My profession has always been political advocacy, but in the last few years my heart has been in mindfulness. So you can imagine how this past week was quite an emotional tug of war.

As a matter of personal philosophy, I believe in kindness and human decency. So I was shocked, extremely shocked, last Tuesday when a man with a complete lack of human decency became president-elect Donald Trump.

My flash reaction was to lose hope in the goodness of man, like I’d been punched in the gut by the bully of a truly harsh reality. A troublingly large amount of people turned out to be selfish and vulgar, or if not, they were OK enough with selfish vulgarity to vote for someone who is, which is almost as bad.

This goes way beyond political ideology. We can debate and respectfully disagree on the issues 'til the cows come, I’m fine with that. But even beyond Trump's particularly extremist positions--on women, minorities, religious freedom, LGBT rights, immigration, the economy, trade, taxes, the environment, and I could go on--there was little to no respect displayed by him during this campaign. The unprecedented reaction of despair and protest you’re seeing around the country right now is a direct result of that.

It was an emotionally chaotic couple of days. I couldn't sleep. I ate way too much. I distracted myself with entertainment and booze. I often felt despondent. Was I wrong all this time to believe in the goodness of humanity?

But the days passed and eventually, here and there, the fog lifted to expose the sun again.

The warm glow shined a light on the truth: America is still beautiful. It is. America is still kind and decent and loving. America is still good.

I saw it in all the diverse and hopeful faces at the peaceful protest last weekend.

I saw it in every passionate advocate at my local Sierra Club political action committee meeting.

I saw it in my mother, who is now  a fierce advocate for my rights, the rights of others, and the return of decency.

I saw it in the avalanche of donations to social service charitable organizations that piled up over the last week.

I saw it in the empathy and love that my man and all our friends shared with each other as we struggled to fathom this act of aggression toward our communities and common dignity.

I see kindness and charity and compassion and yes, beauty, all around me.

Sure, I see the fear and division and violence that's going on as well. It started from top with Donald Trump and then trickled down. It's devastating for my soul to bear witness to such an open display of hatred.

But still I believe, no I know, that we are better than that. Love is stronger than hate. It always has been and it always will be.

​And in the end, love will win.

So I will not give up. I will fight for justice and equality and decency because we need it now more than ever. And if you stand against those things, or support the guy who does, then I will debate with you respectfully until you understand why those things are so important.

The beauty of America still shines together as one light, radiating into the darkness, a beacon of hope in a troubled nation. ​

I'm outraged. And I'm totally allowed to be... for now.

This election feels like a sucker punch to everything that is right and good in the world. The shock of it is numbing. We're told we need to come together as a nation, but I'm not sure how I can do that around a person who ran entire campaign based on tearing us apart. Very few of the values of fairness and equality I hold dear are represented in our new government. I feel hopeless.

In this post-outrage world our first instinct might be to give in and give up. But that’s a corrupt mindset that only perpetuates the problem. When we feel hopeless, the first thing we need to do is go out and create hope. And we do that with mindfulness.

Now more than ever before, we need mindfulness.

We need the quiet, introspective kind of mindfulness, where we work to find peace and purpose in our daily lives. Ignoring the hatred and division that has gripped our nation, in favor of hope and light. Remembering to breathe. Remembering to meditate, do yoga, and get out in nature as much as you can. Remembering to not get caught up in the what ifs and holy shits. Remembering that no matter how many times life knocks us on our ass, we stand back up, we move forward.

We also need the loud, righteous, advocate kind of mindfulness, where we work to create more peace and purpose in the world around us. Using the hatred and division as our motivation to make them a thing of the past. Becoming activists. Becoming champions for our earth, our nation, and our fellow man, no matter what their race, faith, gender, or who they love.

This type of mindfulness isn’t going to just magically appear in your life either. This is the mindfulness you create. Start spreading love to those around you who feel hurt by this election. Start spreading understanding to those who celebrate it, because that’s the only way they will understand why you are hurt.

If you don’t like the direction this country is going in, then start taking the country the in right direction yourself. Volunteer for the causes you support. Educate yourself on the causes you don’t fully understand. Educate everyone else in a respectfully until the lesson takes root. Encourage, no demand, that your elected leaders do the right thing. And when they don’t, organize to vote them out of office the next chance you get.

Make a decision everyday to be a part of the solution by being kind to one another, by respecting all people, by protecting the environment, by becoming a fierce advocate for fairness and equality at every level of society.

It feels a little hopeless right now--we’re not used to seeing the bad guys win. But this is only the middle of the movie. It’s the dramatic part where things go south for our hero. But that tension and conflict is exactly what the good guys need to find redemption. This hopeless moment teaches us how to fix our problems, do better, and win in the end.

So lick your wounds. Be sad. Be outraged. You’re allowed to feel that way for now.

But tomorrow morning it’s time for post-outrage. It’s time to wake up and make this world a better place. It’s time to create mindfulness, and fairness, and kindness from the ground up. And it all starts with you.

When was the last time you took a selfie while upset?

No we don’t do that, we say “cheese” and smile for the camera. Or even if you don’t smile, you at least have to mug it up with a duck face or a bear smirk.

When was the last time you saw someone walking down the street crying?

If you did you probably thought they were a lunatic. And the last time you felt like crying in public you probably ran home so you could do it in private, like a “normal” person.

​Our society is ashamed of sadness, sadly.

When at our saddest, we’ve been trained to hide it. At home we go to our room. At a funeral we put on sunglasses. At work or school we stake out a claim in a bathroom stall.

Heaven forbid if you do cry or become emotional in public — everyone will think you need mental assistance.

​Speaking of, our society is ashamed of mental assistance too. Psychology is really just asking a trained professional for a little help with your mind. This blog is a very small act of me doing the same, for myself and maybe you. We all seek mental assistance in some way, be it through the distraction of entertainment, the introspection of music, with medication (prescribed and otherwise), with yoga or meditation, with mindfulness blogs (hi!), and yes, actual real-life therapy.

Western society demands we show control, at least in public. We have to be perky, on it, clever, and together, even when in reality we’re feeling like shit. And when you feel like shit, you act like a shit, and everyone around you starts to think you’re a shitty person. 

But I’ll let you in on a secret: it’s OK to be sad.

It’s OK to be bummed about your life and its direction.
It’s OK to feel heartbroken when a relationship doesn’t work out.
It’s OK to end up depressed at the state of our political discourse.
It’s OK to get pissed at a friend who let you down.

It’s OK to be sad. It’s OK to cry.
It’s real. You don’t have to hide it.

The more we as a society learn to accept our emotions, all of them, as valid and true, the better we’ll get at handling them when they inevitably arise.

I’m not saying that the next time you feel like crying you should walk out to the middle of a busy intersection and sob in front of all humanity, children included. But if you did happen to start crying there, so what. It’s how you’re feeling, and plus those kids cry all the time without remorse. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from kids.

The best to handle your emotions is to accept them, not fight them. So get OK with being sad. The more OK you are with being sad, the less sad you’ll be.

We habituate ourselves to expect certain things, to desire certain vices, to keep a certain schedule, and act a certain persona. It's just what we're used to. It’s what everyone around us is used to.

But that doesn't mean that's who we really are.

Black bears in the wild of Yosemite eat berries, grass, and insects. Sometimes they eat animals like fish, but by and large, and especially when they don't feel threatened, they don’t hunt and they are docile creatures. They're kind of adorable when you see them sitting in a meadow, basking in the warm sun, furrowing the soft ground for a meal. They're like a real-life teddy bear, just one you probably shouldn’t hug.

When black bears met humans, they started to learn a different way of life--they picked up a habit. People food is high in calories, and way more tasty and filling than meadow grass. So when we started to give them people food, as the supervisors of Yosemite did for decades, the bears quickly learned to follow the path of least resistance and eat up.

Wild bears became habituated to a new human way of living, one that involved convincing people to give them food. If those people were unconvinced, simply steal it. If they got in the way of the food, take them out.

First we habituated them, and then allowed our cavalier attitude to that habituation to bite us in the ass, literally.

We learned our lesson, thankfully, and now we've engaged in a decades long effort to de-habitualize the black bear. We stopped feeding them for show at Yosemite, so bears would stop expecting it. We put our food in bear boxes instead of cars or coolers, so the bears learned they can’t get food at a campsite.

A habit, any habit, is only a condition we've created. That goes for the habit bears learned from humans, and it goes for all the habits we’ve taken on ourselves.

It's hard to break a habit, for sure. Bears still visit campgrounds because the food smells good and they’re curious. But the more we change our patterns, the more the habit breaks. In Yosemite, bear incidents are down 97% since 1996. Our continued vigilance in minding our food when we visit Yosemite will ensure this new pattern continues. 

Maybe we could learn something from the habituation, and subsequent dehabituation, of the black bear. Observe the patterns and expectations we or others place on ourselves. Try to find where we made the mistake and how we perpetuated it. Then imagine a path forward where we break the habit.

Even when you think you’ve dehabitualized yourself, that doesn’t mean it can’t come back. Habits are much easier to make than to break.

For bears at Yosemite these days, some still look for people food. Those that end up in a campsite get scared off with beanbag and paintball guns. If they come back they get tranquilized, tagged, and brought to a distant region of the park. If they come back a third time, euthanization.

We have a lot more than three chances when it comes to our own bad habits, but eventually they will catch up to us. Those habitualizations of vice and character will eventually bite us in the ass just like the black bear.

If you’re trying to break a bad habit or any other pattern, be strong, persistent, and patient. Overtime it’ll get easier. You don’t have to be "that guy" just because you have always been that guy. You can change yourself for the better. We can all be dehabitualized, one decision at a time.

Escapism, by definition, is the act of running to a comfortable fantasy world to escape the complex real world. It's a distraction. Some might say it's unmindful. But maybe that's not always the case. Maybe sometimes it's the exact opposite.

Can we escape to reality instead of from reality?

People get into an escapist mindset all the time: when you go on vacation you escape from your everyday responsibilities. At 5pm on Friday you get to escape your job for a fun weekend. Movies, TV, and video games are common escape routes. Some of these escapes are more mindful than others, of course. Your vacation or your weekend could easily be filled with mindful activities--nature, friendship, family, connection--an escape to reality. Your video game most likely isn't very mindful--an escape to fantasy--but it's also perfectly fair to take a break from thee stress of real life now and then.

We all need an escape sometimes, be it the mindful kind or not.

I'm about to go on an escape of my own, a pretty big one, leaving the comfortable confines of my home in Los Angeles to spend a month living in Yosemite National Park. Through one prism this looks like classic escapism, but I can present a series of defenses for this action:

• Exhibit A: even though I will be engaging in my typical #Journeyman exploring, writing, and photographing while there, the primary reason for the trip is to work as a volunteer park ranger for the Yosemite Conservancy. Is it escapism if I'm working while I'm there?
• Exhibit B: Yosemite is different than home and has a fantastical vibe to it, but it’s certainly no fantasyland. It’s very real, possibly more real than Los Angeles. Is it escapism to go from reality to more reality?​
• Exhibit C: there's a certain glee to escapism, leaving the stressful world for something fun and easy, but this month-long trip is not necesarily easy--living in a tent is work and being alone for long periods of time is work. Is it escapism if it's difficult?

It’s an escape for sure, but is it escapism?

I propose that escapism has more than one meaning: it always involves leaving one’s home for a change of scenery, but sometimes it’s not about bolting from the real world to fantasy, it’s about making a difficult decision to leave the real world in order to experience a different kind of real world... and then reaping the benefits.

A change of scenery is so important for our psyche, or at least it is for mine. I can’t imagine standing still. I want to see new views, experience new ideas, meet new people, get out of my comfort zone, because all of that makes me a better person. We can all benefit from some level of diversity in our lives.

Yosemite National Park, and spending time in nature in general, gifts us with a whole new spectacular level of diversity. In this modern age, we live in cies with paved streets and grocery stories and digital connectivity at every step. In Yosemite, in the woods, we live simply as men have lived for centuries, with trees, trails, fires, maybe a bear box for good measure, and most likely no phone service. The two worlds could not be more polar opposites, yet both are real.

Spending some time living like our ancestors enables us to understand life outside of the digital distractions, teaches us to appreciate our modern conveniences, and reminds us how to just be present with one another. When you spend some time switching between these two worlds, you get more mindful.

A challenge is also important for the soul--it definitely is for mine. A little over a year ago I challenged myself by quitting my job and going off on a three week solo camping trip around the west. Leaving that morning was one of the most heart wrenching moments of my life. I was anxious and emotional, and I got very lonely once I was out on my own for a few days. Some people are used to going off alone on trips for work, but I think for a lot of us this "being alone" thing isn't always the easiest pill to swallow. I got that change of scenery I wanted though, and I eventually got comfortable and confident with myself. I got more mindful, it just took some time.

So I might be engaging in some escapism by going on this trip, but I’m not escaping some terrible real life situation for a happier pretend one. I’m very purposefully making a burdensome, anxiety-ridden decision to switch between two versions of the real world, all so that I can collect the bounty that doing so brings.

It’s escapism to feel more real, not to dive into a happy fantasy zone. Escapism to improve my life, not to distance myself from it. Escapism to strengthen my resolve, not to lighten my load.

It's an escape to reality---the reality of the earth as it is, unobstructed, natural, and free.

So here's goes, escapism be damned. I'm ready to have a work schedule for the first time in a year, I think. I'm ready to camp for a month straight for the first time ever, mostly. I'm ready to hike and take way too many pictures, for sure. I'm ready to physically explore my favorite national park and spiritually explore life through my writing, definitely.

I’ll write about nature and mindfulness (obviously), the history and meaning of the national parks (it’s the 100 year anniversary of the National Park Service afterall), the environmental movement and it’s importance in an election year (#dumptrump), and the intersection of the LGBT community and nature, which I believe can be a key element in creating confidence in our identities and ourselves. The topics of exploration are as endless as the miles of Sierran hiking trails.

In short, I’m going to be quite busy. It’ll take some hard work, but no one ever said life would be easy, thank god.

I hope you'll follow me on this new journey.

I only have a few days left at home before I leave for a month, and I'm kind of a mess.

Some people would say, “so what?” Some people travel alone all the time, be it for work or adventure. Some actually people prefer being alone.

Not me though. Aside from my more recent habit of going on 2-to-3 night, solo, camping trips, I’ve spent the vast majority of my life surrounded by friends, family, pets, and loved ones. When I am alone I quickly fall into the FOMO/loneliness trap. It’s quite unmindful, I know, and that’s exactly why I’m planned this month-long volunteer job at Yosemite National Park in the first place.

But I still have to deal with actually leaving.

Every time I think about it, a pang of anxiety punches me in the gut.
When I imagine saying goodbye to my man and dog that morning, a wave of emotion bowls me over.
At night I think “only 7 more sleeps in my bed,” and then I can’t sleep.
A simple hug goodbye from a friend could be enough to send me into tailspin.

Right now I have a choice: let these unmindful emotions overtake me and ruin the last few days I have at home, or get out of my head, let them go, and get back to life.

I choose life.

The earth is a living organism. If you take care of it, it will take care of you.

The earth is everything---our refuge, our sustenance, our joy, and our sadness.  It's every relationship we've ever known, every historical moment, every invention, every peace treaty, every episode of "Friends," every status update and tweet, every smile, every frown, every like, every love. Every. Thing.

It seems so obvious to me that we should all do everything we possibly can to protect it, at every step and every decision. Always. But clearly not everyone is on the same page. It's election season here in the America and, as usual, the climate change battle lines have been drawn.

It's time for us to draw our own battle lines too. It's time to fight for this planet. It's time to give a damn.

I’m a little obsessed with environmentalism and have been for as long as I can remember. It was ingrained in me as a youngster, bundling newspapers to recycle at school and separating the cans and bottles, all way back in the 80’s before it was trendy. Thanks mom, for instilling those consequential values.

That foundation led me to continue on as an earth advocate, studying environmental policy in graduate school, and keeping climate change in mind during all those seemingly banal, but realistically complex, everyday life choices. These days, when I’m not writing or hiking or taking pictures, I work and volunteer for environmental advocacy organizations. Like I said, a little bit obsessed.

I’ve also always been a bit more of a sensitive soul. I tend to care and worry about, well, pretty much everything. It’s why I search for mindfulness to maybe (possibly, hopefully) stop being such a worrywart. But sometimes worry is warranted, like worrying about the dire threat of global warming.

Signs of pending doom are all around us.
​
​I spend a lot of time in Griffith Park near my home in Los Angeles. It truly is a marvel of a park, cut through the middle of the urban jungle, a chunk of wilderness in the center of America's second largest city. It's my escape and my therapist. It's a gift of naturally mindful riches. As an Angeleno, I feel blessed to have such easy access to this and all the rest of our nearby mountain wilderness parks.

But if you’ve visited Griffith Park in the last few months like I have, you’ve bore whiteness to it’s depressing condition. It's impossible to count how many dead or dying trees you pass on a basic hike to the famed Hollywood Sign. Years of drought have ravaged this unique oasis.

Decades of unprecedented warming have ravaged much of the western United States as well. A series of hottest summers on record have weakened our forest’s natural defenses against the burgeoning bark beetle infestation, leaving trees in the Sierras and Rockies, to die by the millions.

The heat is fueling numerous, compounding, detrimental, worldwide consequences. The arctic ice sheet is melting annually at an alarming rate, global sea levels have risen almost 8 inches in the last century, and continues to rise exponentially every year. Storms have become more severe, drought more persistent, weather more unpredictable.

Recent news hasn't gotten any rosier. Los Angeles is currently facing its worst air quality in decades. An abnormally stagnant, hot, and elongated summer is trapping more pollution and wildfire smoke in the region than ever this summer. That heat isn't unique to LA either, as we've now learned that July 2016 was the hottest month ever recorded in the entire history of recorded temperatures.

At this point, if global warming doesn’t send chills down your spine, then it’s time to see a chiropractor... and maybe have a cardiologist look into why it hasn't thawed your cold dead heart.

Make no mistake, global warming is real.

Increasing global temperatures is just fact. The "man-made" part of global warming is itself a theory, but when 97% of climate scientists accept that theory as truth, I trust them. California has undoubtedly had droughts before, I've been through a few myself growing up here, but this current one is unprecedented by all measures---longer, hotter, drier.

It’s difficult for me to imagine that all the pollution we've pumped into our atmosphere over the last 150 years wouldn’t have some sort of connection to all warming we’ve seen over the same period. It’d all have to be so ridiculously coincidental otherwise.

Connect all the menacing dots. Isn't it obvious we need to do something about it?

Difficult decisions must be made if we're going to fix this.

Collectively we are sitting on a Titanic of our own creation. We all see the iceberg off the bow.

The maneuvers required to change course aren’t cute or simple. It will take courage, fortitude, and sacrifices. It requires a sharp turn in our thinking and actions in order to avoid disaster. My generation has had it easy, but our forebearers overcame difficult and complicated challenges in the past. From the Dark Ages to World War II, mankind has always been able to correct course. Surely we are strong enough as a society turn this ship around. 

Most of us already care about protecting this home we call earth. We try to make better decisions when we use a plastic bottle or buy a new car. We don’t always succeed, we don't always try hard enough, but we try. That's worth at least a few turns of the ship's wheel.

Our individual efforts can extend to others. We can lead by example, walk the walk, and teach our friends the things we've learned. When we all pull the wheel together, the whole ship finally starts to turn.  

But perhaps the most difficult maneuver of all is the battle against those who deny the problem even exists. People who accept science when it comes to the pills the doctor prescribes or the bridge the engineer designs, but ignores the vast scientific consensus on man-made global warming. People who are willing to forgo action that not only cleans the air we breath but also ensures our existence as a species in the long-term, all for the sake of protecting the bottom line of a business investment in the short.

People like Donald Trump, who called climate change a hoax, and nearly every single member of the Republican party, who with each absurd statement and vote actively steer the Titanic directly toward the iceberg. A wretched lot of selfish saps, frozen in ignorance, ready to take down the planet for pride rather than take the steps required to save it.

​I have hope that we're going to do the right thing here.

I care about this earth. I care because it’s my home, it's our home, and I’d like to protect it for future generations. I care because of its beauty and wonderment and its inspiration of possibilities. I care because of the gorgeous groves of of trees, the captivating cascades of waterfalls, and the stunningly sculpted canyons. I care because every living thing on this earth is collectively interconnected and interdependent on one another. I care because when one species, when one plant, when one tree falls, a whole ecological web falls with it.

If we don’t do something about this, and like real soon, our web will fall as well. That’s why it’s so incumbent upon all of us to take action---to make better decisions more often, from cars and plastic bottles, to mass transit and recycling, to everything we consume and how much of it we waste.

And maybe most importantly, to make better decisions at the ballot box. Not just in this year's election, but in every single election in which we have the privilege of voting.  

That means doing everything you possibly can to ensure Donald Trump is not elected president. It also means ousting all those Republican politicians who make it a hobby of blocking every Obama-endorsed environmental policy, no matter how pragmatic or compromised that proposal might be. We should all make an valiant effort to steer this ship clear of the iceberg, but we also have the power to chip away at the ice to make it less menacing.

If you give a damn about the environment, prove it and do something. Make changes in your life. Pick up trash, recycle, stop using plastic, drive less or drive a lower emission car, plant trees, join the Sierra Club. The list goes on. You already know what to do.

And then become a ballot box activist. Choose a candidate that has a set of policies directly aimed at fighting climate change. Hillary Clinton has a whole slew impressive climate change and broader environmental policy proposals. And at very basic level, go make sure your representative actually believes global warming exists in the first place. Simply believing in science should be a prerequisite for public holding office, in my non-humble opinion.

The only way we save this earth is by giving a damn. The time to start giving is now.

We wake up every morning with a choice: take the daily climb, or cave and do nothing.

Lying there in bed, peeling one eye open. The day is new, the sun is dim, the ground is damp, the earth and our muscles and our brain is cold.

We get up.

Facing a mountain we look ahead. So much to do, but nothing really to do other than put one foot in front of the other.

​So we do it.

We start to warm up. The climb gets easier. We get a pace going---setting goals, meeting them, starting new projects, finishing others. Thinking, imagining, improving, accepting, attempting. Sometimes the climb is steep, sometimes flat, sometimes downhill, but we keep moving, either way.

Eventually we reach the top. We've met our goal, we made an effort, we feel that accomplishment. We didn't waste our day, we didn't put it off til tomorrow. We set a goal and saw it through.

At day's end we lay back down for sleep, at first still reeling in glow of achievement, but always inevitably turning to tomorrow. A new day, a new climb, a new choice. The prospect of tomorrow feels easier, that's the reward for today's efforts, but it will still be a choice.

Every day, climb or cave.

Every day, totally up to you.

Unless you’ve been living alone in the woods for the last few months, you’re well aware that it’s peak political season in the United States.

An election at it’s basic level is a decision, and this idea about the power of our individual, everyday decisions courses through the entire premise of mindfulness. Every day we have a decision to either live in the present or dwell on the past, to learn and grow or stifle our evolution, to get up every morning and conquer the day or roll over and let it pass us by.

A political election requires a decision too, a far less intimate but just as important decision.

At the root of all these decisions is love and fear. It seems simplistic at the face of it, but in reality it’s a complicated struggle between our two most extreme emotions. Too much love and our decisions rely on sentiment instead of reason. Too much fear and our decisions are rooted in distrust and anger. Too much of either makes us unmindful---when we lean too far in any direction we eventually fall over.

A decision based in love or fear is complicated, but usually, hopefully, the result ends up somewhere in the middle---in compromise.

I like to think of these two sides as the classic angel-and-devil-on-the-shoulders meme. 

These two little shoulder emotions battle in our hearts and minds all the time. Love tells us to live in the present and accept the beauty of right now, while fears holds us back to worry if we'll ever live up to our past triumphs or live down our past mistakes. Love opens up our mind to accept new ideas, while fear shuts us down to pine after an imagined ideal. Love pushes us to use each day to its full potential, while fear triggers the warm safety of procrastination.

In politics, love and fear fuel another set of decisions. Love leads us to engage and educate our friends, while fear makes us to lash out and insult. Love encourages us to care for our fellow man no matter what their race, religion, or orientation, while fear demands we entrench ourselves, draw deeper into our ideological bubble, and refuse to give an inch. Love requires us to protect our earth for generations to come, while fear whispers lies of doubt around climate change science and encourages a business-first attitude.

When we sit down to decide which candidate to support, we yet again look to love and fear for assistance. Love tells us to vote for who we’re most enthusiastic about and most aligns with our ideals, while fear tells us to vote against the candidate we find troublesome, or even dangerous.

Now before you say it, I know, that was just a long list of overly simplistic, cut and dry, black and white decisions.

In real life we don’t just listen to either the angel or the devil, we hear both. We make good decisions, we make mistakes, we figure things out, and then ultimately we find the best path lies somewhere else. I often call it balance or compromise. Buddhists call it "the middle way"

These when the two competing emotions come together.

We can live in the present while also using the past to inform it. The middle. We can hold on to our values and ideals while staying open to life’s ongoing lessons. The middle. We can have a productive day and also take some “me time” once in a while. The middle.

In an election, we can make a voting decision based on both love for a candidate that moves us forward with progress, as well as fear over the dangerous regress the alternative will usher. The middle.

On the issues, love can focus us on our commonalities instead of conflicts, while fear reminds us to speak out loudly against dangerous demagogues. The middle. Love can rightly attract us to peace, equality, and fairness, while fear demands we fight directly against racism, xenophobia, and homophobia. The middle. Love can urge us to protect and rebuild our environment, while fear reminds us that political leaders who deny the existence of climate change are steering us toward catastrophe and must be stopped at all costs. The middle.

My love for every interconnected living thing on this earth and my desire to make it a better place, leads me to vote for Hillary Clinton. My fear of the destruction, treacherousness, hatred, and bluster that has and will undoubtedly continue to rise from her chief opponent, leads me to the same conclusion.

Both love and fear, meeting in the middle, for progress in America.

As someone taking the time to read the blog, I'm making a few assumptions about you.

#1, I assume you’re ravishingly attractive. No seriously, the inner beauty you craft through mindfulness almost always exudes an outer beauty of cool self-confidence.

#2, getting to the real point of this piece though, I assume you're interested in improving yourself, being more present in the world around you, and making that world a better place. Basically, you believe in progress. Individual, social, political progress.

But progress isn't an easy topic to define. Coming from their own individual starting point, everyone undoubtedly develops their own idea of what progress means. Those differences make the path of progress a challenging and uncertain one to follow.

But in the end we will always move forward.

In my own mindful world, progress fluctuates. One day I’ll do a hike, spend a few hours writing, maybe actually publish an article, check off a bunch of to-do list items, cook a healthy dinner, and get to bed at a reasonable hour. Then the next morning I’ll oversleep and waste the day on Facebook. My own progress ebbs and flows.

I won’t pretend to know what's happening day-to-day in your world, but I’m just going to go ahead and make another assumption, that you experience days very similar to mine. Otherwise, why would you be reading up on ways to find more mindfulness in your life on this blog? Everybody’s individual progress ebbs and flows too.

Interpersonal progress follows the same pattern as well. All relationships come and go, grow or wither over time. The more time we spend getting to know different people, the more we change, the more they change, and the more the relationship between the two changes. Sometimes it changes in a way that draws you closer. Sometimes, you drift apart. The progress of interpersonal connection also ebbs and flows.

You’ll find the same order in the world of political progress. Empire’s come and go. Sometimes the Republicans are in charge, and sometimes it’s the Democrats. Laws are passed and laws are repealed. The politics of power and the issues of the day are constantly in flux

I’ll use a recent example: a few short years ago marriage equality for the LGBTQ community was a divisive issue for most Americans, and a hot potato issue for most politicians. These days a decent majority of Americans support it, and for anyone in the liberal-to-moderate realm, it’s the expectation. You even have the current Republican presidential candidate name-dropping “LGBTQ” in his nomination acceptance speech. That's progress too, but at the same time his party’s platform calls for roll back of all LGBTQ protective laws, marriage equality included. You can bet that if the tide of power shifts in their direction the rights we now take for granted will quickly evaporate. The progress of politics ebbs and flows.

Despite all this---the constant change, the victories and failures, from an individual to a national scale---we eventually move forward.

​Dr. King was speaking about the politics of civil rights in the United States, which itself saw various ebbs and flows over time. From kings and queens of their continent, to slaves in a far off land; breaking the chains of slavery, to persecution by segregation; obtaining voting rights, to literacy tests and poll taxes that block those rights; the Civil Rights Act banning discrimination, even while racism continued (and continues). The progress of civil rights, like all politics, like our individual and interpersonal growth, ebbs and flows.

But in the end it flows forward. There is marked improvement of conditions, of equality, of fairness, of liberty over time. Maybe progress doesn't always move as fast as some of us would like, but it still moves. The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, eventually.

We're all somewhere on that arc of progress. I have a lot of work left to do on myself, but I’m slowly getting there. I hope you are all in the same boat---advancing, improving, or at least making an effort. Each relationship moves forward, sometimes into calm waters and sometimes more treacherous, but always evolving. And in politics, even when conditions seem hopelessly unjust, off in the distance there's a glimmer of hope... progress.

Knowing and accepting that life won’t be perfect, that everything won’t go our way, that we will run into both fast lanes and road blocks---that knowledge is power.

This is the way progress goes, sometimes it ebbs and sometimes it flows, but always it grows.

Your ideal life doesn't come tied in a neat bow.
There's no FAQs to tell you how. 
It's not on Amazon Prime. 
You won't find a sassy Etsy design. 
There is no steaming it on-demand. 
No overnight shipping at hand. 
It doesn't magically come in a dream. 
It’s not dependent on likes or memes. 
There is no app for that. 
You can't get help from web support chat.
You won't stumble across it on a Pokemon hunt. 
Real life takes effort, sorry to be blunt.

Your ideal life is up to you. 
It's completely determined by what you do. 
Each day is a choice that you can make. 
So get off your ass and make it, for chrissake.

There's a real, fascinating, sometimes frightening, but ultimately beautiful world out there. Then there's a fake, surreptitious, sometimes comforting, but often crude digital world.

I think you can tell which one I prefer based on that description alone.

Both worlds are populated by actual people. In one world we see those people face-to-face, usually forcing a level of civility, politeness, and kindness. Not always, but usually. There are jerks, douchebags, fools, and a few dangerous psychopaths out there, but mostly when we're in-person we're nice to one another.

In the other world we see people through an avatar, a social media mask, removing nonverbal forms of human communication like facial expression and tone, usually stripping away the norms of tact and empathy in the process. Usually, but not always. There are kind, caring, and loving people all over the digisphere, but looking through a screen sometimes puts blinders on our otherwise exceptional eyes, leading to crassness and cruelty.

Every day most of us encounter both worlds. We watch as digital communication implodes into friend-on-friend Facebook wars (and maybe sometimes we even participate), before having a real world friend-on-friend lunch that restores our faith in humanity.

I ride the same roller coaster: I usually try to be an advocate instead of an argument, but sometimes I fail. I also make an effort to connect for real with my friends and family as much as possible, but again, sometimes I fail.

I was recently tested on both fronts when I received an abrupt blast from my distant past. Someone took the time to send me an angry message and then promptly blocked me so I couldn't respond. Beyond the fact that my interpretation of events couldn't be more different from theirs, I wasn't able to explain myself or to possibly apologize for any hurt I caused so many years ago.

​There was the social media mask, staring me in the face and resorting to anger, but not willing to let us talk it out like real humans.

I may never truly understand this strange, new, loud-but-noncommunicative digital world, but my goal is to survive and be kind in it.

When given the chance, we should opt to spend our time in the real world, the present, as much as possible. But when we do dive into the murky digital world, we can bring with us the same civility, cordiality, and conversation we typically use in the real one.

The ability to hide behind the digital mask is physical, we're literally separated, so it was bound to change us. But maybe with a little extra effort---giving that update, comment, message, or block a second thought---we can act more mindfully about it.

​We can learn to treat our fellow man like they're standing right in front of us, even when they're actually miles away.

The way I see it, you have two options for your existence: live your life, or live your life in fear.

There’s a valid evolutionary reason we feel fear and anxiety. In our caveman days we developed these emotions as a form of protection. The fear of death, injury, or pain triggered our defenses, thus lowering the chance of death, injury, or pain.

But it’s easy for us to take that healthy reaction of caution to an extreme, especially in this age of digital information over-saturation, especially given the news media’s tendency to focus on calamity as a ratings booster, and most especially when we’re hit with a personal tragedy.

12 years ago today my younger brother, plagued with blood clots, laid down to catch his breath and never got back up again. 5 years before that my father, plagued with high cholesterol, went out for a run one afternoon and never ran home. In my years before all that, I was always a bit of a worry-wort, lying awake in my central California home fretting over the possibility of the "big one" casting us off into the Pacific, or of an inescapable house fire, or of an alien invasion (seriously).

All of this, especially the untimely death of two of my closest family members, could have lead me to a very fearful life, becoming increasingly risk averse so as to avoid all of the many real and imaginary dangers of the world. While I do carry a decent amount of this worry with me to this day---and believe a little fear-induced caution can lead to wiser choices---I make a concerted effort to let go.

Because really, what is the point of living if you spend your whole life holed up in a mental bunker of fear?

​There are truly dangerous people and things out there. My community, LGBTQ folks, are often the target of violence. I go hiking a lot by myself and so every time my mother learns of a bear attack she sends me an email of concern. Even with that, my risk of danger is low compared to the many places in the world held hostage by terrorists or the underprivileged communities held hostage to an overreactive police force and straight up bigotry.

But in spite of all that, when the moment comes that I lie down and never get back up, I’d like to at least know I lived life to the fullest while I was standing. I want to know that I wrote down every word, that I helped every friend, that I loved, that I cried, that I followed my dreams, that I lived while I was alive.

On this anniversary of my little brother's death, the lesson is to live with passion, joy, and love, just as he did in his time on earth. On the occasion of a seemingly neverending parade of deaths around the world, the lesson is to live mindfully in the present, because who knows what might happen tomorrow. The lesson is that life is too short to waste it constantly worried about death.

The lesson of death... is life.

According to Google, "journeyman" isn't an entirely popular word these days. It probably conjures up ideas of a union electrician apprentice---that is, if it conjures up anything for you at all. The word more or less means “someone who is educated on a topic, but isn't quite an expert. An amateur.” You can see how this might have negative connotations.

And yet, here I am using that word in various blog posts and on my Instagram/Facebook/Twitter. I use the term liberally to describe myself, and I also use it to describe everybody else as part of a larger world view.

Not long ago a friend questioned me on this practice. Was I cutting myself short? Was I cutting the world short?

But I don't use the word "journeyman" in any traditional sense, I use it as a mindfulness shortcut. It's a metaphor for the journey of life, the journey we are all on.

The more on-the-nose way I use journeyman is to denote travel. I dubbed my month-long trip across multiple western national parks my “Journeyman Trek”. I use #Journeyman👣 on social media to denote whenever I go camping, climb a mountain, or use my passport to cross a border. That’s a play on the word, and I like being mildly clever that way.

But the primary way I use the journeyman is much more of a philosophy. It's a figurative journey, a mental and spiritual journey, not a literal journey.

It boils down to this: life isn’t static. No one, not a single individual human being, stays in one place their whole lives. Everyone is constantly experiencing, learning, and growing.

For those of us who keep an open mind, this isn't some abstract concept. We expect to take in new ideas and experiences and allow them to mold our understanding of the diverse world around us.

Even those who appear rigid in their beliefs will change, simply due to the passage of time, in small but still meaningful ways. Time leads to experience leads to knowledge.

Even those who seem stuck, in a job, relationship, or any other circumstance, are only as stuck as they believe themselves to be. In all but the extreme circumstances, the experience of being stuck teaches you how to become unstuck, and then it's up to you to use that lesson.

When you look back on your life, it's almost impossible not to see some way in which you've grown, and that's your evidence that this "personal journey" people talk about isn't theoretical, it's tangible. In the progressively hopeful way I choose to see the world, that is just a given.
​
So if we’re always changing and gaining knowledge, is there really such a thing as an expert? Expertise is only the collection of knowledge you've gathered in a particular subject up until now. There are no know-it-alls, because as soon as they've learned "all" there is to learn on a subject, a new discovery will turn that knowledge on its head.

“Expert” doctors once used leeches to cure illness. “Expert” astronomers once believed the entire universe rotated around the earth. Knowledge evolved and those “experts” reverted to journeymen. And that isn't to discount the noble efforts they made in their profession, it's just to readily admit that knowledge is never finite.

Today’s “experts” will meet the same fate, because in a few years the next big idea will inevitably turn that knowledge on its head.

Each and everyone of us will meet the same fate as well. We think we know all there is to know about a friend, for example, until we learn something new or see a different side that turns our perception of them on its head.

Accepting that tomorrow is both an unknown and the product of every experience you've had up through today, that's how you start to live in the present. That is the intersection of mindfulness and the journeyman.

Being a journeyman isn’t something negative, it’s our dynamic reality. Or at least it's the dynamic reality I try to accept in my quest for enlightenment through mindfulness.

​The more we act as the students, the amateurs, the journeymen of life, the more mindful we become.

It's something I've wanted to write about in this blog for a while now, but never quite knew how to bring it up. It's also something I've always known, for as far back as I can remember, but something that took me a long time to accept. Usually the easiest way to do this is like pulling off a bandaid, so here goes..

I'm gay.

I don't imagine anyone who reads this blog is particularly disrupted by that fact. You're either my friend so you already know, or you're people who seek out mindfulness, and those kind of people are loving, open-minded, and caring.

So I wasn’t worried about coming out per se, and I've made casual reference to “my man” and used photos of us together on numerous occasions.

But still, I've never been overt. I suppose I didn't want to be “that gay mindfulness guy.” I wanted my ideas to speak for themselves, to be universal.

The recent and absurdly tragic events in Orlando though, they made my desire to come out on these pages more urgent.

They also got me thinking a lot. I've been trying to wrap my head around what occurred, and then the response from people of all persuasions over the past few days: reactions of anger for good reason, fear of what still might occur, love for the community of support we've created, honoring the past in the form of brave coming out stories, and hope for the future as we trudge forward with marching orders as political advocates in a new arena.

​I've also seen some truly terrible reactions, those of vitriol and blame that do nothing to solve the myriad problems we all face as a society or to better the plight of LGBT people around the world.

I wanted to figure out how and where mindfulness fits into this. As usual, as we all do, we go back to our own bubble of experience to try and make sense of it.

Leading a more present life in the world is a long and arduous journey of fear and accomplishment. Coming out of the closet was, and still is for most young people, a long and arduous journey of fear and accomplishment as well. And the more I think about it, the more I realize growing up gay is perhaps one of the biggest drivers of my own attraction to mindfulness.

Simply living as an out gay man is an albatross of a journey; constantly looking over your shoulder wondering if someone is judging you, or worse, out to harm you. A life in that sort of existence is far from mindful. How can I live in the moment, love who I want openly, and just be my honest self when a "wrong" move in a wrong situation can lead to derision or even violence?

Perhaps I actively search for ways to live free and mindful because I’ve been stripped of the ability to do that in my everyday life, for my whole life, simply because of who I am and the way some in society view me.

Certainly not every gay person is an amateur-journeyman-mindfulness-guru like me. But take a place like a gay bar or club; it's a place of safety for my community, a respite from the worry of constant judgement you feel almost everywhere else. It's a place where we can truly, finally, live in the moment. In that sense, perhaps we gays are creatures of the mindfulness, whether we realize it or not.

On the same token, many if not most gay men grow up with a heightened sympathy for the other little guys in life---the maligned and the bullied---because we've been there too.

I knew I was different from early on, and the other kids in school seemed to know too. So I was picked on, especially in PE class. I endured physical, mental, and verbal abuse, sometimes subtle and sometimes overt, but always painful. Later in high school I became much more confident in myself, or at least able to play confident, and the abuse waned. Maybe I was just lucky, because I continued to watch other outsider kids in my school get bullied. High school can be brutal that way.

But because of all of that, I grew up with an extra sensitivity to the plight of others, and it led me to a desire to help make things better. By helping others I thought I could help myself. That led me to nonprofit work in my career, to make the world a slightly better place. It led me to this blog, to make my own life, and maybe yours by proxy, a slightly better place too.

I've always thought of mindfulness as a way of helping out the little guy, even if that little guy is me. It's how we escape the pains of the world and learn to be proud of ourselves, in that moment.

The LGBT community isn’t some monolith, not everyone is like me nor would I want them to be. But I think we all carry with us a chip on our shoulder from each of our individually difficult experiences of growing up in a society that thinks we shouldn’t exist. Or if we do exist we should only exist in private. Or that we don’t truly exist at all because we can just pray it away. Or we might exist right now, but we shouldn’t anymore, so they’re going to show up at a nightclub and mow us down with automatic weapons of war (that have no business being in the hands of civilians).

I know for a fact that mindfulness has helped me wade through the sometimes muddy and sometimes beautifully sparkling waters of being a gay man in this day and age. Mindfulness has definitely helped me deal with my own myriad emotions stemming from the massacre in Orlando.

My history and experience, all of it, has led me to here, a place of knowing about my imperfection, but also a place of strength because of it.

I know for a fact that the world and everyone in it needs more mindfulness. The society that told me I shouldn’t exist said the same to the shooter in Orlando, who has now been found to have been on gay social media apps himself. Instead of taking that difficult upbringing of hate and turning into love, as so so many of my gay brothers and sisters have done, he turned to hate and violence.

I know for a fact that my community, my friends, the loving and open-minded LGBT community, could use a little mindfulness right now too. A moment to look back at where we’ve been, look at the horror that has hit us now, and take all those years of both contempt and compassion, suffering and celebration, pain and pride, and mix up that uniquely amazing recipe to create the next step in our movement.

It's a movement that makes the world a better place by telling our stories, with political action around LGBT rights, in working to reverse the tide of homophobia spawned by religious extremists from too many religions, and now using our collective might to combat our nations' longstanding pillars of shame: guns and violence.

With all that we've been through and all that we've already done, I'm more hopeful now than ever about what we'll accomplish in the future. I couldn't be more proud.