Life encompasses many things, but at its most basic level, it’s a series of choices. I'll give you an example:

After I camp for a few days (an activity I'm quite fond of) my hands get rough, so when I embarked my adult wilderness career a year or so back, I wore "kid" gloves for certain tasks--tent building, fire maintaining, bag hauling. They prevented my hands from becoming rough or sore and protected me from the sort of hand injury that leads to a difficult camping experience. In those early days of my journeyman world, I was of a mindset that the goal in life was to always make things easier and more comfortable.

But then my mindset changed.

One night I was chopping a tomato and I ineptly cut a finger while wearing the gloves. It wasn't all that bad of a cut, but still, it raised a question: do I keep wearing the kid gloves for protection or do I give them up because they obviously can't protect me from everything?

I never really wore my gloves all the time--I mean, what kind of weirdo walks around wearing leather work gloves everywhere they go? I also found that even if I wore them for certain, more arduous activities, my hands would inevitably become painful anyway. And as I'd just learned, if I was careless around a tomato I might cut right through the thin leather skin of my kid gloves anyway.

So I stopped wearing them. I made a choice to live a little bit dangerously. I realized that no matter how many precautions I took, there would always be uncertainty, and no matter how many layers of protection I added, pain was inevitable. It was time to embrace the unknown and the pain that might develop from camping.

Life is full of choices like this--simple actionable decisions between a perceived risk and an anticipated reward.

You choose to stay in a job you hate instead of updating your resume. You choose to order the burger and fries instead of making a fresh salad. You choose to dilly dally on Facebook instead of writing. You choose to lose touch with a friend instead of picking up the phone. You choose to watch TV instead of going on a hike.

Those are all decisions I've gotten wrong in life, but also decisions I've gotten right.
Every day we get to decide which path to take.

And who's really to say which is wrong and which is right? We're all very different and very infallible beings. Each one of us has to figure out the right path and the proper balance on our own. We each need to decide when it's right to wear the kid gloves of contentment, and when it's time to get out of our comfort zone and see what lessons that might bring.

So I didn't wear the gloves, and as a result I learned to be more cautious--when I hammered in the stakes in around my tent, I did so thoughtfully--when I handled wood by the fire, I scanned for splinters first--when I carried heavy bags, I evened the weight so I wouldn't overburden one side. Giving up the gloves added some risk, but my mind picked up the slack, and I became a smarter camper.

No one ever said life would be easy. Every day presents you with a series of choices, and each choice holds the potential for success, for failure, for a life lesson, and quite possibly for a paradigm shift.

Take off the kid gloves, act a little rebellious, and feel the freedom it yields.

We rest on crutches far too much in life.

And, why not? The modern world affords us a million conveniences that mankind developed over centuries to make life a little bit easier. But in our efforts to simplify our everyday tasks, haven't we lost something?

Our ancestors had to fight to survive and thrive. Every day was a gift because every day you had to overcome any number of natural obstacles in order to continue your existence. With the properly planning and knowledge, you might starve to death, or get eaten by a bear, or run out of water, or end up murdered in your sleep due to a particularly violent neighboring tribe.

Without those life and death complexities of survival to deal with, we end up resting on our laurels.
Without struggle and resistance, we fail to gain strength.
Without loss, we forget to appreciate our blessings.

Now of course, this is undoubtedly a first-world problem. There are lot of people on this earth that do have to struggle to survive, and that’s not a good thing. We should all do everything we can to bring comfort and kindness to everyone on this planet.

But for the rest of us, by not having to deal with the types of struggle that were once ubiquitous in our corner of society, we've missed out on some vitally important life lessons.

I was camping recently and it suddenly seemed so obvious--out in the semi-developed wilderness of Death Valley everyone takes liberal advantage headlamps, gas stoves, air mattresses, running water, smartphones, and the nearby market for supplies. All things that make life easy, all things that we want, but nothing that we particularly need.

I'm not saying you aren't allowed to hold on to some comforts in life, we fought long and hard to achieve them. I'm just saying there’s a lot to be gained from giving up a few of them, at least once in awhile. It's when you to give up a little, that you start to gain a lot.

Giving up the headlamp and depending on the moon teaches you just how much you can already see.

Packing away the stove and cooking over your fire teaches you the importance of the simplest things.

Storing and rationing water teaches you to use what you need--and only what you need--instead of living life as a free flow of excess.

​Putting the phone in airplane mode strips away the digital distractions and let's you enjoy real life again.

The lessons from a campsite are no different in our modern life. Our everyday reliance on crutches is a choice we make with everything we do. Our over-reliance on comforts leads to ungratefulness and juvenile quibbles. Our over-reliance on comforts has led to water scarcity, oil dependence, and global warming. Our over-reliance on comforts and this finite amount of resources is slowly squeezing out our attempted dominion over this earth.

Get off the crutch and stand up.
Take a few steps forward.
Real life is the grit of the hard ground,
Not a delicately cushioned pillow.

See how real life can feel.

New motto: you need to slow down in order to move forward

We live in a frantic, fast-paced, eat-or-be-eaten, shit-or-get-off-the-pot kind of world. And it’s counterproductive.

In the modern age, people expect instant everything: instant social media updates to show everything you're doing, instant gratification/likes to validate everything you're doing, instant answers to every possible question, instant responses to every text, instant and incessant every-speck-of-news channels, instant traffic updates with expectations of every green light, instant political poll results to show every mood swing, and even instant ramen that's ever so basic.

But what does instantaneousness get us? The instant answer is usually thoughtless. An instant update takes you out of the moment. Instant gratification is typically insincere. Instant ramen never tastes as good as the real stuff.

In short, the instant world gets us nowhere fast.

I propose we slooooow doooooown.

I've had to learn to slow down the hard way. I’m a fairly active guy and I try to stay at least somewhat fit, but for years my exercise routine was crafted for expediency, particularly around jogging.

Going for a run can be a great way to burn calories and I've written on the mindfulness benefits I gained from it in the past. But I also often used it as a way to absently power through an exercise just to get it over with. If I didn't stressfully rush through traffic to my typical spot at the reservoir to stomp out a lap, I would opt to run on the streets near my house, exacerbating my shin splits on the unyielding pavement. I never quite stretched or warmed up as much as I really should have and I started wearing those hip new minimalist shoes that provide very little support, without giving my legs time to get used to them. I did all this while training for a half marathon in an expedited schedule.

It was a risky recipe. By the end of that marathon, my shins, my ankles, arches, heels, toes, and hips were all quite angry with me. They all pleaded with me to slooooooow dooooooown.

So I did. Following the half marathon I went on a long solo camping trip I called "Journeyman." Instead of running quickly through all the beautiful natural environments I visited, I hiked and did so thoughtfully, deliberately, soaking it all in.

By slowing down not only did I get the benefits that exercise brings to your body, I got the benefit of spiritual renewal that's always available when you commune with nature. I was able to find mindfulness with each step, and to this day hiking inspires most of what I write on these pages.

My personal parable is applicable to all sorts of situations in our modern world: when we take a moment to gather our thoughts before responding, our reaction is more authentic. When we stay in the moment instead of jumping to Facebook to post a photo of every event, we get to relish in it. When we don’t expect a digital thumb up for every social media post, we feel more confident in our self worth. When we're patient on the road, we're able to chill and let road rage shift to road relaxation.  When we wait in line for 30 minutes for the good ramen place, our tongue is happy and we’re more satisfied, and that's just fact.

Patience is a virtue, in all things. Don’t fall for the immediacy trap our modern technology has set out for us. Slow down, so you can move forward.

The other day I spent some time on my phone.

I took a few minutes updating my reminders and to-do list...it's a busy time of year.
I scrolled through Facebook and Instagram, a like here and a like there...keeping up with friends.
I checked how many steps I had taken that day...exercise is key.

For a second there I felt productive, but then I realized, I hadn't really done anything at all.

Updating a to-do might tell me what I need to get done, but it doesn't mean I'll actually do it.
Liking a post on Facebook might remind friends I exist, but that's not actually keeping in touch.
Keeping track of how many steps I took gives me a calorie count, but rarely does it encourage me to walk more.

During the time I spent on my phone I could have worked on a project, gotten lunch with a friend, or gone on a hike, actually achieving the things I pretended I was achieving with my phone.

There's motivation to be found on our modern devices for sure, but don't let it fool you into reliance. Get off your ass and do real things. Real things are how you really move forward.

I'll be honest...as much as I make an effort to bring a mindfulness practice into my daily life, there's one central tenet of it that I totally suck at: meditation. 

More often than not I have about 20 things on my mind. If I'm having a conversation with you, don't worry I'm totally listening, but I'm also multitasking - deciding on dinner, adding kale to my grocery list, thinking of a new blog post, remembering it's time to feed the dog, wondering what the weather will be like tomorrow - and oh yeah, back to the conversation. 

When I try to meditate it's hard for me to shut all that down. Of course, that's the point of meditation, to take some time out of our hectic lives to shut that all down, even if it's just for a few minutes.

I try to meditate, and I always struggle. 

In meditation you're not supposed to stress about the fact that all those thoughts have decided to interrupt your quiet time. Instead you observe them and watch them float by like passing clouds. It's kind of a fun exercise to think of them that way. But still, most of the time when I meditate it quickly becomes a full-on overcast, on-shore flow, gathering storm, kind of sky.

My solution to all this is BUDDHIFY. It's one of the few apps I've ever paid for, and it's worth way more than they charge. 

The app provides a series of short, guided meditations, that are tailored to fit in where ever you are and with whatever you're doing. It helps turn any moment into a mindfulness moment. Some of my favorites are the "Flight" meditation for air travel and the "Thanks" meditation to help me sleep. 

Meditation for me can be a challenging task, stopping everything in my mind to be totally quiet. This app helps me get there by using my thoughts as a guide rather than trying to stop them altogether. I can't recommend it enough.

(and no, they didn't pay me to say this)

Too Much Information in the world today.

Not just the overly detailed gross TMI stuff, that’s obvious. I’m talking about the oversharing, over-tracking, and over-dependence on information that has quickly becoming ingrained in our everyday lives.

Smartphones are an amazing tool for so many aspects of life, but they can also become a burden. Thousands of apps can constantly collect data about where you go and what you do, or provide you with 24/7 access to pretty much anything you think you need to know - money and maps, stocks and sports, drivers, deals, and dates. But at some point all that info becomes a distraction, another set of chores to take care of every day, leading us to obsess and stress.

Search apps put every answer at our fingertips, but they also discourage the simple act of remembering. Map apps position every street and turn so we never have to know how to get anywhere again. Messaging apps put everyone at our fingertips so never have to actually recall how to make a call. A phone number, an address, a birthday... we don't need to remember any of that. Our digital pocket assistant knows all, so why bother.

Fitness bracelets, Apple Watch, and health tracking apps may help some people get in shape, but they can also provide you with so much information that they become counterproductive - at least it did for me. They track our steps...or they track our lack of steps causing us to stress about the lack of steps. They track our sleep...or track our lack of sleep causing us to stress about sleep...leading to even less sleep.

Updates, alerts, vibrations, summaries, transfers, pings.

Constant access, constant info.
Too much access, waaay too much info.

What about being present? 
What about remembering instead of Googling? 
What about walking instead of tracking? 
What about talking instead of tapping?

What about using our brain in the here and now, instead of using our thumbs as an excuse to be everywhere else?

The path is made by walking.

Anyone with the smallest of fingers on the mindfulness pulse has heard some version of that statement before. It's ubiquitous, and for good reason – mindfulness is about living in the present rather than focusing on the path ahead or behind us.

But like most sayings, ideas, and other poignant things, hearing is only one level of understanding. In order to truly get it, something has to happen in one's life to make it finally click.

I've already written a lot on this topic. I thought I was using it in my daily life. I thought I really got it, until I realized there is actually nothing to get.

When I set off on my 3-week, 8-state, 4,000-mile, solo-camping, journeyman trip, the "path is made by walking" was a launching off point. The past was behind me and the future yet unknown, so I would walk forward on a path – a literal path in the form of trails across 13 national parks and forests and an intellectual path that would hopefully mark my next steps in life.

Some part of me expected the trip to uncover all the answers in my life like some sort of hallucinatory, native american vision quest. I wasn’t alone in that expectation – when I returned, numerous friends wanted to know what I'd discovered about life and if I’d figured out what I wanted to do next with mine.

But sadly, I didn't return with all the answers. I certainly came back with a number of important lessons from the journey - confidence, humility, escaping nostalgia, the folly of multitasking, the true meaning of consequences, a renewed passion for the environment, and the freedom of disconnecting from the digital world - but no one lesson told me exactly what to do with myself now that I was home. 

The lessons I learned were more like suggestions – they gave me an idea of how to move along the path but no real indication of which direction to travel.

So when I first got home, I struggled. I searched in vain for that one big vision from my vision quest, but I had no more clarity on how to move forward than I did before the trip, and I was left confused and crestfallen. 

Then, after two weeks back home, and feeling as though I was blindly crawling down my path instead of confidently striding forward, I finally got around to finishing the amazingly poignant "Wild" by Cheryl Strad. The closing passage:

Damn it felt good to be disconnected.

The connection addiction is endemic in our society. It’s one thing to catch up with friends, share a piece of your life, make plans, and discuss things you find important - that’s all well and good.  But the ability to do those things at any hour of the day, and the expectation that everyone you know should be available to do so as well, it's just unhealthy.

Social media is the drug and smartphones are the enabler. Together they give us a false sense of community, making us believe everyone is waiting with bated breath for our next update or text, when in fact everyone is just going about their own lives. And on the other side of the screen, our devices sit on our laps and in our pockets distracting us with deliciously tempting notifications, making us believe we should be waiting with bated breath for all your updates.

One of the main reasons I took off into the woods for three weeks was to put all my mindfulness overtures about turning off notifications and reducing distractions into practice. But it's 2015, so I expected I would have some basic level of phone service available to me for most of the trip. I knew I could stop at Starbucks or McDonald's to use WiFi. If nothing else, I hoped I'd at least have a smidgen of phone coverage for texts and calls in an emergency.

Out on the road I quickly realized that I'd seriously overestimated the strength of my network. Dead zones were vast and numerous. I drove for hours on small highways with no coverage whatsoever.  Many campgrounds would show a few bars, but when push-came-to-upload, nothing would work. A few campgrounds had no service at all, forcing me to make a call in a real live phone booth so at least someone knew I was alive.

When you spend most of your time in cities, it's not something you're used to.  If you believe the Verizon commercials, it's not something you'd expect.

At first it was frightening. My phone is an extension of me. It’s how I communicate with my friends and family. How I map my route and stream my music. It's how I write and update this blog. I’m so used to it always being there for me, whether I’m bored or in an emergency.

In a way, spending hours or sometimes days without phone service felt like I'd lost an arm. Despite all my pronouncements to the contrary, connectivity had become that important to me. To some degree, connectivity is important to all of us. It’s unavoidable in our modern society.

But as time rolled on I accepted my new reality. As Cheryl Strayed said in Wild, “This is what I came for, this is what I got.”

So I got used to it. A constant connection became the exception rather than the rule. When it was available, it became a treat.

By the end of the journey, I loved it. I actually preferred it. At my last destination I had three straight days of no phone service. I felt free, clear, calm, unrestricted, undisturbed, undistracted. I felt present.

I don't believe I’m a selfish person, but gleefully reveling in the fact that you all couldn't get in touch with me almost felt egotistical. I knew I was missing out on all your updates and the important news of the day. It’s not as though I lost all interest in sharing things with you either.

But I realized that being disconnected for a few days or weeks wasn't the end of the world. I would eventually be back on Facebook to catch up on life. Or better yet, I would eventually see you all in-person so you could fill me in on everything.

Rather than being the end of the world, disconnection was the beginning of a new world. One where FOMO was replaced by YOLO, distraction was replaced by presence, and anxiety still existed but it was related to the threat of bears rather than the stresses of multitasking.

There were times in the waning days of my trip when my phone did start working...notification bubbles popped up, my pocket buzzed, and a wave of texts crashed in.

But at that point I had broken the addiction. The temptation was gone and rather than check those notifications I switched my phone into airplane mode. It was my time to disconnect. It was my time to enjoy the break. It was my time.

I’m back in LA now where phones always work, pretty much everywhere. I've caught up with friends and even caught up a little with Facebook (though after being away from it for so long I’m finding it mildly tedious).

But truth be told, I miss the freedom of disconnection I found in my journey. I miss the mindfulness it practically forces upon you. I miss what it feels like to realize that you and you alone are in charge or your own entertainment, there is no depending on others or apps.

This may change as the days and weeks pass here in the real world. I’ll fall back into old habits, because that’s what people do.

But I’m going to do my best to hold on to as much of this lesson as possible. 

Phones always work here, except when you hike a little further out in the mountains. Phones always work, except when you switch it to airplane mode as a choice, just to take a break. Phones always work except when you choose to be present and ignore the temptation to post every detail of your life on Facebook.

We are only as connected as we choose to be. When you have the opportunity, choose real life over digital life. 

I never spilled my water while I was on my journey.

Camping, especially camping alone, gives you a different perspective. Regular world comforts provide us a cushy freedom to make mistakes - an oversize pillow to land on when we fall. But when you're in the woods there is no cushion - you land with a thud. This new reality causes a shift - it creates focus.


When it came to water, every wasted drop meant more effort to collect it again later. Every wasted drop meant I might run out of water somewhere down the line.

So I focused on collecting my water efficiently. I only focused on collecting that water and nothing else, because nothing else actually mattered. Thinking about other tasks was a distraction, and distractions can lead to mistakes.

Now I’m home and I immediately fall back into old patterns. At the water dispenser I fill my cup so high that it splashes out. I do this routinely. I don't focus, I multitask, I'm thinking down the line.

Multitasking is trendy, but dare I say multitasking is wasteful. Instead of putting all your effort into one important task you spread it out over many. Instead of doing one thing well, you half-ass a bunch of things.

My to-do list perpetuates the distraction, making me think I have multiple things to get done so I should work on as many things as possible. But they don’t help me get more done. My mind is spread out and unfocused. My effort is diluted.

The lesson of the forest is to be present in your current state. The lesson is mindfulness.

I choose to heed the call. I choose to fill, not spill, my water. I choose to engage the task at hand - successfully complete it or fail and learn from it - and only then do I move on.

I will make mistakes - I’ll overfill my water from time to time because that’s my habit. But now every time I do that it will serve as a reminder. Each drop of water that falls to the ground is a tap on the shoulder telling me to be present. 

Mindfulness isn't merely about observing your feelings and leaving it at that, mindfulness is how we choose to engage the world through our everyday actions.

Next time you fill up your water cup, next time you're doing anything really, remember to be present. 

In every task there is mindfulness.

In case you didn't already get this from the sad, lament of a poem I posted few weeks back, I'm not good with goodbyes.

It can be anything from the end of a long vacation to the end of a dinner, and my heart sinks a little. I'd like to think it's because I love people so much and want to hold on to the good times as long as possible. I definitely know part of me is anticipating the melancholy I'll feel as I look back on it. Alas, I've already written on the topic.

Either way, I‘m acutely aware that this mournful pre-nostalgia isn't very mindful.

As I sat in my tent at Yosemite on the penultimate day of my journeyman trip, I was waiting for it. I always get bowled over in the waning days. I'm so aware of it at this point that my brain now sends out an early emotional-tsunami warning. Time to prepare for the coming tidal wave of nostalgia.

But the wave never came.

Out of all 7 national parks I visited, Yosemite is the only one for which I was already familiar. I've been there more than a few times. Growing up and now, it’s always been close to my heart.

For most of the rest of the trip though, each park, forest, trail and camp felt foreign and unfamiliar. Some literally felt otherworldly - Arches is like Mars, Zion is Venus, Yellowstone a wooded Neptune, Mount Hood like Pandora from Avatar, and Redwood is definitely Endor.

But as I arrived at Yosemite I was welcomed home with familiarity. The trees, the mountains, the view of valley itself, the smell of the woods, even the freeways and truck stops on the way, all familiar. Yosemite, to me, isn't another world, it's California. It's home.

So I knew the end of my journey was nigh - I could feel it. I should have been upset by this. I waited to turn the corner on a trail and have it suddenly jump out and attack me, like the bears they warn you about.

But the bear never growled. 

Maybe my journey was just long enough to make me home sick. Maybe I subconsciously planned it so I felt more comfortable as I got close to home. Maybe absence really did make the heart grow fonder and I missed the loved ones I'd left behind. 

Maybe, just maybe, I finally learned to be present and stop giving a shit about the past and the future, which was one of the intentions of the journey in the first place. 

I don't have an answer to this, my new reality. I was on this journey, primarily alone, for 19 days...it was the most time I've spent with only myself, ever...it was profoundly different than every other trip I've been on...it taught me a million things and it continues to teach me now that I’m home...I'm still sorting through it in my mind and will for god knows how long.

But there are already two glaringly apparent lessons:

• Confidence... in what I can accomplish, in my voice, in my decisions, in myself. I had many moments of weakness, but in each case I changed my mindset, found my footing, soldiered through, and in doing so I found strength.
• Mindfulness... on the road as in home, this is something I struggle with. It's why I write this blog. But the longer I was gone, the further away from my everyday patterns I got, the more cellphone deadzones I encountered, in each powerfully quiet moment in the company of natural wonders, the more *now* I felt.  

These are lessons I'm going to hold on to for dear life. No more contorting my mind around to-do lists and difficult decisions and who I'm offending and what mistakes I make or have made. No more overwhelming my mind with the past or the future, the things I can’t change. 

Right now is the only time that matters. Your right now could be the beginning of an amazing adventure or a the end of a difficult road, but no matter what, living in it with gusto is empowering.

Somehow, someway, on these pages I will attempt to explain this and all the other millions of thoughts this journey inspired. My new assignment is to contort my mind around the profound rather than the trivial.

This journey has changed me for the better.  Hopefully by writing this all down, my journey can help change you for the better too, at least a little bit. 

I love to run. I especially love trail running. Getting lost in nature takes me away from all the concerns of my everyday life and gives me a renewed focus. I also really enjoy yoga. Not only does it keep my back from throwing a hissy fit, but it's helps keep me physically and mentally balanced.

Whenever I'm focusing on my body in this way—pushing it, stretching it, engaging it, wearing it out—it clears my mind.  It's hard to explain, but when I'm exercising I think of everything and nothing at the same time. All the same unmindful thoughts come in, but they move right through me, like passing clouds. They don't carry the same weight they normally do. I see them for what they are... temporary.

This is the mindfulness of exercise.

Up until now I've mostly used this blog to explore the ways I find mindfulness in my everyday life, and it usually involves some sort of reminder that takes us away from drama and back to a happy place:

• Use mindfulness cues to provide you with a natural reminder to take a deep breath and be present. 
• Try out the Buddify app which is an awesome way to turn everyday situations into zen situations.
  
• Express yourself by writing down your feelings on a regular basis.
• Add a *CHILL* sign to your dashboard like I do, or get a *CHILL* bumper sticker to remind those around you.

Those are all great little tricks I use when I'm going about my day. But a lot of times they're not enough, I need to take some time out to purposefully engage in mindfulness.

Physical activity is the best way I know to quickly screw my head back into place. By going out to the mountains, by laying down on my mat, by lacing up my shoes and putting on an empowering-pop-music playlist, I escape from the craziness that's weighing on my mind and put the focus back on breathing, being present, seeing the world around me, and not letting the little things get to me. By engaging my body in exercise, I almost force myself into mindfulness.

My March Monthly Challenge to you is to take on a mindfulness activity. 

If you're not used to activity at all, start small: get up from your desk once a day and go on a walk. I find the Human app to be a great motivator. The more you walk, the more you want to walk. And thus begins you mindful activity addiction.

If you're already a gym rat but don't find it to be very mindful, you also start small: instead of going to your normal gym with all its normal distractions, go outside and exercise in public. Run on a path, take an outdoor yoga class, or use the exercise equipment built into many of today's parks.

For everyone, every time you exercise take a moment beforehand to breath and clear your head. In yoga we the start every practice with breathing—inhaling the positive and exhaling the negative—and the same should go for every activity. You don't exercise to cause your body pain, you do it to foster physical health and mental happiness. So take 1 minute, close your eyes, take a deep breath, clear your mind, and allow yourself to focus on the activity at hand.

When you're out there walking, running, stretching, and moving, focus on only what you're doing and what's around you. Every other thought that comes into your mind is like a cloud, passing by.

After all the clouds move through and you're done moving your body, you'll feel calm. You just hit the reset button on your mind, and you're ready to take on the world.