Option #1: reflect on both the ups and downs of the past year, take from them the life lessons
​ they extol, and use this new found inspiration to make the next year a better one.

Option #2: reflect mostly on the downs of the past year, regret them, curse them, use them as an 
example of why the past year was terrible, and then believe that​ engaging in ​this 
​exasperated act of faux ​reflection will somehow make the next year a better one.

​​I would say the choice is pretty obvious, but that’s just me.

Maybe I'm just perpetually hopeful, but I've never been disappointed in a year. Sure I’ve had intensely difficult times in my life making certain years seem better than others, but even in those bad years there has always been love. There has always been light to be found somewhere in the darkness. Things always eventually get better, so I always expect them to.

I also believe that reflection is something we could be doing every day of our lives, no matter what the date. Waiting for a certain day in a calendar to learn from life can lead you to neglect your well-being on all the other days. 

But I know there's something about New Years that gives it that extra weight, and there's nothing wrong with using that weight to your benefit. 

That's the key: New Years has the power to make us pause and reflect, so we should use that power to improve our lives. for this and all the coming years.

Next year isn't going to be better just because it's different. We can beat ourselves up all we'd like over the failures of the last year, but that won't changing anything in the future unless we decide to learn from our mistakes and grow from the tragedies. 

Instead lamenting the past and then hoping for the new year will make it all better, take whatever made the past year suck and use it to inspire a better future. 

Instead of resting your hope in the New Year, rest your hope in yourself. ​

 Today is the darkest day of the year, astronomically speaking.

Most people eschew the physical darkness, that's why we invented torches, lamps, and flashing strings of Christmas lights. Most people eschew emotional darkness too, that's why we invented self-help books, Zoloft, and maybe even this blog.

But I'm here to tell you that the darkest day isn't so bad. Whether it's physical or emotional, the darkness is the best way to make room for the light.

Darkness strikes fear in the hearts of most. The dark of night makes it difficult to see what lies on the road ahead, eliciting the dread of uncertainty. The dark of night is the hour of the nefarious, spurring the worry of danger. The darkness of emotions are some of our most depressing moments, reminding us of the worst that life has to offer. And according to science, the dark of the Winter Solstice creates a negative physical reaction in our body leading to SAD -- seasonal affective disorder -- which unironically makes you feel actual sadness.

But there’s always a glimmer of hope.

Despite the well documented problems associated with darkness, I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy. I think the best way to get out of any dark period is to look for the light of the silver lining -- and there’s almost always a silver lining.

As the adage goes, it’s "darkest before the dawn.” That’s true in both the real world of the sun and the metaphorical world of our heart. The impending dawn is the silver lining.

So if today is the darkest day, that means it can’t possibly get any darker. If today is the darkest day that means it will only get brighter from here on out [silver lining]. You could see your darkest moment as the saddest time of your life, or you could see it as the moment things changed for the better [silver lining]. It’s all about your perspective.

The darkness also teaches us a lesson in appreciation.

Imagine you live in a world that is bright and sunny all the time. In this world you have no concept of darkness because you never get to see or feel it. Imagine how difficult it would be to truly enjoy the cozy warmth of the sun when you’ve never felt a bone-chillingly cold night.

Darkness makes us grateful for the light. Sadness makes us grateful for joy. And once you realize this you start to appreciate any kind of darkness for the perspective it awards you [another silver lining].

Nothing, not our personal world or the big picture, exists in a vacuum. What each of us knows is made up of our experiences and our perception of the great big universe swirling around us -- the sun and the moon, engagements and breakups, friendship and fights, birthdays and funerals, ups and downs, light and darkness.

How you react to any part of life is up to you. You get to decide if you let the darkness get you down or use it to make the light that much more powerful. 

Choose to bask in the light, even on the darkest day of the year... especially on the darkest day of the year.

It's easy to find mindfulness in the natural world, that's no secret--getting outside in the wilderness helps you discover peace, discover the world, and discover yourself. I know this first hand.

But I realize most people don't have access to the wild like I do. I'm lucky enough to live in an area (southern California) and to live a certain lifestyle (not fully employed) that affords me with regular access to some exceedingly zen natural environments. I’m truly grateful for that. But most of us live in cities that are situated great distances from the world's natural wonders. We have jobs and families and lives that keep us endlessly busy. We're surrounded by suburbs where the wild landmarks are all landscaped.

One day I’ll likely have to get a real world desk job again, so one day I’ll need to figure out a way to be mindful while surrounded by the noise of the city. You know, like most everyone else.

It's easy to get mindful when you're in the actual jungle, but how do you get mindful in the urban jungle?

The typical lifestyle magazine answer is: just be mindful, it's always up to you. But I hate that answer, it’s trite. We all know that within the chaos of a city, it's never that simple. In our real, everyday, complex lives, we get by with a little help from our friends.

Now don’t get me wrong, I really do love cities, I live in fairly large one myself after all. But then there’s New York City--the Big Apple and I haven’t always had the most stable relationship. The “wild” there has much more to do with the latest preposterous fashion trend or the hottest new club, than the mountain hikes to waterfalls I’m more accustomed to.

The last time I visited NYC, it gave me a brief, but extremely unmindful panic attack.

It was last summer, and in the months leading up to it I had spent the majority of my time alone in the wilderness and multiple national parks--camping, hiking, traveling, taking pictures, living free--what I like to call being a  journeyman.

When I arrived in New York after all that, the buzz and excitement I normally felt for the city was completely absent. Instead I felt petulance--looking out over the skyline I was irritated by the cement and glass, indignant every time I heard a car horn or police siren, irked as I imagined the uniquely wild Hudson Bay that once surrounded lower Manhattan.

I felt a little like Charlton Heston at the end of the Planet of the Apes... “You finally really did it. You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

I had traveled to New York with my husband and and we soon met up with a few old friends, so I wasn’t alone. After a good hour of quietly freaking out to myself, it dawned on me that I was surrounded by a safety net, ready to stop my freefall and set me back up on my own two mindful feet.

I opened up to my man and my friends and told them about my fluster. As soon as I did so, without them even saying a word, I started to see the folly of my thinking. They rightly did their best to convince me of my foolishness, through both support and a little ribbing, just as any good friend should do.

Lack of wild nature or not, I had people who love me who want to help keep me sane. Taking a moment to be appreciative of my support network immediately cleared my head. Mindfulness was always there, I just had to open my heart a little wider to see it.

Since we had spent most of the afternoon in my friend’s lofty condo tower, we decided to go on a walk, and soon found ourselves in a nearby park. It wasn’t a desolate mountain landscape like Griffith Park that I’m used to back in Los Angeles, a John Muir-esq canyon trail of wonderment like I’d visited in our national parks, and it wasn’t even the truly special and somewhat-wild Central Park--it was a small block-long strip of land with some foliage, benches, and a playground.

“Hey look Jason! We’re in the wilderness!” they joked. But behind the laugh was an important truth.

Lack of wild nature or not, there were still trees, and dirt, and people enjoying the simplicity of the outdoors. Taking a moment to be appreciative of even the smallest drop of wilderness brought me joy. Mindfulness was always there, I just had to open my eyes a little wider to see it.

Back when I first arrived in New York, I carried with me a sense of entitlement over my newfound success finding mindfulness in the wild, and it drove me a bit crazy. But after that struggle, the city quickly taught me that I could keep my head on straight anywhere, just by opening my eyes and looking around me, and by falling back a little on my friends for support.

Lack of wilderness or not, grieving at the site of a paved street is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

Lack of wilderness or not, mindfulness isn't determined by an external force or environment, it's an internal choice that is always available to us.

Lack of wilderness or not, we can always look to our loved ones to help keep us in check and remind us how to find joy and mindfulness anywhere.

What a strange weekend it was to be in a remote wilderness and mostly away from all the terrible news from Paris. At first I felt out of the loop, not able to follow all that was going on. Sticking my head in the desert sand instead of reacting with everyone else. But then I saw some people tearing each other down instead of uniting in solidarity, and people responding to the vitriol with even more anger...petty arguments about profile pics or which deadly attack is worse.

Suddenly I preferred my place outside the loop. I took a deep breath, turned my phone off, and returned to the freedom of disconnection. Staying away from the news/opinion/anger on FB/NPR/CNN didn't mean I was ignorant, it just meant I was giving myself the space to have a solemnly personal response instead of the knee-jerk public reaction our social media demands.

​Though I highly recommend it, you don't have to go to Joshua Tree to have a moment of peace amongst all the negativity. What if we each turned down the noise a bit? What if we all shut up for ten seconds to respond instead of react? What if it gets so quiet we start to actually hear ourselves again? This is mindfulness, and I think the world needs it now more than ever.

I'm changing my Facebook phone- relationship status to "it's complicated."

I both love and hate my this little pocket machine. On the one hand, it’s a fantastic tool for connecting with friends and family, educating ourselves, being prepared for the weather or traffic, becoming budding artists/photographers/writers, and overall allowing us to be more interested and aware people. On the other hand though, it distracts from the real world around us, encourages FOMO and jealousy, thrusts douchebaggery to the forefront, hides us behind an avatar curtain so we sometimes end up acting extra douchey ourselves, and the list goes on.

One reason I love hiking and camping is that, more often than not, there is no phone reception. It’s a trick I use to escape, decompress, and reconnect with myself and the world around me.

Recently though, I visited Death Valley National Park, and while the vast majority of the park is cell-phone-free, the small town where I camped still had a few bars of service. Cue the complicated mix of love/hate emotions:

I loved that I could text my mom and my man that I arrived safe. I loved the ability to text friends when I got bored. I loved that I could post to Instagram because photography gives me joy. I loved that I could Google lists of Death Valley hikes and sites instead of flying solo.

But... I hated that I wouldn’t be able to feel the freedom of disconnection. I hated that I wasn’t forced to be bored, and forced to be OK with it. I hated that after I had a little whisky I started checking Facebook to pass the time, instead of reading, writing, or just being. I hated that it all made me feel less mindful.

I’ve written before about how the distraction of our smartphone is a distraction of our own making. Quite simply, we can log off any apps that bother us or just put the phone down. But you you know as well as I, that’s way easier said than done.

We all have a complicated relationship with our smartphones. Sometimes we laugh the afternoon away texting with a friend and sometimes we thumb-type seriously stupid things in anger. Sometimes we snuggle with our phone in bed and sometimes we want to throw it across the room.

The trick for me, and with most things in life, is to find a balance. In order to be mindful we shouldn’t have to give up on all modern conveniences to live in a shack in the woods. I should be able to use all the great and worthy features of my smartphone but also be OK with setting it down for periods of time. There’s room in this life for both mindlessness and mindfulness.

I'm about to head to Joshua Tree National Park with a small group of friends for a stargazing weekend. I stayed at this very campground last August so I know for sure that my phone won’t work. I’m looking forward to it, and getting out in nature is a great way for any of us to get a little more mindful.

But in two days I’ll be back in the city. The phone and my love/hate relationship with it will still exist. You can’t just run away from your problems, you have to face them head on. 

So I’m going to make an effort to learn from my complicated relationship -- let the things I love about my smartphone help me use it more wisely, while letting the things I hate about it remind me to take a break once in awhile.

It’s a worthy endeavor, for all of us. Make a list of all the things you both love and hate about our modern technologies. Then use both the negative and the positive to inspire you toward balance.

Finding mindfulness isn't like flipping a switch.

Most of us can’t simply will ourselves into a state of zen like a Tibetan monk—the modern age and our overactive minds simply won’t allow it. So I look to the outside world for help. Be it through nature, exercise, apps, travel, everyday choices, or habits, we can use all sorts of methods to nudge ourselves to a more present state.

One significant piece of my own personal outside world is my dog, Rocco. To put it bluntly, I love him to death. He always makes me smile and helps me forget whatever worry has been overwhelming my mind on a given day.

I was thinking about him, and the larger infatuation many of us have with our pets, and suddenly it dawned on me—my dog is another one of the ways I nudge myself, often subconsciously, to get out of my head and live in the present.

My dog teaches me mindfulness.

The connection we have to our pets is multi-layered. No doubt, they provide us with companionship, unconditional love, snuggles and a great way to connect to other similarly passionate pet people. But there’s a deeper attachment that goes beyond the obvious. I propose a new theory—that we’re fanatically attached to our pets because they constantly teach us an important lesson about ourselves.

Our pets take us out of our complicated adult lives for a moment, and back to a more mindful time—a time of youthful exuberance, a time before we were corrupted by the modern distracted world. They remind us of how we were then, and as such, remind us to try and a be little more like that again—right now.

My dog Rocco is possibly the most zen being I know. He doesn’t worry about the future, except perhaps starting around four o’clock in the afternoon, when he knows dinner is imminent. He doesn’t stress over the decisions he makes, for instance—choosing which sunbeam to sleep in.

He doesn’t regret his mistakes, even after tearing apart one of his favorite toys. He’s always enthusiastic when I take him on his morning walk, even if he had to wait while I procrastinated on Facebook. He jumps for joy at every treat, even if he’d always rather have bacon. He accepts all the snuggles and love I give, not worried about what other thing he might be missing out on.

He’s also a big part of my favorite trick to get more mindful—nature. I hike a few times a week. The trails provide me with a level of exercise that keeps me physically fit and a level of peace and beauty that keeps me mentally fit.

I often take Rocco on these hikes, and rather than take away from the moment of zen the wild gives me, he adds a whole new layer of zen that only enhances the experience. The exuberance he displays when I untether his leash adds to the exuberance I feel when I untether from the stress of city life.

His curiosity to explore a new landscape—the trees, shrubs, vistas, wildlife and of course smells—brings me to a more mindfully aware state that bleeds into the rest of my day, on the trail and off. His consistent desire to stay close to me as we hike brings me an understanding of uncorrupted loyalty that I can carry with me into the human relationships of my everyday life.

As a hiking partner, not only is he good at keeping up with my pace, he’s good at setting the pace for a mindful existence.

I could go on and on, but you get the point. Rocco is my little yogi zen master. He doesn’t tell me how to live my life, but instead, he provides an example of a simpler way to live.

Obviously, not all dogs are the same, and maybe I’m just lucky to have such an interested and present pooch. But I do think most dogs, most cats (I grew up with many) and most pets in general, have all these qualities to some degree. And it’s for those reasons we’re so drawn to them.

When I’m feeling down, angry, stressed or worried about the future, I can look at Rocco and see a better way—a more simple, honest, mindful way.

Maybe this is one of the reasons I love him so much.

We’re all complicated humans, so it’s unrealistic to expect to live our lives with the same sincerity as our pets. It’s the cross of self-awareness we have to bear as a species.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from our furry companions—that we can’t take a moment to be with them in the moment, or that we can’t take the smile they give us and carry it with us as we go about our convoluted day.

In that way, our pets are giving us the gift of mindfulness all the time. It’s up to us if we choose to accept it.​

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)

There really is a lot of beauty in the world.  But there's also a lot of shit.

It seems like they both come at us in waves - we find ourselves in periods of beauty that make us feel sky high, only to be dragged back down to earth, landing in a pile of shit.

These ups and down are natural and inevitable, and I know that without the darkness we'd never, really, truly be able to appreciate the happy glow of the light.

But while we're there, in the beauty or the shit or some place in-between, we often struggle to see the big picture.

When we're in the shit it's so easy to feel overwhelmed and make rash decisions. We’re angry, emotional, and unsettled, so we forget that there is still beauty.

When we're in the beauty we too often take it for granted. We enjoy the moment, but tend to forget that our future will hold even more beautiful moments, or that the shit will inevitably return.

Lately, I've confronted an internal battle between the mindfulness of now and the big picture that can be so unknown. I appreciate the fact that it's best to stay present, to accept my emotions as they are and for whatever they are, instead of allowing them to overtake me. It's always best to live in the moment rather than constantly wonder and worry about the future.

But I also think there is some value in taking a broad look forward, and even backward, from time to time. 

Imagine you're fully within the shit. Difficult changes, bad decisions, work stress, struggling with people coming and going in your life. You might actually be somewhere in there right now so you don’t have to even imagine it. I'm there from time to time myself, we all are, more than most of us choose to admit.

Being present in that shit is a terrible place to be. As we try to mindfully accept and process our feelings rather than let them overtake us, that acceptance can make us feel even more shitty. Like it’s the new norm - this is it, learn to live with it.

On the other hand, imagine you're fully within the beauty. You're surrounded by good friends, smiling faces, beautiful vistas, and experiencing life altering inspirational events. You might actually be there right now so you don't even have to imagine it. I've been here a lot lately.

But even while we're there we don't always appreciate it. Acknowledging the fact that the shit is still out there and will inevitably return, doesn't have to take you out your moment of beauty, instead it gives you the gift of gratefulness. Acknowledging that there are more unimaginable moments of beauty yet to come in your life, encourages you to chase that beauty in all your decisions, to find your better life.

The idea of not being present in these types of moments actually gives me solace, and not in some escapist way. I look back at all the shit I've experienced in life and realize that this terrible thing, like all things, will eventually pass. I look back at all the beauty I've experienced and realize that this beautiful thing, like all things, will come around again. I look at the big picture - the entirety of both beauty and shit in my life - past, present, and future - and I feel grateful for having gone on the ride.

I realize this idea contradicts some of what I've said about being "present" on this blog, but I'm not one to stand still. Just as we move forward in life, through both beauty and shit, our mind and our heart and our spirit moves forward as well, learning from it all.

There's something wonderful about thinking of the big picture like this and using it to your advantage. It makes your present moment a bit more...chill.  

If it’s a beautiful moment, seeing the big picture helps you avoid that nostalgic melancholy feeling you get when it’s over. If it’s a shitty moment, the big picture makes your problems seem a little smaller, a little more manageable. From either position in life, the big picture helps you learn how to better appreciate both the beauty and the shit for what they are - just another one of the many moments that together make up you.

In this way, looking at the big picture rather than always shrinking everything down to the right now, is just another form of mindfulness. It helps you to accept and observe and process your emotions, instead of wallowing in them until they make you feel worse. 

Mindfulness isn't just about being present and leaving it at that, it's also about seeing the big picture and understanding that this present right here, it too shall pass. 

I want to blend both the mindfulness and the big picture together. In a way that helps me stay chill during the angry moments and feel appreciation during the amazing moments. In a way that helps me drop the things that hold me back like worry, doubt, and regret. In a way that helps me accept both the beauty and the shit. In a way that, in the end, makes me a better person.

Like a dog that won't drop a toy
Worrying it back and forth
I can’t seem to drop this thought

Holding on is stressful
Clenching creates angst
Angst leads to turbulence
Worrying the mind into suspension

Letting go is a relief
Liberation creates space
Space leads to serenity
Unfencing the mind to run free

Leave it
Drop it
Don't worry it

Just let it go

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:

There are no consequences.

Alright, I know that's a bold thing to say, but bear with me for a minute.

A consequence is the negative repercussion of a mistake. Dictionary.com calls it an "end-result." That's basic. I get it.

But life itself is always changing. What seems like a negative consequence to a bad decision right now, could end up being a positive conquest in the future.

Why? Because there is no "end" result, it's all about the path. When you make a mistake and fail, that failure doesn't fall into a void, you learn a lesson and gain experience. While the failure might be difficult, it still teaches you something about yourself. It teaches you how to do better next time.

What you call a consequence, I call school. 

Now of course, there are real consequences out there for the truly stupid and cruel decisions, like jumping off a cliff or committing murder (for some obvious examples).

But I'm talking about the everyday decisions we make that turn out to be wrong - the miscalculation or spur of the moment choice that once in a while leads to true ramifications, but mostly just gives us an excuse to fabricate internal strife and regret.

Trial and error is the process by which we learn. If our goal in life is to grow, to become a better friend, a better photographer, a better musician, a better businessman, a better parent, a better partner, or really just a better person, then consequences are how we learn to grow up.

So I'm calling it out...there are no consequences. There are just ups and downs, arguments and adulations, accidents and achievements, examples and advancements.

Consequence as we know is the path to success, as long as you choose to use it that way.