Date: 2012-02-01
To: A little background.
Miles today: 0.0

I am writing this from Tahoe. South Lake has been my home for the last few months. I smile every single day. And that is sort of an understatement. I am talking about unstoppably big grins ¢ ear to ear - that are the direct result of cool, clean air in your lungs, warm sunshine across your face, and blue skies matched with softly-gleaming white peaks. These smiles seem to radiate out of my entire body. I usually encounter these moments of extreme presence and appreciation alone but when others have been present, watch out, for it was something truly special! I have spent my days skiing, climbing, hiking, playing music, doing yoga, reading, and soaking in the beauty of a mild California winter. Sure, we didn¢t get epic storms dropping weekly loads of fluffy waist-high powder, but I wasn¢t digging my car out every morning at 6am to get first chair either. Hell, I walked to yoga in flip-flops most days. I took things slow and spent time with really wonderful people doing exactly what I wanted - living the friggin¢ dream.Before that, I was sleeping in San Francisco and working in Silicon Valley ¢ sort of living the (other) dream. And that is where this trip initially hatched, many years ago, influenced by a very dear friend. Working long hours and long weeks gave me a lot in return. I was passionate about this wacky lifestyle and very committed to it. But I never thought it through, similar to how a lot of people marry, buy a house and raise families in the suburbs. If you are in the Valley, you had better be there for the technology and/or the money. Otherwise, the stress just isn¢t worth it. It helped that what I was working on usually mattered to me. And I was learning an immense amount of stuff about people, companies, technology, resources, money, industry, strategy, etc. But I wasn¢t learning a lot about me. There wasn¢t much time for that. I traveled a lot for work. I worked a lot for work. I had one job where I was traveling 75% of the time domestically. I had another job that was all international travel. Cumulatively, I spent an entire month in an airplane one year. The long flights were nice. Fourteen hours here, twelve hours there.. it gave me some time to put things into perspective a little. It allowed me to consciously assess what the hell I was doing. And what I wasn¢t doing. My lists from this time period are hilarious: random work tasks, names of people I¢d met, quaint personal reminders, grocery lists, giant life goals ¢ all mixed together from my stream of exhausted optimistic reflection while ripping across the sky at 500mph. And one day it was over. Not having much free time creates the right conditions for a person to dream. And the dreams are usually pretty big. They entail quitting their current gig, packing up, traveling the world, and more blah blah blah. This is far-fetched generally but creates the hope necessary to show up at that meeting, dial into the conference call, and put more cruddy coffee in your mug ¢ only half of which you will actually drink. Most people will never voluntarily quit. You usually need to be forced to do it. Otherwise, you might actually have to take responsibility for your own happiness and make good on your crazy plan. I can¢t even begin to tell you how thankful I am that things happened the way they did. I too dreamt big. I had this whole round-the-world trip planned out, twenty-two stops, first class. But I would still be working if things didn¢t work out the way they did, counting down the months to an arbitrary date on the calendar that I would eventually push back when it got too close.Having free time, few responsibilities, and a little bit of savings, however, mandates a person to truthfully analyze what they want because now they can actually have it. There¢s nothing holding you back except yourself. Big resets don¢t come along that often and it¢s up to you to figure out what to do with them. And I didn¢t want to traipse all over the globe anymore.   I invented that trip to fill a hole in my life and perhaps brag a little about having competitively bigger dreams.   But my life was different now. I wasn¢t rushing around crossing things off of lists anymore. The places I originally wanted to go could all be done on a ¢normal¢ vacation with a ¢normal¢ job. I wanted to slow things down. I wanted to simplify. I wanted to remove the artificial barriers to happiness. I wanted to eliminate maintenance. I wanted to see how I naturally used my time. I wanted to see what worked. I wanted to reflect. You get the picture. I was tired of dealing with the shitty things that hold us all down. However, the resistance to change is very high in our lives today. I was determined to free myself and see what happened. I was going to live.