sunny names like “Renew Life” or “Blessed Herbs,” typically involve fasting, nutritional supplements, food restriction or some combination of the three. More often than not, practitioners seek to cleanse their gastrointestinal system of unsavory chemicals and substances believed to cause allergies, exhaustion and even certain forms of cancer. Websites for programs like Gittleman’s “Fat Flush Plan” advertise self improvement in the most literal of terms. “Cleanse your colon,” one boasts. “Discover your body’s inner harmony,” implores another.

Ms. Gittleman’s “Fat Flush Plan,” to take one of the more popular detox programs, itself made famous by a New York Times bestseller of the same name, makes bold promises. It targets the liver, which Gittleman believes is less able to metabolize fat because of toxins in the body. One of her detox regimens (there are now several incarnations) consists of a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet worth about 1,200 calories a day. No alcohol, caffeine, sugar, grains, bread, starch-rich veggies, dairy products, fats or oils are allowed. Instead, participants drink a special brew of diluted cranberry juice throughout the day, followed by a helping of ground flaxseeds in the evening.

While it won’t scintillate anybody’s taste buds, the regimen promises to break through “the stubborn weight loss plateau every dieter faces,” Gittleman’s website says. Bollocks, Dr. Sharma counters. “I don’t even know what they’re trying to clean,” he bristles. He attributes the popularity of cleansing and, more broadly, quick-fix weight loss programs to a general ignorance about the inner workings of the human body. A healthy liver is quite capable of processing compounds and chemicals on its own. Unwanted stuff gets channeled to the intestines or else to the kidneys, where it’s excreted as either stool or urine. “Most people don’t understand how the human body works,” Dr. Sharma says, “and most people have no idea how energy metabolism works.”

The knowledge gap has created a lucrative market for savvy – some would say opportunistic – entrepreneurs. Health Canada defines natural health products as those items “made from natural sources, often sold in dosage form” and “designed to maintain or promote health; to restore or correct human health function; or to diagnose, treat or prevent disease.” In Canada, there were more than 17,600 distinct natural health products on store shelves in 2007. The industry was worth a whopping $3.7 billion that year, Statistics Canada says, basing its figure on a survey of more than 600 retailers that sell any number of common natural products like Echinacea or Witch Hazel. “Remember we’re talking about a massive industry here,” Dr. Sharma says. “This is not some Mom-and-Pop operation where some guy is making some herbal thing in his basement. These are huge, multimillion-dollar companies.”

It’s not clear that Statistics Canada tracks sales of so-called cleansing “kits” like those proffered by the likes of Ms. Gittleman. Indeed, one of the difficulties in assessing the size and reach of the more esoteric dieting programs is that, unlike purveyors of natural health products, who traffic in recognizable items like St. John’s Wort, over-the-counter vitamins, minerals or other homeopathic remedies, cleansing “kits” exist on the fringes of Health Canada’s regulations, Dr. Sharma notes. The federal agency “does not have the manpower to police the millions of concoctions and programs and things that are being offered and claims that are being made,” he says.

It’s easy to see why. Type “weight loss” or “detox” into Google and it returns with millions of hits – 232 million and 35.2 million, respectively. (Among the top results presented in a mid-May query for “weight loss” were advertisements for “Dr. Bernstein Weight Loss,” which assured visitors they could “safely” lose up to 20 pounds per month, and the “No Hunger Diet,” whose website asks, perhaps a bit mysteriously, “Why are Japanese Women So Skinny?”)

The smorgasbord of search results reveals another difficulty in health management. In a hyper-connected age, ensuring patients have access to accurate and credible information has never been so hard. Dr. Sharma says acute medical conditions yield radically different search results than their more generic counterparts. Query “diabetes” and the Canadian Diabetes Association ranks among the top links; search for “weight loss” and you get any number of programs, replete with images of bulging waistlines or trademarked diet plans. It’s not as though credible information doesn’t exist, Dr. Sharma notes. “But if I’m a little dietician who specializes in obesity management or I’m a psychologist who specializes in obesity management, I’m not going to have a $50,000 website that is search engine optimized to show up as No. 1 on Google,” he says. “You’ll never find me.”

The information vacuum is one reason the U of A professor, in conjunction with the Canadian Obesity Network, is launching COACH, short for the Canadian Obesity Awareness and Control Initiative for Health. The goal is to develop a sort of online clearinghouse of credible information where would-be patients can access reliable facts, figures and numbers. While primarily focused on mitigating obesity – a “chronic disease” Dr. Sharma says affects some 16 million Canadians and costs the country untold sums in lost productivity and health care expenses – the COACH initiative could easily serve as a model for regulating the purple-monkey-dishwasher business of “detox” diets. “I don’t know of a cleansing diet that actually helps you lose fat,” Dr. Sharma says. “It might clear what’s in your gut, and that may be a couple of kilos, but that’s not fat.

The world seems to be filled with gurus, life coaches and 10 step plans these days. Whether people are more screwed up than ever or for the first time, they’re actually trying to change themselves, it’s hard to tell. What’s obvious is that “self help” industry has reached unprecedented size with over $13 billion dollars being spent in America on self help books, products, and seminars in 2010. Out of the deluge of guides and how-to’s, a few ideas and programs have emerged that don’t just help people, they shake up conventional notions about self improvement and how to go about changing oneself. What follows are three of the most innovative solutions to common problems.

Need to Quit Smoking?

There are thousands of quit smoking books, programs, and products available on the market, each one claiming to be a sure-fire solution to your addiction. No single method or product claims dominance in this field because fighting addiction is often specific to an individual’s biology or upbringing. But there is one sneaky way to bypass both your biology and upbringing by targeting a universal human trait to form basis of your quit smoking program: fear of losing money. Next time you try to quit smoking, put money on it. And not just a little money, try upwards of 5% of your yearly earnings. If you knew you would lose a couple thousand dollars from taking a single puff, do you think that pack of cigarettes would be as alluring? Probably not, or at least, that’s what data gathered by economists and social scientists around the world suggests. Humans are driven by incentives. Almost everything we do is governed by how we perceive value in undertaking specific actions. By putting a real chunk of money on the line, the incentive to keep to your goal is intensified. Economists have long known about the power of incentives and recently three enterprising academics have put the concept to work. Dean Karlan, an Economics professor at Yale University, Ian Ayres, a Law professor at Yale University and Jordan Goldberg, a student from Yale School of Management started stickk.com to help you… adhere to your goals through monetary incentives. The website allows you put money on a goal of your choice and a suitable penalty for failure. You provide them with credit card details, the names of a couple of “referees” who will tattle on you if you break your word, and even the place your money will end up if you fail. For added incentive, you can specify an organization that you hate to get your money in the event of your failure. Mark Twain famously wrote “quitting smoking is easy, I’ve done it hundreds of times” but perhaps the story would have been different if every time he failed to quit, $2000 of his own money went to the Klu Klux Klan.

Gambling/Saving Problem?

Two common problems that currently affect western society are gambling addiction and a failure to save adequately. Until recently, these have been treated as separate issues but an innovative program called the “Save To Win” seeks to bring these divergent problems together under one solution. Consider the following American gambling statistic: gamblers with household incomes under $10,000 participate nearly three times as often in lotteries as those with incomes over $50,000. Isn’t it bizarre that those who can least afford to gamble are more likely to do it? Add to it the realization that low income individuals are just as unlikely to save money as the rest of us are and you have the makings of a real social problem.   Save To Win’s innovation is that it combines a lottery, a form of gambling most popular with low income people, with a savings account. Essentially, account holders “purchase” a lottery ticket by increasing the amount they hold in their savings account. For every $25 dollars you save each month, you gain another entry into the lottery. At the end of each month, one lucky account holder is awarded $100,000 and the contest starts all over again.  In a recent interview for Freakonomics Radio:, Melissa Kearney, an economist at the University of Maryland, said this is especially attractive for low income individuals because:

“Low-wealth individuals [believe] the only asset available to them that gives them some chance of accumulating a large amount of money is the state lottery. In fact, a recent national survey of a thousand adults, one in five American adults said their greatest chance of accumulating hundreds of thousands of dollars is through the lottery”

“Save To Win” combines the psychological draw of a lottery (financial freedom) with an actual increase personal savings. Variants on this program are currently popping up in credit unions all over the states and forms of them have been in use in the U.K. for years. It’s only a matter of time before we’re all saving for retirement, one lottery ticket at a time.

Alcohol Abuse?

Do know every bartender in town’s first and last name?  Do you think flaming sambuca is a just a warm-up shot? Do you swallow your mouthwash? If so, you may be an alcoholic and you’ll probably want to kick that addiction at some point. The world champions of alcoholism, the Russians, have recently come to that conclusion when it was realized that around 500,000 people die each year in Russia due to alcohol abuse.  Rather than rely on social programs to combat the problem, Russians have begun to embrace a particularly extreme solution colloquially known as “the torpedo.” The torpedo is a tiny pill that is inserted under the skin of your buttocks and is made of a substance called “disulfuram.” The practical effect of this bizarre procedure is that if even a drop of alcohol touches your tongue while disulfuram is in your system, you’ll be rendered senseless by agony and you may even die.  The powerful effects of disulfuram were discovered when it was noticed that workers in the rubber industry, an industry that uses the compound in its processing, were unable to tolerate alcohol. According to Dr. Eugene Raikhel, a Russian doctor who was recently interviewed by Radiolab contributor Kai Ryssdal, this approach to addiction management is extremely common with over 80 percent of addiction treatments by Russian doctors proscribing procedures similar to the torpedo. While incentives play a big part of any self help regime, perhaps disincentives should be pursued if you really mean business. If you thought money motivated you to do things, pain and death may do wonders. (Note: You can be proscribed an oral version of disulfuram in North America by your doctor but the psychological reinforcement of having a pill inserted into your behind should not be underestimated.)

Follow Andrew at @Andrew_NVS

It seems like everyone is searching for the key to happiness, but with so many places to look, how can you find it? According to Joshua Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, known online as The Minimalists, one solution is to get rid of all the hiding places.

The pair embraced a minimalist philosophy two years ago, purging the vast majority of their possessions in an effort to lead simpler lives. The idea is to get rid of unnecessary junk and free yourself, clearing a path to happiness and your ultimate “mission.”

In December 2010, Millburn and Nicodemus elected to start sharing their experiences with the world through their blog, which now boasts more than 20,000 readers. Nicodemus says he’s down to about 95 per cent of the stuff he used to own, and both agree that adopting minimalism has been the catalyst to fundamental changes in their mindsets and priorities.

In the past, Millburn and Nicodemus, both 29, held six-figure jobs and owned nice cars and houses, but still found themselves feeling unhappy. “We had all this stuff that made us look successful but we were only ostensibly successful. We were successful by these weird standards that are set forth by our culture and we didn’t feel happy. In fact, we felt depressed because of it,” says Millburn.

It’s when the two discovered minimalism through blogger Ev Bogue that things began to change. In getting rid of items they didn’t need, keeping only the essentials, the fog of depression that had surrounded them began to lift as well.

“[Minimalism] gives us a tool to get rid of everything that is not that important to us to focus on the things we find more important,” explains Millburn, who says the adopting a minimalist lifestyle helped him and Nicodemus figure out what really mattered in life. “It didn’t become clear at all until we stopped focusing on all of the crap in our lives and started really asking ourselves some tough questions about what is important to us.”

Case in point: when Millburn’s mother died in 2009, a thousand miles away from his home in Ohio, he was left to deal with a lifetime’s worth of accumulated possessions. It wasn’t easy, but he wound up simply getting rid everything. “It was incredibly emotional and difficult at the time but I’m really thankful that I did. It opened my eyes up to realize that the memories aren’t really in the stuff, the memories are within us,” Millburn says.

Through minimalism, Millburn and Nicodemus identified some key factors of importance to them. These include their health (once the chubby kids in high school, they now go to the gym together five times a week), their relationships with friends and family, and their ability to contribute to others in a meaningful way.

Millburn and Nicodemus began writing essays about their steps to self-discovery in December 2010. “Our Journey” is a 21-part chronicle that describes their experiences with minimalism in detail, and guides readers through becoming minimalists themselves, one day at a time.

Despite the debt they owe to minimalism, Millburn and Nicodemus agree that you can still be happy even if you own a lot of stuff. Even Millburn, who once rounded up all 288 things he owns online, can arguably be seen as materialistic when compared to self-described “radical minimalists” like Nina Yau. The two don’t view getting rid of stuff as a miracle solution that brings instant happiness. “For us, minimalism is more or less just a tool that is going to allow us to get there quicker,” Millburn says. “The wrench that you have is not going to fix your car. However, you’re probably going to use that wrench in order to fix the car.”

Luckily, unlike in many other isms, there are no hard rules to being a minimalist, says Millburn. “The good news is that minimalism is not one-size fits all. It can apply to anyone’s life. We have some minimalist friends that we’ve met online and in person and they really run the full gamut. You have families that have several kids that are minimalist; you have guys that are significantly younger than us that travel all over the world that are minimalists. We’re probably somewhere in between that.”

So what’s changed since Millburn and Nicodemus gave away, sold or threw out almost everything they respectively owned? For one, they’ve got a lot more time on their hands. They’ve taken to spending much of that time giving back to the community, volunteering with organizations like Habitat for Humanity and local soup kitchens. “Before I started getting in this whole minimalist mindset, I didn’t really donate a lot of time to community outreach events. I didn’t really donate anything to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. I certainly didn’t take phone calls from people in different states to help them and talk them through the clutter in their life. This has really enabled me to put the important things in front,” Nicodemus says.

Yes, phone calls. Millburn and Nicodemus receive a lot of emails, often from distraught people needing some direction or help in minimizing their lives. They respond to all of them, but sometimes people are clearly lost and don’t know where to start, says Nicodemus. In such cases, he acts as a kind of “pseudo-counselor,” offering help and guidance over the phone. “We’ve had quite a few people take us up on that and at least move their lives in the right direction. It always feels good to get follow-up messages from them a month or two later and let us know what their progress is,” Nicodemus says.

In most cases, that progress is positive. But exercise caution: tossing your stuff is not the end of the road, says Millburn. “Getting rid of your possessions is sort of like the first step. If you were to just run and grab all your stuff and throw it in a dumpster and think it’s gonna make you happy, it’s not. It’s more about growing as an individual and contributing to other people.”

My first visit to a social housing complex in Alberta was to deliver furniture to a derelict four-storey building immediately north of downtown Edmonton. A man slept on the mud covering the linoleum floor of the entrance as we waited to be buzzed in. A sign hung on the wall that read, “No visitors after 11 p.m.”

I keep an uncomfortable distance from the man sleeping on the floor. I’m 6’2” but somehow felt threatened by him. The feeling was odd, since I volunteer on Wednesday nights delivering furniture, including beds, to Edmontonians like the man sleeping on the floor. Many of the people receiving the furniture live in small, empty apartments with no furniture, no pots or pans and no TV.

“These people have their dignity,” Daryl Dittrich reminds me as we carry a sofa up three flights of stairs into an empty apartment on a humid Friday afternoon. Daryl is a retiree who volunteers full-time, managing the Society of St. Vincent de Paul operation in Edmonton. He spends his days picking up donated furniture, organizing the distribution centre and delivering items to people who need it. Daryl spends most of his afternoons (and mornings) moving furniture. He inspects every piece of furniture donated to the centre. If it’s broken or stained, or just in bad shape, then it’s not fit to give away.

Like everyone else at Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Daryl is a volunteer. While he often volunteers than 12 hours a day, people like me show up once or more a week, helping out after work. Some drive the society’s three trucks, others load and unload furniture. Some fold clothing donations and others test and fix electronics that are donated to the society.

This Friday afternoon, a sweaty-hot day in late May, Daryl and another volunteer, Darcy Knoll, work to tighten screws on a rocking chair at the distribution centre. “The golden rule of the society,” Darcy says, “is that we wouldn’t give out an item if we wouldn’t use it ourselves.” It’s a lesson that I’ve had to learn since I started volunteering at St. Vincent de Paul. The attitude that damaged furniture is “better than nothing” is not welcome. Neither is it alright to accept damaged furniture as a donation. I have, in days past, “donated” furniture and clothing unfit for a dog to a variety of charities.

My attitude changed when I actually had to face the people on the receiving end of a donation. It’s probably the single-most powerful lesson I’ve learned in volunteering at a charity: Do I have the audacity to come into this person’s house and give them a three-legged chair? How about a left shoe without its mate? The hard truth, that many volunteers learn when they start at a charity like St. Vincent de Paul, is that you can’t look a person in the eye and give them garbage.

In fact, dropping off rotten furniture at places like Goodwill, the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul will actually hurt the charity’s bottom line. Until I spent the afternoon with Daryl, I didn’t realize that filthy couches are sent to the dump at the charity’s expense.

At about 9 p.m. Friday night, Daryl had a truck full of quality donations from Sherwood Park left to unload. He would still be working at 10 p.m. I asked him why he volunteered so much. “I’m a perfectionist,” he says. “I see the need of what has to be done, and then I’ll do it.” Another reason might be that the task of managing the inflow and outflow of donations to the centre is enormous. The charity is operating under very limited space, which means that items that aren’t delivered occupy space incoming donations would otherwise use.

But there’s another reason Daryl, myself and others volunteer at charities like St. Vincent de Paul. As Daryl says, “You can see the fruits of your labour.” It’s a simple enough concept, but it’s powerful. As a magazine journalist, it takes months to see the final version of my articles shipped to the printer. As a volunteer, every Wednesday I get to see someone, like the man sleeping on the floor of his building, move onto a bed.

When Cole Christensen packed his small car full of his possessions last March and began the long drive to his new home, his mind raced with last minute doubts. “What am I doing?” he wondered, a question that was afforded plenty of time to reflect on over a 10-hour solo drive across the Prairies. “By the time I got to Swift Current, about five hours way,” says Christensen, “I was pretty apprehensive.”

The 23-year-old had just accepted his first real job, in small-town Saskatchewan. It was a big move for a city kid who grew up in Calgary and also attended university in the city. Small-town life was also a lot less glamorous then Christensen’s previous gig, on a three-month internship with a public relations firm in Singapore. But when a community newspaper in Yorkton, Saskatchewan – population 17,600 – offered Christensen a job as a sports reporter, he said yes.

Despite his own apprehension, coupled with the skepticism of friends and family who questioned his move far away, Christensen says leaving his hometown for a place where he knew no one turned out to be an amazing opportunity. Away from the comforts and familiarities of the city and people he knew, Christensen says he experienced, for the first time, what it was like to truly be on his own. “I had to sink or swim just being myself,” he says. “It would definitely be one of the most rewarding experiences that I’ve had.”

While stories like Christensen’s international experiences in Singapore seem to be more common than his tale of packing his car and driving to a new province, relocating for work – especially as a recent graduate – has many benefits. Glamorous international travel opportunities are attractive but expensive. The realities of navigating a new job in a new city or town, completely on your own, can be even more rewarding – and not just for your career.

“Moving to another city or starting fresh in a town really puts a lot of life skills in you,” says David Cataford, a career advisor at the University of Calgary. “It’s good to take some chances and take some risks and try something new.” Cataford says many of the students he advises want to stay in Calgary for work, but he often encourages recent graduates to look outside of the city they currently call home

“Somebody once told me that students should have skills and a suitcase and they should be willing to move,” says Cataford. For certain careers, like teaching, looking beyond job positions in the city to rural areas can help graduates to keep their options open. Other people can also benefit from looking at job opportunities in new places. “Don’t close yourself off and be open to moving if you have to, especially when you’re young and you’ve just graduated,” says Cataford. “You have the power to pick and choose where you want to live.”

That’s what Jillian Walker, a 27-year old HR professional, recently discovered. Walker was born and raised on Salt Spring Island, B.C., then moved to Calgary to attend university. For the last four-and-a-half years, Walker has worked for the same employer in various HR roles in Calgary.

Walker has stayed busy balancing her full-time job with evening university classes, but she’s been looking for what she describes as her “dream role” since graduating with a bachelor of management in December 2010. Opportunities through her recent academic studies, including winning KPMG’s national “What makes a top employer” contest, led Walker to meet top executives from around the world and exposed her to the multiple opportunities out there.

“I interviewed with company after company after company, never able to find what I was looking for, “says Walker. But a meeting through Twitter with the president and CEO of Elevated HR Solutions recently led Walker to her dream job. The HR startup is expanding and when the president and CEO offered Walker a position and asked her where she wanted to move, Walker chose Vancouver.

In addition to the professional experience she’ll gain from running the company’s Vancouver and Seattle offices, Walker is looking forward to her move to a new city – which she is currently in the midst of packing for. “Many of my peers are apprehensive with relocation and look at relocation as ‘too much work,’” she says. “At 27, I’d rather be open to change then forced to stay put. Being mobile is what has made me flexible to the latest job offer.”

Walker is excited for her new role and all that will come with it, as well as her new surroundings. “I’m looking forward to living near the water, while still being close to the mountains,” she says. “I’m looking forward to everything that Vancouver will be.”

And while Christensen, who spent seven-and-a-half months in Yorkton, has since accepted a new job closer to home, he regards his decision to move to a new city as a positive one – both professionally and personally. “I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t gone there and done that,” says Christensen. “It was a risk that I took and one that I’m very happy I made.”

Despite the daunting task of moving to a city where he knew no one, Christensen says that in a very short amount of time he was embraced by the community. During holidays that he initially thought he would spend alone, Christensen instead found himself receiving multiple invites, including three turkey dinners at Thanksgiving. “In my last eight days in Yorkton, I was at eight different houses for supper,” says Christensen. “There was always a friendly face and people were very accepting.”

Christensen has advice to others that might be considering a move to a new, unknown city. “Unless you throw yourself into the community, unless you embrace the opportunity, you really won’t get the most out of it,” says Christensen. “You get out what you put into it.”