Category Archives: self improvement

My 2016 Thanksgiving List

Thanksgiving is a holiday we need more than ever. Like many holidays in the U.S., Thanksgiving has an “official” meaning that is often overlooked by many. While celebrating they holiday, some are prompted to share what they are thankful for. This serves a very important purpose, as it is often common, and part of human nature, to focus on our needs, desires, what is wrong, what we do not have (and wish we did), or what we wish were so (but isn’t).

At this holiday, we reorient our minds, onto what is right, what we do have, and what we should be grateful for. This is important because this celebration (Thanksgiving) will be followed by a period of generosity (Christmas), and a period of reflection (New Years).

Over the last several weeks particularly, it’s been hard not to, unfortunately, end up with our minds focused on what is wrong. Over the past three months, Americans just endured a very divisive election, had levels of daily sunlight decline by several hours, and many have not had a day off of work for a while. This re-focus on gratitude, thankfulness, and enjoying what we already have will provide for alliances end of the year reflection.

In that spirit, I provide a list of the 15 things I am Thankful for this year (in no particular order).

1. The Chicago Cubs World Series Championship team

I’ve been following this team for 23 years, and it’s good to finally see them win one!

2. Being a part of the Boulder Co-Ed rec league summer championship team

I find being part of a team like this to be one of the most rewarding experiences around. I get exercise, get to spend some time outside, and do so in a social way. I also believe we need to celebrate our accomplishments, both large and small.

3. Personal Growth

For me, 2016 was a year of fantastic personal growth. I came to a lot of realizations about life, and worked on things such as being confident in who I am, not trying to please/ prove myself to others, enjoying the journey and not being too obsessed with the destination, trying to be a more giving person, and putting that which makes me anxious into its proper context. I’m hopeful this is setting me up for even better things to come.

4. Seeing people around me do the things they love

I see people around me taking part in artistic pursuits, theater, performing music and other things that make them happy. I’ve seen some even start their own businesses; restaurants, non-profit charities, real estate, and side-hustles. I even know people who have done things like hike the Appalachian Trail, travel the world, and take part in overseas projects.

5. The adventures I had in 2016 and the people that joined me for them

2016 included a couple of bike trips, a lot of skiing, some great hikes, a backpacking trip, a rafting trip, and trips to places like Iceland, Vegas, New Mexico, and Cancun (upcoming). None of these experiences were alone, and all were enhanced by each and every person who joined me for them!

6. Feeling appreciated by people

It’s easy to dwell on those difficult exchanges with people, and the times that people frustrate me, but there are plenty of times in life when people show appreciation for one another and give each other the gift of acceptance. I recognize how lucky I am to have people that do accept me as I am.

7. People from past chapters of my life that have not forgotten about me

Once someone moves to another city, it gets harder to stay in touch and stay involved in one another’s lives. I am very much appreciative to still hear from people who live hundreds to thousands of miles away. These enduring friendships have produced some great experiences, and there are more still being planned.

8. Where I live

When I see what is going on in various places around the world, I must be thankful to live in a place where I feel safe, and don’t worry about an attack, military coup or anything like that. Denver also has a lot of fun stuff to do around me. I’m particularly blessed to live 3 miles from the REI flagship store, and around a lot of people who also wish to #optoutside.

9. It’s in the air

I guess I just have this feeling of optimism. That both me individually, and we as a society, are finally prepared to free ourselves from the limitations that have been holding us back and the outdated assumptions that are no longer serving us well, and advance to something greater. I hear it in dialogue of people around me-everywhere. I see it on shows, in books. The age of defferance is over.

10. The war on uprightness

That we’re fighting back, against all the “You should…”, “You can’t just….”, and “How could you….” stuff.

11. Emotions

I can be a turbulent person. But I am grateful for the emotions I experiences, including the negative ones. I reassures me that I still feel, I still care, and have not turned into a robot as I feel the working world wants us to do sometimes.

12. Basic comforts

Food. Water. Shelter. There are still a lot of people that suffer without them.

13. My health

I can still wake up every morning, even though there are some days I do not want to. I can run, bike, hike, etc. and still feel pretty good doing it. Many have health problems that are not of their own doing. I am blessed to have a body that permits me to take part in the activities that bring me joy!

14. Everything that makes the world interesting and magical

Waterfalls, buildings, rainbows, storms, rivers, tress, dogs, horses, the way people smile, children, lakes, compassion, enthusiasm, the smell of campfire in the woods, games, the taste of food, and, yeah, the list goes on and on- infinitely!

15. Music

The fact that it exists, in a variety of different forms, and has the power to inspire, energize, and provide many with an outlet for creativity.

Pure Instinct

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Day-to-day life over the past month or so had left me kind of burnt out. I was inexplicably feeling exhausted. I was not at my best- which I truly hate. I’d realized weeks ago I would eventually need a day to disconnect. We all need that every once in a while. I figured out that I would not want to hear everybody’s recap of the election (regardless of the result), and Wednesday’s weather was forecasted to be unseasonably warm.

So, I took Wednesday off, got in my car and just started to drive. I had no plan, no idea as to where I would be headed when I left. I purposely refrained from making a plan. I didn’t look into options, or pre-meditate in any sort of way. I wanted to try something different than what we all typically do when we travel. I wanted to lean simply on my instinct, and just let it determine where I should go as I go. Everywhere I went, every decision I made regarding when and where to turn, I made on the fly, just based on what felt right.

I went west out of Denver, following highway 6 through Golden, than 93 north, and 72 west towards Nederland. I continuously resisted the urge to pull out my map book, or my phone, or turn to any other source of information to achieve a welcome break from one of the things that may be exhausting all of us in the mid-2010s. This is the process of gathering information. In this era, often gather way too much of it, agonizing over it, to the point where we delay actually making the decision, sometimes far too long!

Along the way, I experienced this strange hyper-emotional calm. I began to tear up. I was breathing heavy. But, it felt really good. It felt as if for the past couple of months, emotions were one by one filling up inside my head, bouncing around like molecules until they gradually started to reach a critical mass, where there was no longer room for them to move around. They had just become jammed . And, now, with whatever barrier that was keeping them inside removed, I was suddenly free to just let them out, and let them all out at once.

As I continued along this windy path, this strange hyper-emotional calm became accompanied by a feeling of optimism. I felt like I knew I was in the right place, doing the right things, and making progress toward where I wanted to be. I’d freed myself from all the data, all the second guessing that gradually erodes away at our confidence. I knew that, both that day, and in life, I was moving in the right direction even when I didn’t see the destination.

For a while, I had no idea as to why I was experiencing burnout. The term typically conjures up images of someone working long hours into the night, neglecting their friends, their families, and other areas of their lives. Burnout is people working 70+ hour weeks, which I most certainly had not been for the duration of 2016. So, why was I burned out? Why did I feel drained so often?

Having searched for answers regarding this, through reading, conversation, and observing people, I came to a series of important realizations about burnout, which run contrary to the image of long nights with pots of coffee.

It’s not the amount of work that burns us out.

Workload can contribute, but more important is how we feel while we are doing our work.

The primary source of burnout is feeling as if we are being phony, or fake.

Pretending to be someone else, for whatever reason we do it, is exhausting. It is not sustainable. The only way to be is our true selves. That is what our instincts tell us to do.

Negative energy in all forms leads to burnout.

One of the nastiest forms is fear, trying to prevent some sort of bad outcome such as loss of job or status. When we act out of fear, or anger, hate, etc., everything we do is significantly more draining.

One of the most exhausting things we do is try to prove ourselves.

I’ve seen plenty of instances where someone is working long hours, but is not burned out because they are doing what they love and they feel confident while doing it.

My instinct even took me down a random dirt road, something I otherwise never would have done if it were not my previously specified destination.

I ended up at a place called Rainbow Lakes, part of the Indian Peak Wilderness.

I hiked roughly 2.5 miles, getting to the treeline, which was surprisingly nearly snow free! This is definitely not encouraging for fans of winter sports.

As, well, as can often be the case in our lives as a whole, the change of season that winter sports fans are waiting for is simply not happening yet. This hike, on Wednesday Nov. 9th, felt shockingly similar to the way it would have felt in the middle of the summer.

Just over the ridge, I got myself to a place that was extremely inspiring. Unfortunately, I did not get a photo, as, well, my phone died. It was a sign that what I needed to do was disconnect, and, once again, connect to my own thoughts. Just for good measure, though, here’s a pic I found of the exact place where I sat.

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I actually stared at that one little gap in the rock straight ahead.

Our subconscious thoughts do take into account recent information, even as our conscious minds look for more info and don’t know what to make of it. My subconscious mind, my instinct, though, processed all of this; the election, interactions with people, my own feelings, and summed it up neatly in one sentence, a sentence that simply popped into my head…

The age of deference is over

Make what you want of that.

I also came to another revelation regarding a matter that is more specific to my life. I had been thinking a lot about the concept of acceptance. It is why we are always trying to prove ourselves, and often exhausting ourselves. Afternoon exhaustion, dissatisfaction, lack of inspiration, all of these concepts are inter-related.

We want to be accepted, and can only be accepted as who we are.

But, for each person individually, myself included…

If we want to be accepted as who we genuinely are, we must do so for others as well.

We’re all looking for acceptance, but if we make it easier on each other, as well as ourselves, we might all have a bit more energy leftover for other things.

The previous night’s election, regardless of how any of us feel about it, is yet another example where sometimes more information, more data, is not better. The best models, based on every piece of data available, made predictions that were quite flawed. My instinct, many months back, came to a more accurate conclusion about what was to occur.

In an era where we have access to unlimited information, and are often bombarded by it, sometimes we need to realize that less is more. I, for sure, will, going forth, make a better effort to rely less on data and more on instinct. After all, it brought me to Rainbow Lakes, without even so much as looking at my atlas, or my Google Maps App.

Experiencing a Different Way of Life

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Most of the time, when we travel, we are touring. We are visiting places. We are going to specific destinations. We are seeing landmarks, or specific points of interest. Or we are going somewhere to take part in a certain event or activity.

Sometimes, we will speculate as to what it is like to live in a specific area. Maybe we will even interact with some locals, and ask some questions. But, even then, in a way, we are still touring. We are getting some amount of information regarding what day-to-day life is like, but we are really only getting a snapshot of a specific point in time, and some verbal information about what may make that point different from typical day-to-day experience.

Sometimes, when we travel specifically to visit people, people we know, we get a little more of a window into what life is like in a different place. For me, a metropolitan person, who has always lived in a city or suburban area, most of these kinds of trips involve traveling to a different city, or a suburb of a different city. While each city, metropolitan area, and region are unique from one another, there are still some basic similarities. I have a clear understanding of the differences between life in New York, Houston, Denver etc. But, I also understand that there are many similarities that make life in all those places distinct from life in a more sparsely populated area.

Nederland, Colorado is not too far from home for me. Nor is it your typical small town U.S.A. Positioned along the scenic Peak to Peak Highway, at 8200 feet elevation, and only about 40 minutes West of Boulder, it falls into the category of one of those quirky types of small towns.

This weekend turned out to be a unique experience for me. Sometimes when we visit people, we don’t really experience their typical life. There’s a specific event, or destination, and, in a way we all become tourists. This weekend, that did not happen. I ended up genuinely feeling as if I had spent some time in the day-to-day life those that live here!

The first, and most obvious difference living here is how we get around. To me, getting anywhere, whether it be between neighborhoods or to the center of town, involved what resembled a short hike to me. There was no driving, Ubers, light rail, or busses, just walking along a series of trails that felt, and also typically smelled as if I were on a camping trip.

I also began to notice, and even feel, a difference in energy. Things feel calmer, less urgent, less competitive. This, of course, is both good and bad. The good is the ability to relax, not feel like you are competing with everyone you see, and take time to enjoy some of the things around you. The flip side is that lines move slower, people move slower, and most things take a little longer. Even while enjoying the reprieve from the stress of everyday life, I recognized that, given that I wish Denver were faster moving than it is, I could never permanently move to a place like this. I did however, fully immerse myself in the experience while I was here.

The strangest thing that happened was finally getting a good understanding of a different perspective on a common conflict. The center of town was packed with what many people refer to as “leafers”. These are people who drive from the city to some nearby forested area to see fall colors. Living in Denver, I am technically one of them, as I had been nearly every year.

Immersed in the Nederland experience, I experienced this from the other side. Feeling the frustration of people dealing with things they don’t normally have to deal with, like waiting for a table at their favorite restaurant, traffic jammed up on all of the main roads, and a significant number of people in the lake, I began to understand why people who live in places like this don’t immediately calculate the benefits of tourism on their local economy on days like this.

This month, and for the remainder of 2016, one of my goals is to try harder to see things from the perspective of others. I just feel like a lot of things in my life, whether it be putting together a presentation with specific audience in mind, or interactions with people, will go a lot more smoothly if I genuinely make an effort to understand them from the perspective of others.

Travel has, once again, taught me a valuable lesson. To fully immerse myself in this experience, I had to, in a way, let go, of what I know, what I expect, and even what I want. If more of us, both in our travels, and in our day-to-day lives were to approach people, experiences, and issues, with much of this pre-concpetion taken out of our minds, we would likely have a more positive impact on the lives of one another. This doesn’t necessarily mean giving up on what we believe in, especially strongly held conviction. It means taking them out of our mind, for at the very least a few minutes, to hear what others have to say, and feel what others feel.

Day 6: The Finale

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The last day of a long bike ride is always a strange day. Not that any of the previous five days were similar to the others, but this day was especially different. As is the case with many journeys, on the last day two things happen.

First, the specifics, the details such as route decisions, stop locations, timing, daily milage and the like all sort of gradually drift out of my mind. In its place come grander thoughts about the trip as a whole, the accomplishments, the disappointments, the lessons learned, and everything else that has been going through my mind.

The second thing that happens is reality starts to set in. For six days, July 5th, the day I would go back to work, and return to my “normal life”, may as well not have existed. It did not cross my mind once. It’s like my mind suddenly re-realized that this day was coming and that, in less than 24 hours I’d be on a plane heading home, and within 48 hours I’d be back to regular old work.

Another thing that made this day different than the first five days is that we had two additional riders join us. Riding with a group, and riding significantly less miles (67 today as opposed to over 100 most other days) made the ride take on a significantly different feel.

We entered Maine only about seven miles into the ride. I guess the previous day I pretty much rode across the entire state of New Hampshire. And, I got my sign! The one I had been hoping for the last two times (last two days) I crossed a state line.

The first part of the ride was nice, with a wide shoulder along state highway 113, following the Saco River. After riding on a few back roads, and a little bit of time on a trail that was half paved and half rocky, we found ourselves headed into the Portland area. The roads got significantly busier. In fact, these were the busiest roads I had ridden on for the entire trip. In some parts of the route, the shoulders all but disappeared, making these the kinds of roads I would not normally chose to ride on.

We rode through the surprisingly hilly downtown area of Portland, and after the final seven miles along state highway 77, arrived, in the early afternoon, at our final destination for the trip, Cape Elizabeth.

When we arrived at the Atlantic Coast, at Two Lights State Park, the day started to get emotional.

This was, by far, the biggest bike trip I had ever been on, and may still prove to be my life’s longest bicycle journey. But, for Clay, it was the culmination of a three year long effort to bike across the country. In 2014, he biked from Denver to Chicago. Last summer, from the Oregon Coast to Denver. This year, from Chicago to Maine. In three segments, he biked across the country. Many members of his family made the journey to Maine to see him triumphantly enter the Atlantic Ocean, having biked across the continent, and, as a side note, also basically proven that you do not have to be some incredibly rich or extremely lucky person to do so. He did it all while holding the same steady job!

Of course, it is easier to be emotional when exhausted, and this picture sums up exactly how I felt the first fifteen minutes after completing the ride. It was an odd combination of emotions that came over me. Most of them were good, and most importantly, I felt gratitude for being able to play a small part in this whole mission by joining Clay, for three days last year in Montana and Wyoming, and for six this year.

In the afternoon I got the meal I knew I had wanted upon completion of my ride; Lobster. I love lobster, but I live in Denver. When in Maine, well, really there was no other logical choice. In fact, when biking over the last hill of the day, despite being tired, I actually increased my speed and simply yelled, “this is the last hill in the way between me and lobster”!

We ate at a place called the Lobster Shack Restaurant, which, on that day, had a 40 minute wait for service, as it is a popular destination where patrons can eat while overlooking the Ocean!

It got even more emotional after that. That evening my main goal was to hang out with my friends, Clay and Liz, as much as possible. They are in fact, leaving for a year long adventure, to go out and see many other parts of the world! These adventures will be catalogued on their WordPress site. I knew I would likely not see them for a while.

I also could not help but think about all of the things this bike journey taught me, whether it be specifically from the experience, or things that ran through my mind over the course of the long hours I spent on my bike.

Over the course of the week, I saw kindness everywhere I went. Clay was raising money for charity. His family volunteered to help with the ride. Many of the people we met along the way were friendly. I realized that, despite the amount of physical pain I put myself through, I felt happy the entire time, significantly happier than under normal circumstances. Maybe the whole world would be happier if we all acted this way towards one another. The most I can do, going forward, is strive to be the kind of person that gives more than I take, and do my part.

Having experienced being on mile 27 of a 100+ mile day multiple times reminded me not to become too obsessed with the destination. This ride was about more than me laying on a beach in Maine and then eating lobster. It was all of the places I saw while traveling from Niagara Falls across Upstate New York, through the Adirondacks and then Northern New England. The rest of my life is not exactly where I hope it will end up at this point in time, but I can be much better off if I learn to obsess less over the destination and enjoy the journey, as I did this week.

The social media era has turned us all into avatars. By that I mean we all have some kind of image of ourselves that we present to others, based on who we think they want us to be. This week, I simply couldn’t continue to be my avatar. On trips like this, our concerns shift, from the concerns of urban 21st century American life, such as getting a promotion or getting likes on social media, to more basic concerns, for food, water, and shelter. I couldn’t put on a show for others, but I got by, and even thrived. The others on the trip seemed to enjoy having me around. So, I need to stop trying to be the person I think others want me to be.

Also, on the flight to Buffalo-Niagara, I was reading a book called The Happiness Project, about a woman who undertakes various initiatives aimed at improving life satisfaction and reports on the results. She introduced me to the concept of “fog happiness”. This is when the happiness related to an activity is not necessarily concentrated at the time of the activity itself, but spread out over a longer time period, both before and after the actual activitiy. Once I determined I was going to make this bike trip, for the first time in my life, I thought of myself as a legitimate bike tourist. For the first time, I felt the right to interject in a conversation about bike touring, and have legitimate opinions. Essentially, I had added something to my list of activities and enriched my life. We all should be more thoughtful when choosing activities, and, specifically avoid missing out on opportunities to create more of this “fog happiness”.

Obviously, anytime anyone completes an activity that requires a great amount of physical exertion, it is a reminder of how rewarding it can be to overcome fatigue. This lesson applies to other areas of life too, but a journey like this can often be the best reminder that some of the most challenging tasks are the ones with the greatest reward.

Personally speaking, the most important lesson I have taken from this ride relates to something I have struggled with for nearly my entire life. I seek significance in life. I want to do things that matter and feel like I matter to others. While with most of it my intensions are good, there is a dark side. At times, when I feel insignificant and powerless, I succumb to anger, depression and other negative emotions.

This week, while a significant ride, and a series of significant experiences and accomplishments for myself, I was not the center of it all. As previously mentioned, it was Clay’s ride. He rode longer, harder, and raised money for charity. Yet, I did not feel insignificant, as I have a tendency to feel in many day-to-day activities. I realized, and this is important, that: You Don’t Have to be the Center of Attention to Matter. I cannot stress this, to others but most importantly to myself, enough!

As I flew home, I drifted off to sleep, as Bon Jovi’s inspirational 2000 song Save The World played on my headphones. Flying through moderate turbulence, I felt the plane gently shift, both upwards and downwards. Running through my head, was an image of myself, from above, pedaling over hills, through the woods. Nothing else was happening, I was just pedaling.

More Than Just a New Job

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The way the world is designed, heck, the way life itself is designed, it is impossible to go through a full lifetime without some major life changes and adjustments. Regardless of what lifestyle choices we make, we all undergo periodic transformations. Every one of us transforms from being an infant, to a child, to an adolescent, and to an adult. Afterwards, most of us will transform to becoming parents ourselves.

Life in the 21st Century requires more personal transformations than ever! Today nearly all of us go to college. A life transformation occurs both at the start and the completion of our college education. Additionally, the world is changing at an ever faster pace. Gone are the days when one would be able to learn a couple of key skills to use over the course of a 40 year career with the same company. Recent writing has even suggested that the most effective people reinvent themselves every 3-5 years. Coincidentally, the current average time that a person stays at a job is 4.6 years.

It is hard for me to pinpoint the exact moment in which I realized that I needed to undergo a significant re-invention. We often have this notion that ideas just pop into people’s heads out of nowhere. We have all seen shows where a light bulb suddenly pops upon the screen, indicating that someone has come to a sudden realization. This is not actually the case. In reality, ideas are often developed over time, with contributions from multiple people.

For me, it took two separate disappointing experiences in traditionally-structured jobs, a whole bunch of reading, extensive self-reflection, and discussions with plenty of individuals, including some who had undergone a similar transformation themselves.

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Life after college started off really good for me, all things considered. In Chicago, I had a steady job with a large corporation, where I met a lot of people who were also in their 20s, and had plenty of chances to enjoy big city life.

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It was the life I had imagined for myself at the time, but inevitably, things had to change.

The hardest thing I learned about life working for a large corporation is that a person can put in several good years, and have their work output feel quite well received by those around them, and still have decisions made on their behalf that are not necessarily in their best interest. Essentially, what I learned, which sounds elementary to me now, is that corporations do not care about people, and that in large structured environments, people are often far removed from people making decisions. It is common for someone to have decisions being made regarding their career path by people who do not know them much beyond what would be included in a two page resume.

During this time, I did explore a bit about non-traditional work environments, reading books such as The Art of Non-Conformity. But, I guess I was not ready for it, and so I returned to another traditional structured work environment.

I have not discussed this much in this blog. As a matter of fact, I kind of feel like a phony even admitting that while I have been writing this travel blog, documenting the trips I was taking, I spent a good number of days sitting at a desk in an office like this. Most people would not consider that the lifestyle of a “travel writer”.

I am starting to believe that every life transformation has both externally driven and internally driven components. What I mean by this is that, the same way rehab programs only work for people who first “admit they have a problem”, someone can only re-invent themselves, when they come to some form of realization that it needs to happen. However, I do not see situations where someone decides to make major life changes in response to nothing.

Usually, something happens to make one come to the realization that what they are currently doing is not working. Sometimes, it’s just bad luck, like bad market conditions for a particular industry.

Other times, it is something more positive, like being introduced to something new, a new idea, a new way of thinking, or a new opportunity.

For me, it unfortunately took a combination of experiences. At work, I once again felt that feeling of alienation, as once again decisions were made without my best interests in mind. It actually lead to a work environment that I found not only non-fulfilling, but also unpleasant.

Through the afore mentioned self-reflection, reading and discussions I had over the course of 2015, I came to several key realizations that go beyond the standard “I need a new job”. I realized that….

I had originally decided to apply for the types of work I had applied for because I had not really considered the alternatives.
It is not just the few bold people that work in environments other than office jobs with 9-5-ish hours.
With automation, globalization, and other forces, we are going to have to be more creative, self-directed, and individually motivated in order to maintain our current standard of living.
In order to get what I want out of life I am going to make some major adjustments myself.

For the last few weeks, I have been transitioning to a new employment situation, as a “consultant”. This environment is described to me as being halfway between being in a “traditional” structured office environment and being a freelancer. It requires me to work differently, think differently, and act differently. As is the case for many that are self-employed, there are some financial risks, but in exchange, there is increased flexibility and autonomy. With all these changes, who knows what adventures await!

I am actually quite excited about making these adjustments.

In my new world, there are no more cubicles, and I do not have a permanent office. This means that both meeting people and finding work will require significantly more individual initiative. Without having the same people around me every day, I am going to have to determine for myself which people I should be associating with, both in a personal and professional sense.

In my new world, there is significantly less structure. Nobody is there to tell me what time I should be doing what. In order to ensure productivity, I will have to create this structure myself, determining each day, week, and month what I need to get done and when I will be doing it.

And, most importantly, my new world requires me to fully embrace thinking of life as a “slalom”. Just as those that compete in slalom skiing must think several turns ahead of time, I must be prepared to think several moves ahead of time to ensure that I am setting myself up for a successful, and more importantly, enjoyable life both short and long term.

This requires a new me, and hopefully a better me. It requires me to be more confident, both in what I believe in, as well as what decisions I make and what I believe myself capable of. It requires me to take initiative without being paralyzed by the fear of failure that causes so many people to not pursue their ideas and passions. But, most importantly, I believe it requires me to not lose sight of who I am and what makes me a unique individual. Of late, I have been active in encouraging others as they pursue their individual pursuits. What I am hoping for, both for myself, and for everybody around me, is that we do not transform ourselves into a completely different person, but that we are able to become what I refer to as the best version of yourself.

Hitting Goals

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Some people thrive on goals. They are always working towards something, and always working towards something that can specifically be measured. Sometimes it’s something along the lines of a specific marathon time. Other times it is a major life event, such as earning a promotion, or being able to afford a house. Sometimes it’s even something a bit more unusual, like trying every ice cream flavor at a local ice cream shop. But, in all cases, there is a goal, and a clear measurement. At any given time, they know whether or not they have achieved their goal, and, in most cases, how close they are to reaching it.

Sometimes I envy these people. Being driven by reaching specific, tangible benchmarks like this fits quite nicely into our present day results-driven society. Tons of people writing about what makes people effective, or successful, stress the importance of making and achieving goals on a regular basis, both from the standpoint of improving your confidence and demonstrating your ability to achieve to others.

Unfortunately, I tend to be driven by ideas and concepts that are more big-picture and abstract. I am more interested in knowing that I am generally in good health and feeling energetic than reaching a specific weight target. As a person who believes in flexibility and individuality, and shuns rigidity, I will often look at something like wanting to buy a house, and say, wait a second, is there some kind of way I could be just as happy in a condo, given certain circumstances? Do I need to make a specific commitment to some sort of a budget, when circumstances in life often vary, and adhering strictly to a certain number might even cost me opportunities that could go a long way towards some of the most important goals of all, which I see as happiness, purpose, satisfaction and the like?

I do, however, have to acknowledge some of the reasons we operate in this fashion. After all, we do live in a complicated world where we all have thousands of things competing for our attention at any given time. The easiest way to grab someone’s attention is to say something specific. Vail Ski Resort will tell you it has a 3450 foot vertical drop, or that it gets 348 inches of snow per year. They do not try to get your attention by saying that skiing will provide an exhilarating experience that will often improve one’s happiness as well as physical fitness.

In 2015, in addition to my big picture goal to “feel more energized and be in better shape”, I attached a specific goal. I was going to bicycle at least 1500 miles this year. Now, I do understand that this is not that high of a number. The most hard-core cyclists will often ride 10,000 miles in one calendar year. One bike ride across the country is more than 3000 miles. But, 1500 miles would make this my biggest bicycling year yet (2014 was previously my highest at 1385 miles), and it would be an easy number for me to point to as a way to indicate to others how much bicycling I do.

There were a couple of obstacles that got in the way of me reaching this goal. The first was a wet early season. In May, Denver recorded measureable precipitation 19 out of 31 days. This was followed by 13 rainy days in June. Ironically, one of those rainy days included a hailstorm, on bike to work day!

Later on, job/career related issues took some of my attention away from cycling. And, finally, although this one is definitely not a bad thing, during the second half of summer and the first half of fall, a lot of my plans took me places where cycling was simply not possible, including travel, visitors, and social events.

However, despite all of this, on Sunday, November 1^st, 2015, I reached my goal, and pedaled my 1500^th mile of the year. And, I decided to do it in style. I didn’t want to get to this milestone just anywhere, biking on some random road in some neighborhood that doesn’t mean anything to me. I wanted to go somewhere iconic! I wanted to go somewhere appropriate, for both the day’s conditions, as well as a place where I had significant experiences during the first 1478 miles I rode this year. Really, there was only one true choice; Red Rocks amphitheater. At exactly 22 miles from my home, I would hit that 1500 mile mark somewhere along my final ascent to the top of the road. Red Rocks is an iconic place, both beautiful and full of memories for mankind. And, it is a place I have ridden my bike to over half a dozen times on previous rides. One of my favorite half day rides is to go to Red Rocks, and then into Golden for lunch, followed by a nice quick ride on the Clear Creek Trail back to Denver.

Yet, the story of me and my bike in 2015 cannot simply be summarized with a number; 1500, or 1600, or whatever I get to in two months when the year is complete. It is so much more than that. It is the exhausting three day, 230 mile ride through Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. But, it is also the countless treks over the same roads in town, to and from work, and to all of the other places I went to on a regular basis. It’s the improvements I made in climbing, something I am weak at due to living in Chicago for several years, but also all the flat tires I got and had to change.

Outcomes are best communicated to others when they are demonstrated both qualitatively and quantitatively. Behind every story, there is a number, probably multiple numbers. I can say I biked 1500 miles. I can also figure out how many vertical feet I climbed, how many times I biked certain roads and trails, and even how many tires I changed. But to just say the number, without answering that all important question, why I am doing what I am doing, would also not be effective. I bike to improve my health, spend some time outside, visit interesting places, and to save some money on fuel.

More importantly, bicycling contributes to my larger scale goals of being happy, healthy, unique, and true to myself. How much different would it be to have biked 1475 miles vs. 1525 miles? Not too much. The same way a .301 batting average is not too different than a .299 average. So, I guess while I am happy I reached the mark I set out for at the beginning of the year, I still need to recognize that it is not the end all, be all. While it is good to have a goal, or a target, to stay on track, and provide a construct for how far one wants to take a certain activity, we all must keep mindful of the big picture. And, if reaching a certain number would cost us more than it is worth, we should be willing to adjust.

Cool For the Summer

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People define the season of “summer” in various ways. Astronomers first defined summer as the period of time from the Summer Solstice (roughly June 21st) through the Autumnal Equinox (roughly September 21st). Later on, meteorologists developed the term “meteorological summer”, defined as the months of June, July, and August, to refer to the period of time when weather conditions (in the Northern Hemisphere) are typically most consistently warm. Of course, if you are a kid, or a student of any kind, summer clearly runs from the last day of the Spring semester through the first day of the Fall semester. In the United States, many individuals, particularly those in the working world, have arrived on a definition of “summer” as the period between Memorial Day Weekend (the last weekend in May) and Labor Day Weekend (the first weekend in September). In fact, at one of my previous places of employment, “business casual” attire was permitted only during the time period between Memorial Day and Labor Day. No matter where you are in life, if you are in the Northern Hemisphere outside the tropics, summer is coming to an end. Tonight’s (Labor Day) sunset, for many of us, feels like the last sunset of the summer.

I still remember an episode of Saved By the Bell where Zach Morris, the main character, calls in sick on one of the first school days of the year. The entire cast of the show had spent a crazy summer in Hawaii. It was so exhausting, so emotional, and so full of experiences and memories, that he just needed a day to decompress from everything that had gone on over the summer. That is very much what this weekend felt like to me. Although I did not set aside an entire day to do nothing but process events, nor did I physically take a day off from work, school, etc., I definitely dialed it down, and put off some things in order to recuperate and process everything.

For me, 2015 is what I would consider an “Epic Summer”.

As life progresses, I have come to realize that different periods of our lives mean different things. Some years, and some seasons in particular, are just more memorable than others. This does not mean that the other years and seasons are pointless. It is just easier to remember and ponder the significance of certain periods. History books specifically point to the year 1776, when the United States declared its independence from Great Britain, as a memorable year. During the previous centuries, an emerging class known as the Burghers were gradually moving society away from Feudalism and towards Free Markets, creating many of the ideals that lead to the revolution. There are many specific years between 1250 and 1776 that were not memorable, but still important in creating the world of 1776, as well as the world of today.

My life has a series of summers (five total including this one) I would consider “Epic”. I consider a summer to be “Epic” if it meets several basic criterea. First, it has to be memorable. This obviously means experiences that are out of the ordinary.

Second, in order for a time period, or an event to be considered “Epic”, it has to be one that I consider positive, and enjoyable. After all, dealing with cancer, a major injury, or depression is memorable. But, I would not think of it as “Epic”.

Finally, I believe an “Epic” time period must also be productive rather than destructive. After all, someone may go on a binge, or a rampage of some kind, and find it memorable, as well as enjoyable. But, the experience may have been detrimental to their future. So, I try to think of “Epic Summers”, as only the ones I feel like I am better off for having experienced.

The first four times I had what I would consider an “Epic Summer”, I did not realize it was happening until it was over. I later realized that those four summers were time periods I’d think about much more frequently than other times in my life. Sometime this Spring, I looked back at those summers, and realized that many of the conditions that created the other four Epic Summers in my life were also present this year, and, that the summer that was to come could very well end up being one that I remember for the same reasons. Now that summer 2015 has come and gone, I can say that the following conditions are what leads to an Epic Summer.

They are exhausting

You are doing a lot! Otherwise, it would not really be Epic.

2. They involve new experiences

The summer between my Junior and Senior year in College was “Epic” because I brought travel to a new level (for me) that summer. Previously, my travel had primarily been weekend road trips in the area to places like Champaign, Bloomington, or Indianapolis. That summer, an internship brought me to Oklahoma for several weeks and included many more experiences throughout that part of the country. This summer was my first major multi-day bicycle trip, and my first time backpacking.

3. They involve some amount of planning

For many types of adventures, logistics do need to be considered. Where will we stay? How will we coordinate activities? I am not saying anyone can plan their way into an Epic Summer, nor am I saying that everything needs to be planned out. In fact, some spontaneity is also needed. But, many activities do need to be arranged ahead of time, particularly when they involve a significant number of people.

4. They build on advancements we make as a person on both short and long time frames

I would never have gotten to the point where I could complete a bike ride like the one I did in July had I not made steady progress as a cyclist over the years. This includes the training and completion of my first century ride in Illinois back in 2011, another summer I consider Epic. Prior to this summer, I worked on myself, trying to improve some of my habits and personality traits that I consider ineffective. I made continuing to have new and interesting experiences one of my 2015 New Years goals at the start of the year. The same goes for my first Epic Summer, the summer after my High School graduation. That year, I took advantage of the maturity, and improvements in my self confidence that actually began to take place halfway through my Junior year.

5. There is a mix of the familiar and the absurd

In every Epic Summer I have had, there have ben some repeats. Like in previous years here in Denver, I attended the USA Pro Challenge and saw the exciting finish of Colorado’s version of the Tour de France. After attending that race, I witnessed a topless protest on my way to a Weird Al Yankovich concert- quite absurd.

6. There are old friend as well as new friends

One thing about every time period I have ever considered an “Epic Summer”, is that it is partially about a feeling. By that, I mean a feeling that my life is just flowing properly. As a social person, that entails spending time with people that I have known for some time, and become comfortable with, but also continuing to expand my network and make new friends. In each of my Epic Summers, I have had some sort of influx of new people, through work, organizations, or friends of friends in the months preceding the actual summer.

7. They are not without conflict

My first Epic Summer I was always in conflict with my parents. This summer, I have had a lot of conflict at work. It is hard to say why, but when you are out there in the world, and following your true moral compass, you are naturally going to have some people that do not appreciate that.

8. They are often preceded by ruts

I really do not know why this is, at least not in a logical manner, but every single epic summer I have ever had was preceded by some kind of rut. This year, a rainy May in Denver combined with career stagnation actually bored me quite a bit. It feels almost as if the rhythm of life is starting to hint at the need for a much more active period to come.

I come out of the summer of 2015 knowing much more about life, and much more about myself and my own desires than I did beforehand. I have reached this state because of each and every one of the conditions listed above. I am bummed that summer is over, but, when mentally healthy, a person can transition from one amazing experience to the next. When I left college, I was sad, knowing that I had just had an amazing four year experience. But, I avoided dwelling on it, which would have ruined the last few months of that experience. Whatever comes next, in fall, may not be quite as amazing summer was. But, all I can do is take these experiences, and the improvements I have made to myself as a result of them, and use them to help me going forward.

The Action Story

Learning about the world and about ourselves through travel and experiences

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Cool For the Summer