A new year means it’s time for new goals – or more importantly, a new goals project! Those who read my blog regularly will recall that last year, inspired by a friend who set out to perform 100 goals in 100 days, I began a project to complete 50 goals in the first quarter. The experiment was not only successful, but a lot of fun – and a lot of the effort put forth on last year’s 50 goals ended up having a pretty profound effect on the year as a whole.

This year my goals are just as random, and just as “off the top of my head” as last year. They range from changes in behavior, to tasks I’ve wanted to take care of but keep putting off. It should give me a lot to do these next three months – which since it’s the rainy, cold and dark time of the year out here in Portland, I’ve got nothing better to do. I recommend you do the same!

50 Goals For The First Quarter: (green = completed)

1. Write a blog post every week (monday)
2. Cook eggs benedict from scratch
3. Work-out 3 days a week
4. Get a massage
5. Join/Start a monthly book club
6. Take a photo every day (Flickr)
7. Loose 20 pounds
8. Limit bars/restaurants to friday and saturday
9. Write out first draft of “East”
10. Be able to do 100 push-ups
11. Take a yoga class
12. Go out to 3 shows of bands I don’t know
13. Produce large-scale photo for the bedroom wall
14. Ask two gals on dates
15. Create barbacoa tacos from scratch (including tortillas)
16. Cook roast-chicken dinner, stuffing, potatoes, etc.
17. Go on 5 hikes
18. Spend a day/night in a new town/city
19. Do apartment cleanse – books, clothes, video games, etc.
20. Go out to 3 new restaurants
21. Meditate daily
22. Create schedule for week, and review it daily
23. Pay for all non-business items in cash only
24. Get laid
25. Create really good pizza at home from scratch
26. Visit dentist for check-up
27. Take math course online for free at MIT
28. Sketch something weekly
29. Watch 5 South American films
30. Streamline and secure all social media & online memberships
31. Fix both guitars
32. Put $500 a month in savings
33. Create Business Catalyst YouTube channel
34. Devise budget and use Mint.com to manage
35. Create simple iPhone App
36. Achieve 10 business goals
37. Purchase buttons and fix coat
38. Learn 5 songs on guitar
39. Research online spanish classes and start taking them
40. Learn how to use all settings on Nikon camera
41. Get mom’s recipe for meatballs and cook
42. Make a delicious cappuccino
43. Get clean bill of health from doctor
44. Host “get-together” at my apartment
45. Plant herb garden
46. Acquire slow-cooker and cook pot-roast
47. Get T-Shirt store running on stand-alone URL
48. Have coffee/lunch with 3 peers
49. Attend 3 non-business related events/presentations
50. Inspire 3 people to create goal lists

Last night marked the end of daylights savings time, and as such, our clocks were moved back one hour. When I was a kid, I recall quite a bit of effort taking place to make this happen, as my parents would have to manually change each clock in the house by hand. I can remember sitting in public school, and the clock on the wall would suddenly begin it’s manual back-tracking, clicking off minutes by the second until it reached the correct time. These days, most of my clocks are not only digital, but connected to the internet in one fashion or another, and thus intelligent and capable enough to make the update themselves. I simply woke-up this morning, and time had changed.

However, this afternoon while reading in my living room, I began to feel a bit hungry, and looked to the clock on the stove to see what time it was. The clock read 5:30, and so I decided it was probably a good time to start making some dinner. I went to the refrigerator to collect the items I had intended to cook and placed them on the counter. I then decided, as is my custom, to put on some music while I prepared dinner. I walked over to my computer, and as I went to turn on iTunes, I noticed the clock on my computer, which had automatically updated itself over night, read 4:30. The digital clock on the stove, not possessing the intelligence to grasp daylights savings time had not been updated, and thus was now an hour off. I stood there in my apartment, looking at the food upon the counter, and gazing back and forth between the two clocks. Sure, I was hungry – but 4:30 is too early to start dinner. I was reminded once again how false the concept of time truly is.

Last week I was in Maui on vacation – my second trip to the island this year. While I certainly had a wonderful time on my first visit – as I had never been there before, there was a lot I wanted to do. I filled my days with sight-seeing and various day-trips to beaches and hikes and the like. This time, I intentionally planned very little. Most days consisted of waking up, going for a run with Jessica, drinking some good coffee, laying on the beach, swimming in the ocean, swimming in the pool, and eating tasty dinners, often at home or close to the condominium where we were staying. I can’t imagine I drove more than 10 minutes from the condo and its lovely private beach, once we arrived. The only thing I had planned for the week was an event on Saturday I had purchased tickets for Jessica and myself a few months earlier. It was a conversation between two of my favorite writers and spiritual teachers, Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle. In preparation for the talk, I acquired Eckhart’s book “The Power of Now” on iTunes, and listened to it as I rested poolside, or in the comforting shade of a palm tree.

I won’t attempt to summarize “The Power of Now”, if you haven’t had the pleasure of reading anything by Eckhart, I recommend you do. There are many brilliant observations made in that book, but one of the seemingly simplest, yet profound concepts is the simple fact that everything happens in the now. Nothing has ever happened in the past – and nothing will ever happen in the future. All we have is an infinite now – this current moment. The reason this is such a hard concept to wrap our minds around is the fact that we’ve created numerous mental constructs to suggest otherwise. Instead of feeling the moment, we instead feel time, and count the seconds into minutes – minutes into hours, hours to days, days to weeks, weeks to months, months to years and so on. By creating time, we have negated the moment (the now) and solidified the concept of past and future into our daily existence. What’s worse, we have applied emotion and meaning to these illusory descriptions of the moment. It is Sunday evening as I write this post, which means tomorrow is Monday. Is there anyone reading this post who can not feel a difference in their mind between the words Sunday and Monday? This is an entirely human conundrum. Trees and birds do not recognize this change of days, the way they might feel the seasons or recognize a difference between night and day. Days of the week are purely a human invention, and while completely illusory – very much real in the sense that our daily experience is dominated by this structure.

Sitting in Maui, with no plans for the week, and no goals for each passing day – it was quite easy to “be in the now”.  I left work behind as much as a business owner can – and the warm air, beautiful colors and inviting waters helped remove any worries or regrets hiding in my subconscious.  I’m good at being on vacation – I’ve worked hard to be so – to truly relax and let the days pass.  However, I knew like everything, the vacation would have to end.  The question was how I could maintain that same feeling of being present to the current moment, rather than wrapped in the mental constructs of past and future, which almost always manifest themselves as regret or anxiety.  While flying back to Portland, I began to ponder how I could change my reality.

Over the summer I decided to stop working on Fridays. I had hired on a fulltime employee, and the added assistance he provided greatly increased my company’s productivity and profitability. The instant I decided to stop working on Fridays, the way Friday felt changed. It was now part of the weekend. Likewise, Thursday now shifted as well, as it was the last day of the “work week”. Recognizing the shift in my perception of the week forced me to look at how I spend all my time, and helped point the way to a possible solution to my new goal of breaking down these illusions of time.

I am very lucky that I work for myself, and as such, have complete control over my schedule (within reason). Even with this freedom from the typical 9 to 5 outlook, I still find myself falling into the same cycle and patterns most people live with. I still show up at work between 8:30 and 9 – and most days work till 4:30 or 5. I work on Wednesday, relax on Saturday. Over the next few months however, I want to begin breaking free from this construct as much as I can. Starting this week I plan to start getting up earlier than I typically do – ideally before the sun even rises – and carve out an entirely new space in my life that hasn’t existed prior. Rather then waking up, taking a shower, and heading down to the bus and into the office – I plan to rise at 6:00am and not head to work until 9am. That three hour space I’m carving out will be used for reflection, exercise, writing, eating a healthy breakfast and most likely other tasks I’m not yet aware of. Three hours, four days a week (Friday is entirely mine) is twelve hours of time dedicated to something outside of work – outside the illusory structure of the workweek. Half a complete day, to use as I see fit. Monday might not feel so much like a Monday, if the first three hours of the day are dedicated not to catching up on email or sitting in meetings – but instead reading, reflecting and enjoying those early moments of the morning.

Gaining or losing one hour will seem trite if I can carve out half a day each week to dedicate to self.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

- Rumi

Has it really been almost two months since I’ve written a blog post?  My dear, faithful readers – my sincerest apologies, but your humble narrator has been rather busy carving out an entirely new life in which to live – and thus has been unable to find the time to document this transformation, or comment on the success.  This evening I have found that moment.

At the beginning of this year, I sat down and I wrote out 50 goals to transform my life.  I found myself running a struggling web development company, one I had greatly considered abandoning at the end of 2010.  I was uninspired and honestly unhappy.  I was living in the same apartment I had for five years – and my habits and the life they had formed no longer motivated me.  I decided I could either continue in this pathetic direction, or radically transform things.  An old friend had performed an interesting goals project, and I took it upon myself to do the same.  What began was a journey that took me to this moment.

Today, half way through 2011, I am happy to report that my life has been radically improved.  I became re-inspired by my business, and after a lot of effort and clarity of purpose, May was my best month of billing in nearly five years.  Then in June we crushed that sales record!  I am confident July will beat even that.  Both Jessica and myself hired on folks, and the new energy in the office has been wonderful.  I closed my largest deal ever three weeks ago, and the investments I made in learning Adobe Business Catalyst and cleaning up the financial side of things have entirely paid off.  The Interactive Dept. is a thriving web development studio – and I couldn’t be more proud.

At the start of May I began taking a long hard look at my negative habits, and for the most part have really cleaned up my life.  While I was never in serious peril with my drinking and such – recognizing that there was a time and place for everything, and making sure I observed my actions carefully greatly transformed how I spent my freetime – and more importantly, gave me the clear head I needed to tackle so many other smaller issues in my life that had always seemed impossible to resolve.  My hands are back on the wheel and I am truly driving this life – and that is extremely rewarding.

One of my goals at the start of the year was to visit several apartments I couldn’t currently afford.  One of the places I visited was Tupelo Alley – a gorgeous apartment complex on N. Mississippi.  It was twice my current rent, but ten-times the quality.  At the end of June I moved into Tupelo Alley, into a wonderful 1-bedroom apartment on the 4th floor, overlooking Mississippi and Forest Park to the west.  Much as I had assumed, once I saw what was “outside my reach” – my reach expanded.  I began to contemplate living in a place like that, and sure enough, the thoughts grew to a point that they felt more like memories, and before I knew it I was signing the lease and getting the keys.  As I never worried about the “how” – the universe was kind enough to massively improve the revenue my business was making, and thus everything fell into place as it almost always seems to do.

All these wonderful new experiences provided me with a high that I’ve been riding for nearly a month now.  Last night however,  I sat down for the first time in a long time and asked a really hard question.  ”NOW WHAT?”

It’s easy to feel you’ve crossed the finish line – that you’ve won.  I can sit down on my couch, confident that it looks a million times better in this new place, watch the sun setting over the west hills and say, “well done!”  But what’s the fun in that?  So last night for the first time in far too long, I meditated (or day-dreamed as I prefer to say) about what could be better than this.  Almost immediately I felt this overwhelming energy, as if my brain was saying, “Oh there you are!”  For nearly an hour I simply relaxed and contemplated all that I still desired, while reflecting on how insanely blessed I was to possess the gifts I’ve received thus far this year.  I think I had generally forgotten how good it feels to simply wish for things – to relax entirely and reflect on that which you desire.  To conjure up scenarios in your mind and see yourself living the life you desire that is currently beyond your grasp. To not worry about the “how” or the “why” – but just see yourself enjoying an ideal life.  I had forgotten how good it feels to see yourself in your mind’s eye living a life fulfilled.

Perhaps it was easier to daydream when things were unsatisfying – an escape from the mundane and freedom from an undesired station in life.  However, as someone who truly believes thoughts become reality – I know it’s a horrible habit to let those thoughts fade.  Or worse, to let the mind travel aimlessly like a ship without a captain.  So last night I began anew – from a far grander vantage point no doubt – to envision where my life should take me.  Thoughts centered around getting entirely out of debt (primarily tax burdens I’m still struggling with) and improved personal relationships. I dreamt of sharing what I currently have with someone else, and getting to share in their life as well.  I contemplated my health and how I could exercise more and improve my diet.  I dreamt of places I still longed to visit, and the beach house on Maui I someday desire to call home.

I felt beyond refreshed when I had completed my thoughts.  While it is wonderful to come home to this new apartment and gratifying to go to work at such a vibrant and exciting business – it is always equally important to dream of what’s yet to come.  Because it will.  It always does.

Bob Dylan turns 70 this month and tributes are pouring in from around the world.  I figured it was only appropriate that I take a moment to put down some thoughts on the man who I point to as the most influential person in my life (parents not included of course).  While these days my musical library is a bit broader, there was a period of my life, from around 16-22 that I listened to almost nothing but Bob Dylan albums and bootlegs.  I took his words as gospel, finding meanings within the meanings and associating the various ideas and phrases he painted into every aspect of my life. There was only one truth, and that truth was Bob Dylan.

My journey with Dylan started in 1994 at the age of 16.  I was doing math homework in the living room and my mom was watching a tv show about the history of rock-n-roll.  As they began crawling through the 60s, the show started discussing Bob Dylan.  They played a clip of a young Dylan playing “The Times They Are A Changin” – and my head literally exploded.  I remember looking up from my homework, and seeing this young man saying everything that I had ever felt or thought or feared, and with a voice so real that suddenly every pop singer and rapper of the day became a foolish actor – a gussied-up puppet spewing childish nonsense.

“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land.  And don’t criticize what you can’t understand.  Your sons and your daughers are beyond your command.  Your old road is rapidly fading.  Get out of the  new one if you can’t lend your hand, ’cause the times, they are a changin’.”

It was a warning of the apocalypse - a message from the beyond that my perfect little suburban world was going to be washed away in a flood so fierce that only the righteous would be spared.  That I had “better start swimming” or I’d “sink like a stone“.  How had I not heard this warning prior?  Why was everyone not listening to Bob Dylan?  Who was this figure?  Was he still alive?  Had anyone heeded his message?  My mind raced.  What more had he said?  Were there other warnings?

I asked my father if he had any Bob Dylan albums, and he informed me he thought he had one of them.  I ran to the basement and searched through my father’s extensive record collection and discovered he did indeed have one album from this Dylan character – “Blood On The Tracks”.  I placed it on my old Fisher Price record player, and the opening notes of “Tangled Up In Blue” began to play.  This album was completely different however than what I had heard upstairs – this wasn’t a young folk singer telling the world to wake-up.  Was it the same man? Yet I found the album captivating and listened to it over and over again.  The stories it told were so profoundly different than any of the contemporary music I’d been listening to prior.  The next week I would go out and purchase “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits”, and begin my journey of owning every Dylan album and memorizing every word of it. The things I would learn from these albums would radically change my way of thinking and how I saw the world around me.  Two years later I would go to my first Dylan concert, and mid-way through a harmonica solo on “Girl From The North Country” all the perceived chains in my life would evaporate, and I would feel a spiritual freedom that has stuck with me to this day.  I would deviate at that very moment from whatever path I’d been on prior, and begin a journey I still find myself on today.

These are some of the things I learned from Bob Dylan.

GO OUT INTO THE WORLD AND DISCOVER YOURSELF

I would soon begin to read about Dylan and quickly learned his story.  That his name wasn’t Bob Dylan, but rather Robert Zimmerman.  That he had come from a small mining town in Minnesota, but upon learning his hero Woody Guthrie was dying in Brooklyn State Hospital, had hitch-hiked his way across America to New York City in the hopes of meeting him in January of 1961.  He had met him, gotten to know him well in fact, and along the way met most of the great folks singers of the day.  At first Dylan fit right in, learning the various folk standards, and performing those songs in coffeeshops and bars around Greenwich Village.  However, very quickly Dylan would start writing his own songs – the first being a breath-taking tribute to Woody.  This was something others weren’t doing at the time.  Folks singers interpreted traditional songs, but very few actually wrote their own pieces.  Dylan not only began writing songs, but he wrote better songs – songs that would become standards themselves.  Before long, other artists were performing his songs, and works like “Blowing In the Wind” would become “hits”.  He would get signed to Columbia, something else most folk singers weren’t doing – and Dylan would become a mainstream folk artist.  Two years after hitch-hiking to NYC, Dylan would perform at the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom where Martin Luther King would deliver his famous “I Have A Dream” speech.  The simple act of leaving home had transformed a young nobody into a folk legend, and placed twenty-two year old Dylan in one of the most important moments in American history.  If that doesn’t inspire you to go out into the world and find your calling – nothing will.

YOU CAN CHANGE – AND NOT JUST A LITTLE

As I would collect more and more Dylan albums, it became apparent that this man was a chameleon.  Each album brought a different sound and a different face.  Not only had he changed his name, he could change his style and change his voice.  From folk music, to rock music, to country music, to gospel music, to music that defied any recognizable genre, Dylan has tried it all.  Each time he made the genre his own, and created new standards.  Folk musicians could now write their own songs, rock musicians could write songs longer than four minutes that actually said something.  Country songs could have a folk-rock sensibility, and religious songs could… well… not suck. Whereas most artists, and in reality, most people, found one style and stuck with it, Dylan tried them all.  Just when he seemed to reach the apex of that style, he would abandon it for something else.  One didn’t have to slowly evolve over time – a chapter could be closed and a new one opened abruptly. You didn’t have to dwell on your past, you could focus on the moment and that moment could be anything you desired.  This freedom to change and not be tied to how others had previously perceived you opened my mind to unlimited possibilities, and the freedom to try something new at a moment’s notice.

IGNORE YOUR CRITICS

People don’t always like change – especially when something they love changes to something they don’t fully understand.  As such, Dylan has always had as many critics as he has fans.  I can think of no other popular artist who has been booed as many times as Dylan.  Whether it was plugging in an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival, or refusing to play his hits during gospel-like performances during his Christian phase, Dylan has never let the criticism of others control his creativity.    It is easy in life to let fear of what others will think temper your personal growth.  The fact is that most people can’t appreciate what others are going through, and criticism is typically misplaced anyhow.  In one of the most classic moments in rock-n-roll history, Bob Dylan is called “Judas” from a fan prior to playing “Like A Rolling Stone” during a performance at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966.  You can hear the crowd cat-calling and booing throughout the performance.  ”Like A Rolling Stone” is now considered in poll after poll as the greatest rock song of all time.  Had Dylan listened to the critics, we may never had heard this masterpiece and many others.  Time and time again critics have suggested it’s time for Dylan to retire – that this album wasn’t as good as that album, and these songs aren’t nearly as good as those songs.  Yet he presses on, and in time, many of those albums are seen later as far more brilliant than originally thought.  Dylan has rarely given interviews during his long career, preferring to let the music speak for itself.  Even though he has avoided mainstream press and self-promotion, countless articles are written about him on a daily basis.  I visit Expecting Rain daily, a website that collects all the various Dylan mentions throughout the world on any given day.  It’s shocking how much is said about someone who rarely speaks out.  Those who criticize Dylan these days are often met with a barrage of criticism of their own, as dedicated Dylan fans rush to his defense.  Live your life as you need it to be, without worrying what others will think – chances are they’re wrong anyhow.

THE WORLD ISN’T AS SCARRY AS IT LOOKS

Dylan’s songs are filled with a menagerie of characters.  The first time I heard “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” I was captivated by all the various people he encountered.  “A newborn baby with wild wolves all around it”, “ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken”, “a poet who died in the gutter”, “a clown who cried in the alley”, “a young child beside a dead pony”, “a young woman whose body was burning” and more.  Dylan’s songs are filled with these images, people and places and encounters that mystify and inspire.  I dreamt of going out into the world and finding these people too.  I longed to “walk to the depths of the deepest black forest, where the people are many and their hands are all empty.” After college I would move out west in pursuit of this vision.  To find myself in a new city, surrounded by strangers, and to meet as many people as I could.  I would take road trips down the coast, train rides across the Canadian landscape, adventures through Europe – typically by myself so that I was forced to meet as many people as I could.  I met a large woman who ran a forensics clean-up company in Louisville.  I met a white bearded man who saw everything as a conspiracy. I met a 90 year old woman on a train who taught me life isn’t short, it’s wonderfully long.  I’ve met cab drivers who are wealthy men in their home countries, homeless men who had almost been famous athletes, musicians who can only perform with their eyes closed, salesmen who wished to be artists and more.  I’ve learned to listen to those around me, to hear their stories and to care about the outcomes.  To inspire people and permit them for a moment to speak their dreams out loud.  To not judge or preach or inform – to simply witness life as it truly is and see the beauty in everything.

So Happy Birthday Bob Dylan.  My life is wonderfully more alive because of your words and the wisdom they provide.  Now if you don’t mind, “I’m going back out before the rain starts a fallin’.”

A new month, on a fresh week, on a gorgeous day – what better moment than the present to transform yourself?

After having some mild success in the first 3 months of 2011 with my Goals Project – I spent the month of April reviewing how I did, and trying to tackle some of the issues that held me back from accomplishing certain goals.  I also admittedly relaxed for an entire weekend and did nothing – something I’d neglected to do in the first quarter as the Goals Project had dominated my weekends.

While I am determined to participate in another round of goals, I’ve decided to dedicate the month of May (and hopefully beyond, but lets start practical) to transforming my lifestyle.  I see this transformation taking place over three main facets of my life: Diet, Exercise and Behavior (or habit modification if you prefer). While I could certainly incorporate these practices into a goals list, the list would no doubt contain other more fun desires and whims, and history has already shown I will focus on the goals that seem most pleasurable first and sadly will allow others to fall by the wayside.  “No más!”

DIET

At the moment I weigh 190lbs.  For a 5′10″ male with a standard frame, I should weigh somewhere between 150-170 depending on which charts I read.  At my best, I’ve gotten down to the low 180s, but 170 or lower seems almost unimaginable.  This is why my diet is going to be key.

The fact is, I’m a relatively active individual.  I walk a mile and a half to work each day, and another mile and a half back home each night.  I don’t own a car, so I basically walk or bike everywhere I need to go.  Yet even when I was working out daily last year, I still never really lost any weight.  How come?

Well I’m certainly not a dietitian, but everything I read seems to suggest my diet (or honestly, lack thereof) is to blame.  As a Spies male, there are two things I really love in life – beer and bread.  I eat bread as a snack – I literally sneak slices of rye bread throughout the day/evening.  I eat sandwiches for almost every lunch (hell, I even wrote a blog post of my top 5 sandwiches) – and my favorite dinner to cook over the years is Chicken Parmesan - yes, breaded chicken, with pasta and of course  – garlic bread.  Carbs anyone?

As for beer, this is a double-edged sword – because not only am I known to put back more than my share of IPA’s when at the bar, drinks at the bar often lead to bar food – and bar food is typically some type of sandwich, greasy as hell, with perhaps a small side salad that I avoid.

And don’t even get me started on pizza!

For the month of May I’ve decided to get serious about the fuel I’m putting in my tank – and during April I started reading more and more about healthy decisions one can make.  I reviewed several popular diets out there and read lots of message boards and blogs regarding weight loss.  My goals was to eat healthy, eat intelligently, but not starve myself or force myself to eat something I didn’t enjoy just to loose some pounds. This has to be a practical life transformation – not a starve yourself for temporary success solution.

After  quite a bit of research I decided to do a variation on the Palio diet recommended by Steve Kamb over at NerdFitness. I’ve been a big fan of Steve’s blog for awhile now and really enjoyed his thoughts on healthy eating.  His summary of the Palio diet philosophy is this:

“Back in the day, grains weren’t part of our diet.  We ate what we could hunt or find – meats, fish, nuts, leafy greens, regional veggies, some tubers and roots, occasional berries or seasonal fruits, and seeds that other animals hadn’t decimated.  Grains came around extremely late in our development cycle and have been causing problems ever since.”

With a number of friends discovering they have issues with gluten, and my own observations that regardless of my fitness level, my weight and general “health” never seemed to greatly improve – I saw a lot of value in what Steve was saying and decided it made sense philosophically, so I should try it.  While I am no longer allowed to eat many of my favorite foods in the quantities I once did (or at all for May) – the foods I am allowed to eat are delicious and the meals I can prepare look and taste great.

I purchased Steve’s “Rebel Strength Guide“ from his website (I figured I’d been getting tons of free information and ideas for months, I could drop the $39 to read his book) and that included a 6-week menu planner.  This is awesome because I don’t have to think of recipes for every meal – I can just prepare what is listed on the menu.  Everything looks delicious, and I went out shopping yesterday to acquire all I’ll need for week one.  My dinners this week include: Stir fry beef & broccoli, baked chicken with grilled zucchini, grilled steak with asparagus, stir fry shrimp with veggies, grilled salmon with sauteed kale.  Not exactly something to complain about – plus I learn to prepare several new meals which was a big part of my first Goals Project and something I want to continue.

In fact, what might be the most challenging part of this diet is that I will be eating way more than I currently do. Each day will start out with a breakfast (typically eggs with veggies).  I don’t currently eat breakfast – I start my mornings with a cappuccino and either a bagel or a cookie (gosh it pains me to state that I start my day with a friggin’ cookie).  This again suggests that the issue was never “how much” I was eating – but “what” I was eating.  Not only will I be putting better fuel in the tank, I’ll be putting a lot more of it – this should be interesting.

The challenge will be preparing my lunch in advance, as I will have to bring it from home each day.  No more cheese-steaks at Theo’s, spicy italian subs at the People’s Sandwich of Portland – and good-bye to all my carts for the time being – I’ll miss you Give Pizza Chance – I’ll be back Real Taste of India once I discover what it is you were serving me, and what the heck is in it besides deliciousness.

Another challenge will be cost – it’s more expensive to eat healthy.  My grocery bill was noticeably larger yesterday.  Not surprisingly since I had to pick-up 3 steaks and 5 chicken breasts just for one week’s worth of meals. Dinners loaded up with pasta, bread and rice are cheaper for sure then a solid cut of a meat and a medley of veggies.  Hopefully though the cost will not only be beneficial, it will be offset by modifications to my behavior which I’ll discuss shortly.

All in all, I’m excited to see what results I get by thinking logically about what I consume.

EXERCISE

I have a gym membership, I have free-weights at home, I have $100 running shoes and I have a gut – ironic, no?  I’ve often joked that a gym membership is the equivalent of building a robot that works out for you so you don’t have to.  I pay my monthly fee – isn’t that enough?  Shouldn’t I be in shape?

Much like my old “diet” – exercise is something else I just sort of improvised over the years.  Sure I went to the gym (pretty regularly last year in fact) – but I had no strategy in place.  I kept no records of what I was doing, nor of my progress (assuming I had any).  I’d run on the treadmill for 30 minutes, then go hit up some free-weights and a variety of machines – whatever was not occupied at the moment.  I’d set the weight to whatever felt good (or whatever vague recollection I had to where I’d set it the previous time) and performed the task till I was tired and moved on to the next random machine until I’d felt my work-out was complete.

As the son of a physical education teacher, I was probably aware this was not a solid strategy.  Beyond the physical danger of performing any strength building exercise without knowledge of proper form – without a strategy in place and measuring your progress, how can you actually accomplish anything?

Again I’ve turned to Steve Kamb over at NerdFitness, and his book “The Rebel Strength Guide” for some strategies for how to proceed on this front.  My goals are simple – burn off fat, maintain muscle and build-up my core strength.  To accomplish this, I plan to hit-up the gym or work-out in my apartment 3 days a week, and then do some type of running, biking or long walk on the off days.  My gym days will be Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday – with aerobic exercises on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and a rest day on Saturday (although sunny Saturday’s in the spring typically find me doing something outside, I don’t anticipate “resting” all that much).

Much of May will be dedicated to developing the habit of working out, as well as learning how to perform various exercises correctly with solid form.  Again Steve has provided a handy guide that takes a lot of the guess work out it.  The exercise philosophy, similar to the diet philosophy is a return to basic concepts.  Weight machines are out - natural motions and body-weight exercises are in.  Push-ups, lunges, dips, chin-ups (eventually) and free-weights will be the core of this strategy.  Equally important will be recording each gym session in a notebook and using that data to make sure I’m always going in a positive direction.  If I did 10 reps last time, I better be able to do at least 11 this time.

I expect it will take at least a month to get back into the mentality that working out is not a chore, but just something that I do.  Making it a priority in my day will be key.  In the past, when time seemed short, working out was often the first item on the task list to be cut.  That has to fundamentally change.  Just like eating lunch or going to sleep at night, working out is a requirement of the day and can no longer be bumped.

BEHAVIOR

Bumping exercise off the day-planner as I just mentioned is a result of my behavior.  I don’t simply mean the actions I take, but my general outlook on everything and where I’m at mentally on any given day.  How one looks at a day greatly impacts what that day will bring.

Typically my week looks like this:

Monday: Not quite ready to start the week, sometimes a bit hung-over from a day of watching football. I avoid meetings on Monday and try to wrap-up things I abandoned on Friday at work.
Tuesday: Oh man – the week is sooo long.  Try to go to gym after work with Rachel, but sometimes I need some pints instead, to power me through the week.
Wednesday: Half-way there…  I’m exhausted, but I can make it.
Thursday: Almost done with the week – perhaps a few pints after work to welcome in Friday.
Friday: Done – thank God!  If it’s sunny at 2pm, my mind is writing an escape plan – I’ll be able to tackle these things on Monday anyhow.  HAPPY HOUR.
Weekend: Extended happy hour.  Clean-up apartment from mess I made during the week.  Take care of work projects that are falling behind and get ready to do it all over again.

It’s amazing how much the day of the week effects my mental outlook on what is possible.  This is all the more confusing considering I work for myself and rarely meet any of my clients in person.  With complete control over my schedule, and the freedom to organize my week as I see fit, I still manage to box myself into the industrial-age schema of a systematic “workweek”.  Mondays feel like Mondays, Fridays feel like Fridays. And throughout this endless march, time is always running out.  On Monday I can’t believe how long the week feels, but by Thursday I am running out of time, and on Friday I’ve resigned myself to the fact that some things just won’t get completed.  All the while I’m not going to the gym, grabbing last-minute meals, and justifying as many pints as I can swallow.

Here’s a little secret though… today was exactly the same as yesterday, and tomorrow will be no different.  The universe sees no difference between a Sunday and Monday.  It’s all in my head.  A day is just a day, and what’s possible in that day is no different at the start of the week then at the end of it.  Weeks don’t end, time does not run out.

So my goal for May is to take control of my time as best as I can.  What should a day look like – not a Monday or a Friday – just a day?  What are the actions and behaviors that must accompany that day, what are the actions and behaviors that should NOT accompany it?  I will need time to prepare 3 delicious meals a day.  I will need an hour to work-out or run.  I need to get solid sleep at night.  I will need to work and earn a living.  I will need time to socialize with friends, and most important, time to reflect on all of this and make certain results are coming through.

The time has come to cut-out the binge drinking and pot-smoking that while I have certainly enjoyed and have no regrets indulging in over the past decade or so, no longer provide the same level of artificial enjoyment they once did. That’s not to say I’m abandoning my vices altogether – quitting cold turkey is a recipe for disaster – but at least for the month of May I’m going to clean up my act and look for healthier alternatives.  In the same way that quitting cigarette smoking and drinking hard liquor greatly improved my health and chances for general survival during my twenties – this next step is vital to transforming my thirties and becoming the individual I’m determined to be.

The party isn’t over – it’s just moving to a nicer venue.

CONCLUSION

So I’m excited about the month ahead.  All of these actions – the blog, the Goals Project, and now this are all aimed at self-awareness and motivating myself to be a better, healthier and stronger individual.  As always, it goes back to that 6th-century spoon in the British Museum with the inscription “Know yourself, and urge yourself ceaselessly.” Mediocrity is a wide, level super-highway crammed with traffic.  I long for a different route and I think I’ve seen it.  I’ll keep you posted.

There’s been a case of the break-ups going around lately, although when you’re lucky enough to have as many friends as I do, somebody is always on their way into a relationship, somebody is always on their way out – and those in the middle are typically wishing they were experiencing one or the other.

I was discussing this phenomenon, along with the emotions that attach themselves to relationships or anything that someone takes seriously, with friends the other night.  During the conversation, I began poorly paraphrasing the Roman philosopher Seneca, and his views on the topic of emotions, typically associated with Stoicism.

Seneca felt that all emotion – jealously, fear, anger, frustration, love, happiness – stemmed from the subconscious recognition of the separation between how we wish the world was, and how it truly is.  This false judgement existed in our mind, and the further from our conceptualized ideal we found the events in our life to be, the more pain we experienced.  The closer actual events came to this ideal in our mind, the happier we were.

Some of the gap between our hopes and our reality most certainly stems from outside forces – which explains why it’s easier to find inner-peace walking through the woods absent the calamity of others, then say riding in the back of a Tri-Met bus at rush hour.  Some of it stems from unfortunate situations in our lives – job loss, car accidents, theft – and some from our own shortcomings or mistakes.  Regardless the cause however, Seneca said the problem was not reality.  Reality was truth.  The problem was, and our emotions were triggered by, our misconceptions of the truth.

This is a pretty profound concept – that our happiness or unhappiness is not caused by the event itself, but the separation between that event, and how you imagined it would be.  A frustration that your calculations were incorrect.  Or in the sense of happiness or love, just how correct you were.  In love, you find someone special, and low-and-behold, they think you’re special too (which you always sorta figured).  Talk about confirmation of your ideal!

If actual events determined how you felt, study after study wouldn’t prove that those living in what we consider poverty conditions in 3rd world countries often have more happiness and lower rates of depression than American’s experiencing poverty.  Individuals with far worse conditions but lower expectations are less effected emotionally than those in America, who by our very culture believe life should provide greater opportunity and experiences.  It’s why you often hear that the wealthy aren’t happy.  As Seneca put it, “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”

Beyond being a purely philosophical difference between how we look at emotion and the events in our lives, it points towards how our minds interpret reality and the bigger question of why we interpret reality or have emotions in the first place.  It’s helpful always to keep in mind that we are made of matter – the same building blocks of everything we see around us.  This matter is primarily made of open space and depending on which scientists you ask, unfolds into smaller and still smaller entities that are primarily filled with empty space as well.  The various particles arrange themselves into infinite combinations that produce everything from a meteorite to a tree, from penguins to clouds, us and that table in the corner.

Some of these combinations of particles develop an additional quality we call life.  We typically reserve this for the various species we see in our physical plane, and for the moment, on our planet.  We don’t typically suggest the Earth is living, or that the atoms in our bodies are “alive”.  Cells to some degree we see as living, although because  we see ourselves as a whole, they don’t get the level of individual identity of, say, an earthworm.

In the realm of the living, there is an additional quality matter can acquire, which we might call consciousness.  Some might argue all living things possess consciousness – but tree-huggers aside – this characteristic, on a sliding scale, is primarily reserved for animals, and for the most part, at its highest form in mammals.  As we all evolved from one source, it’s safe to say somewhere along the line this consciousness began to develop and over time improved, with humans of course reigning supreme for the moment.

If matter can take any form, one could suggest being a table would be an easier form than being a human.  A table requires no consciousness, and it requires no state of living.  However, a table can not exist without human intervention, and more importantly, human imagination.  And it’s here where I begin to see the source of our emotions.  For matter could have created the human form, as certainly it did, but humans would have created nothing if not for their imaginations.  And if those imaginations did not create better spaces and greater scenarios and happier days, we would never have had ideals to strive for.  Worse, if we didn’t receive a legitimate consequence (albeit entirely emotional) when that idealized perfection was missed or achieved, we’d have no will to push ourselves.  Emotions, moreso then the events in our lives, determine our reality.

We can not separate ourselves from our emotions, nor would we want to.  But we can acknowledge that what is happening is a re-alignment, whether good or bad, of how we imagine the world to be, and the reality that actually exists.  We can take it as a sign that we are doing well, or missing the mark, but perhaps not suffer nearly as much if we recognize the true source of those feelings and detach them from the event, which is truth. If the event is perceived as bad, and brings forth anger or jealousy, is there no comfort in the knowledge that at least in our minds things were better?  That we have the capacity to imagine something grander than reality?

We can also marvel that there is some force that, whether intentionally or randomly, compels matter to take its various forms, and in doing so, created a species so complex that it imagines even greater forms of matter, and brings those thoughts into reality.  Whatever that force may be, we are certainly an instrument and a product of it. Everything that has ever existed brought you into being and carried you to this moment – with neither good nor bad intentions. And that’s the truth.

Well three months have come and gone – and the first quarter is officially over as of Friday.  Phase 1 of the goals project is complete, and while I’m disappointed with my performance in some areas, I’m pretty psyched about how well I did in other areas. Overall, I would say I did “good” – but could have done better.  I also think perhaps 50 goals in 3 months is a bit too aggressive, or at least the goals I chose might have been a tad ambitious.  Not necessarily on their own – but when combined it was quite the task list.

First off, there were several early on I realized I wouldn’t complete.  #6 produce video series reviewing iPad apps seemed like a neat idea, but after producing two of them, I realized the time I had to put into shooting and producing each video completely outweighed my interest in the project, nor did I have anything particularly insightful to say.  #42 acquire a new bike is something I definitely want to do, but to spend that money on a bike in the middle of a rainy Portland winter wasn’t really the greatest use of my budget. Budget was also an issue for #14 produce some large scale photos for home/office.  Large scale photographic prints cost a good deal of money, and although it’s still a goal, I’ll need more time to get this right.

A few projects I started, but didn’t complete.  #34 write an article for publication I thought out a few ideas for, and then decided a great article concept would be to write about P:ear’s barista training program which teaches homeless and at-risk youth a marketable skill.  I contacted Pippa over at P:ear, and she was on board. I had written an article for Barista Magazine a year or so ago, so I brought up the idea with the editor Sarah.  Turns out she had been speaking with another company that was involved with helping P:ear run their school, and the idea was already percolating in her head as well.  I’m hopeful I’ll get to be involved in producing the article, but I don’t expect to see it in the magazine until late summer, early fall.  Did I write an article for publication… technically no.  Will I… probably.  I did begin to start coding in AS3.0 (#20) and did some research into HTML5 and CSS3 (#26) – but as I spend most of my days programming websites, doing that on the weekends or evenings for no pay on made-up projects just never interested me.  I am going to continue studying AS3.0 for Flash, but HTML5 and CSS3 are a bit too cutting edge at the moment to dedicate my time to.

Some areas I did particularly well in.  I love cooking – so #3 cook ten new meals was a real treat.  Over the years I had developed a tasty, but limited variety of dishes I prepared on a regular basis.  With this goal, I really tried to get outside of my childhood dinners, and explore things I enjoyed eating but had no idea how to prepare.  This included lebanese/greek food such as grape leaves and falafel, chinese food like won ton soup and pork fried rice – as well as some delicious classics like irish stew and brown bread.  Learning how to cook some delicious stir-frys as well as Pad Thai has really opened up my options for a quick and healthy dinner.

#19 Volunteer a saturday was intended to make me give back to the community in some way or another.  I decided to take this a bit further, and pushed myself to not only donate my time, but also raise as much money as I could for various causes.  I donated $1000 to help produce a film for the Oregon Mental Health Association.  I also volunteered my time to build out a website for the film, that we’ve begun to produce.  I doubled my current monthly giving to P:ear, donated $100 to help a teacher and friend in NYC fund a science project for her students, and sponsored several friends running in various marathon fundraisers.  All in all, I donated $1900 to various charities, and probably 10-15 hours of my time.

On the health front I had mixed results.  #41 get clean bill of health from dentist pushed me to go see a dentist for the first time in over a decade. I discovered I had a pretty bad cavity in one of my wisdom teeth, that would have eventually caused some major issues. I had all four wisdom teeth removed, and officially got my clean bill of health.  However, I failed on #41 visit doctor and get a physical and #23 get health insurance. Both are too important to simply “fail” – so I will be doing my best to push myself to take care of those this month.

Equally on the health front, I failed to go to the gym 50 times (#2) as well as complete the 100 push-up challenge (#5), nor did I attend a yoga class (#38).  Truth be told, I went to the 24hr Fitness once over the past three months.  My weight is still at 185, so I failed #25 as well. I’m not sure why I’m unable to motivate myself on this front, but this will be a major focus over the next few weeks.  My lack of exercise not only decreases my capacity to accomplish goals in all areas of my life, it’s detrimental to my very existence.  Combined with my failure to greatly reduce my intake of various intoxicants (#35) – a pattern begins to take shape that is both unflattering and disappointing.  That subconscious disappointment colors my perceptions of events and people around me, and creates unnecessary challenges in my reality.  However, the awareness of this disappointment, previously unmeasured and either ignored or skillfully suppressed, is a key step in challenging it and ultimately resolving it. To recognize that an unhealthy lifestyle (which itself can only be discovered once a healthy lifestyle has been defined) has direct connection to the inability to achieve certain goals, is a great insight taken from this project.  To see that my failure to act healthy, and thus feel healthy, makes it challenging to develop the self-confidence to ask a girl on a date (#9) which makes it nearly impossible to get laid (#28) is a tough pill to swallow, but far more practical than my prior perception that “girls just don’t dig me.”  Time to dig myself.

Simply put, when your actions do not match your intentions, you fail to achieve your goals.  This is the grand take-away from this little experiment. When my actions mirrored my intentions, achieving goals was quite simple and enjoyable.  So there is an equation here, with two possible variables – actions and goals.  However, the fact is I don’t want to fail at my goals, nor compromise them to create artificial success – and so I should see my goals as a constant and the alternative as unacceptable. While some goals like buying a bicycle or printing out large photographs certainly need to be refined, and most certainly would never be ranked as major life goals of mine – that doesn’t mean they are any less possible if I simply took the correct actions to make them happen. If the goals become a constant, then all that can and must be modified are my actions.

So what’s next?  There are several goals still on the list I’m close to wrapping up that I plan to tackle over the next few weeks.  I have about an hour of video footage I’ve shot on my walk to work (#21), and I plan to shoot more now that the weather is slowly getting nicer, and by spring should have produced a short film about my walk to work.  I’m going to keep pushing myself to learn new recipes, and do my best to keep writing blog posts as regularly as I can.  I’m going to keep with my goal of complimenting someone daily (#33), but have modified that to attempt to engage in something beyond “hi/hello” with strangers I interact with.  Just attempting to find folks to compliment made me realize how separated I am from most of the people around me.  In the past few weeks I’ve begun trying to look passing strangers in the eye, and have started asking questions like “how’s your day going” or general tasks about folk’s jobs, with the various cab drivers, cashiers and such I interact with, and to listen and care about their response.

April I need to dedicate to health, and confronting my lack of exercise.  Part of it is straight-up laziness, but another part is scheduling, and not carving out the time to make it happen.  Taking the correct actions will solve this – and so starting this week I begin to attempt new actions in an effort to achieve those goals.

On a final note, the first goal I achieved, and one I accomplished several times over was to inspire 3 other individuals to create goal lists (#50).  It was super inspiring to hear other goals from people – and recognize that the desire to push ourselves is a trait we all share.  Inspiration and motivation are key to pushing us.  The simple act of writing down your goals inspires. Reviewing that list and feeling that confirmation within your soul that these are indeed the things you wish to accomplish is a great source of motivation.  And looking around my apartment, after the clutter was removed, and the new photographs of family members on the wall, and improvements to my kitchen made and a delicious new meal ready to be enjoyed, reminded me of the simple truth engraved on that 6th century spoon in the British History Museum – “Know thyself, and urge thyself ceaselessly.”

I’m getting there, and I shall try.

There are three forms of knowledge in this world.  That which we know, that which we realize we don’t know, and that which we don’t even know we don’t know.  It is the third realm, that which we don’t know we don’t know that is the largest of the three. For all the information we acquire on this journey, and all the information we put off acquiring is ultimately eclipsed by all the knowledge we’re not even aware we’re missing out on.

The goals projects I started at the beginning of this year was my attempt to explore the second realm of knowledge – that which I realize I don’t know.  I made a list of all the things I wanted to learn that up until that point had eluded me.  New meals to cook, new bands to discover, new locations to visit.  I knew I didn’t know how to make Pad Thai… now I do.  Listing out various areas of knowledge or expertise that I lacked gave me a solid road-map to learning new things.  I’ve spent the majority of my weekends and free time the past three months teaching myself new ideas – and it’s been beyond rewarding.

However, in pursuing these various new skills and tasks, I learned a handful of things I hadn’t expected to discover.  In reading the autobiography of Ben Franklin for example, I discovered numerous authors and books he mentions throughout, that previously I’d never heard of.  With the help of the iPad’s super easy capacity to find public-domain texts, I could easily acquire books and articles he mentions, and learn more about the era and the man himself.

Cooking ten new meals taught me all sorts of things I hadn’t previously considered.  I especially took the time to learn some of my favorite ethnic foods – various chinese stir-fries and lebanese dishes.  Discovering how meals like Won Ton soup or Grape Leaves are prepared gave me such a new appreciation for foods I’d enjoyed my whole life, but never took the time to ponder what was in them.

While doing research on how to store various vegetables to avoid wilting, I discovered a YouTube video in which someone explained that green onions would regenerate themselves if you replanted the white base in some soil.  This seemed almost too good to be true as an obsessed lover of green onions.  How could it be that all these years, I had thrown out the root of the vegetable, when I could have simply re-grown the entire plant.  Sure enough, I planted a few roots, and in a week’s time I had a complete green onion.

Three months ago I knew I didn’t know how to make pork fried rice.  But I had no idea that one of the key ingredients could re-grow itself with ease.  One discovery often leads to many others, and that process of learning what is actually going on in the world around us is somehow the point of this aimless journey.  While it’s clear I wont’ accomplish all 50 of my goals, pushing myself to learn new things has been a great step forward in my life, and figuring out how to maintain this drive and focus the energy even greater is the goal for phase 2.

I was talking with my friend Rachel, and she was explaining she spends more and more time reading blogs these days.  It’s not particularly surprising.  ”Blog” is really one of those non-words, because it attempts to explain far too large a category.  There are an endless variety of blogs out there, from the informative to the funny, professional organizations and people struggling with personal tragedy.  I spend a good deal of time reading blogs as well – lots are news and politics blogs and also a lot of tech blogs like MacRumors.com.  There are a collection of a few blogs though that I visit regularly. I decided it might be fun to share the blogs I read on a weekly basis.  As you’ll see, most are written by friends or acquaintances of mine.   Here, in no particular order, are my bookmarked blogs.

Writings On Traveling by Rachel Sayre
http://pentravels.blogspot.com

My friend Rachel is a constant source of inspiration for traveling.  Her blogs captures stories and amazing photos of her journeys.  Currently she finds herself in Bhutan, a small country just east of India, high up in the mountains.  She talks of daily life amongst the villagers, and random trips out into the countryside.  It’s a glimpse into a world I might otherwise never see.  Past adventures to South America were also wonderfully documented.  Check-in from time to time and see what she’s up to.

A Year of Sundays by Joel Gunz and Amanda P. Westmont
http://yearofsundays.com

Joel is a writer in my building and runs another popular blog dedicated to Alfred Hitchcock.  This new blog however is a wildly entertaining concept executed perfectly.  Joel and Amanda attend a different type of religious gathering each Sunday and review it.  Baptist churches, Buddhist Temples, and Christian mega-churches out in Beaver-tron.  Both writers review the weekend’s adventure, and their observations are both humorous and insightful.

West Coast Styling by Beatrice Thompson
http://beatricethompson.blogspot.com

Beatrice and I have been friends since meeting at a network event awhile back.  She attended art school in London while I swam in the Mediterranean in Barcelona during the months of madness a few years ago.  While she’s a multifaceted artist, her photography has always been provoking – and her photography blog provides weekly observations of the mundane and often overlooked, given its moment for reflection.  The combination of random signs, things in windows, crowded cocktail bars,  and drawn-out shadows paint a story that unfolds with each new post.

Nerd Fitness by Steve Kamb
http://nerdfitness.com/blog

As a full-time web developer, I spend a lot of time sitting behind a desk staring at my computer screen.  Steve Kamb can relate, and his blog is a source of motivation and ideas to get in better shape and live a purposeful life.  Steve is currently on his Epic Quest of Awesome, traveling around the world and accomplishing outlandish goals like flying a stunt plane.  He has some great fitness videos and lots of inspiration.

Asleep To Dream by Keely Montgomery
http://asleeptodream.wordpress.com

Keely is not only a good friend, she is a wonderful writer and her blog contains insightful observations from all facets of life.  It’s always a treat to discover a new post is up, as each story captures an occasion or occurrence she is kind enough to share, and the details of people and places that make up that memory.

The Wayne Dyer Blog by Dr. Wayne Dyer
http://drwaynedyer.com/blog/

I first heard Dr. Dyer speaking on OPB a couple years ago.  His unique combination of motivational mantras, Buddhist teachings and inspirational quotes never ceases to improve my spirits and increase my desire to succeed.  His weekly blog posts cover many of the topics he discusses in his books, with the same “excuses begone” approach to managing ones destiny.  In a particularly frantic day, I like to take a few moments to read his latest post and reflect on the teaching it provides.  Often, just the act of reflecting on the messages he’s shared, I can put the struggles of the moment in their proper context and breath a little easier.

One Sketch A Day by Rita Sabler
http://onesketchaday.blogspot.com

Rita is another talented friend of mine, and while her output doesn’t come anywhere close to the productivity levels suggested by the title of her blog, the quality of sketches she has produced makes up for that.  I not only love the style of illustration she uses, but also the witty observations and details contained in the various locales and personalities found in these sketches. It’s much like being a fly on the wall of coffeeshops and sushi bars in and around Portland. A fly with a sketchpad.

Celebrate The Passion by Brian McDonnell
http://celebratethepassion.com

Brian is not only an amazing photographer, he is also an artful story teller.  I’ve been a fan of his work for several years now, but his latest venture in the form of this new blog and a road-trip he is currently on, has combined the power of his photography with individuals who have a passion for what they do.  On the new blog, Brian gives you some background information on the people he’s meeting.  Chronicling”average” folks and sharing their stories with the rest of us.

I love to travel.  So much so that if money was no issue, I would leave town tomorrow and travel the globe non-stop for the rest of my time on this planet.  There is really nothing I enjoy more than seeing a landscape I’ve never encountered before – coming into a town I’ve never walked through – finding places, pubs and people with stories to share.

Of course, money is an issue, and since my parents chose teaching rather than say, high finance, I wasn’t born into overwhelming sums of wealth. I needed to find another way to satisfy this craving, and what I did was devise a career and a company that would allow me to work from anywhere.  I started up The Interactive Dept (well, actually I started it with the name GDSpies, but soon changed that) about five or so years ago, and almost immediately I was setting off on adventures.

My first was a 30-day rail trip across America and Canada my friend Rita inspired me to take.  I was wonderfully unprepared to leave town for an entire month – and business seriously suffered.  Actually, it pretty much stopped and upon my return I found myself reborn, but completely broke.  While I had brought with me a gigantic Gateway laptop (or mobile desktop as they called it) – internet at the time was a scarce commodity – and typically reserved for the occasional hotel stop along the way.  Electrical outlets on the train were an impossible find – and typically the one or two in each car were jammed with cell phone chargers – giving me little more than two or three hours of battery life on my machine.  About two weeks in I discovered a somewhat hidden outlet in the back of the food car (I believe they referred to those two booths as the “cafe”) and for much of the rest of the trip, I could be found sitting there, plugged in, and doing my best to work offline.

Road-trips became a regular activity for me over the next few years, with two trips to Telluride, Colorado amongst others.  While these trips provided endless visual pleasures as the landscape slowly unfolded before me, it was obviously impossible to work while driving – and once I arrived in a town after 5-6 hours on the road, doing some work usually lost out to exploration.  The roadtrip was bad for business, that’s for sure, and I could see a direct downturn in sales the month following my 4 weeks on the road as leads were often ignored, and invoicing typically forgotten about. While I could now afford to travel, I couldn’t afford anything else upon my return.  I worked hard to fix this.

Three years ago, when my friend Chris and I decided to live in Barcelona for a few months, I did the best I could to plan for things – but there were many unknowns I’d soon find.  Thankfully Chris knows his tech, because getting online proved to be quite the challenge.  Heck, it took nearly 25 minutes to even explain we were trying to find a wifi provider – as my high-tech spanish vocab was sorely lacking and we discovered they pronounce it ‘wee-fee’.  After some major geeky magic, Chris managed to get things working, and for the next 3 months I was online and able to work.  This was the first successful business travel adventure – and it was during this time that I started the Modern Workweek blog.  Whether from our flat in Barcelona, or poolside in Peniscola, I was able to get online – and if I had internet, I could work – and if I could work, I could make money while on the road and land new projects.  SUCCESS.

Since then – I’ve returned to Europe twice, and each time have been able to get work accomplished while on the road.  The time difference can provide some challenges – and I find it’s best if I explain to clients I have current projects with that I’ll be away, but for the most part not much really changes.  In fact, in most instances, if a client asks for an update or fix to their site, I get it taken care of in 24hrs, and they are never any wiser that I was thousands of miles away from the studio.

This week I’m in Maui – and I’m writing this post from a nice little pub overlooking the Pacific, where I spent most of the day swimming.  Yesterday I picked up a VirginMobile Mifi hotspot that has been working out great and I was able to work most of the day in the historic town of Lahaina.  It’s a small device that produces a wifi hotstop that my computer then connects to.  Rather then having to hunt down coffeeshops and pubs with a weak wifi connection I can steal – I can now work from picnic tables in parks, delicious taco shops, or just the side of the road if I get an important text message.  It is amazing to think that when I was 16, I had to plug my family’s phone line into our computer and call Poughkeepsie, NY just to get a connection that was infinitely slower then the connection this small piece of plastic is pulling in from… gosh, I don’t even know… space?

Now of course, one criticism I hear often is “you’re in X, you shouldn’t be working.” While I completely understand that argument, and love that friends and family are suggesting I work too much – I know the truth is that I love what I do.  Seriously – web design is probably the most fun thing I do on regular basis.  I actually don’t mind opening up the laptop and taking a few hours to solve some mathematical puzzels wrapped in creativity.  The fact that I get paid so well for what I do is a fact that still marvels me on a regular basis.  And if the choice each year is between one week of vacation without work, or literally a month or more of travel while sneaking a few hours a day to handle projects I’m pretty psyched to be working on anyhow – I’ll take my path.

One night while in Barcelona eating some tapas with Chris near our flat in the Gracia neighborhood, two older American women were sitting at the table beside us.  I guess Chris and I had reached that point where we’d told all our stories, because apparently we weren’t talking – and one of the women began commenting about the food I was eating to the other, completely unaware that I could speak English (and, like, really well).  “I wonder what that is he’s eating,” she pondered to her friend.

“They’re called croquetas,” I replied to the now completely shocked and embarrassed woman and her friend.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were American,” she said – a statement that every time it was said to me always surprised me – as I think I look pretty darn American, or at least not European, whatever that means.  We got to talking, and it turned out she and her friend had always dreamed of coming to Barcelona and had saved up – and were staying for just one week.

“It’s so rainy here,” the woman said to me.  I thought for a second and realized that it had been rainy the past few days – but overall I would certainly never describe Barcelona as rainy.  In fact, I think of Spain and that whole Costa del Sol region as a pretty sunny, beautiful place. That conversation with the woman echoes in my memory every time I find myself sitting in a new wonderful location, working on the road.

Before I left for Maui, my Mom emailed me and said, “You do realize that you are going to the only place I dream of visiting.” I thought of the woman in Spain – and of all the people who dream instead of plan – and what it must be like to think of a place for years if not decades – to save up their money or their vacation days – and I am beyond thankful for what I have carved out and that no one has told me to stop yet.  That I get to travel the planet regularly, fulfilling even the most passing travel fancy. I currently have about 3-5 locations on my to-do list, all of which I hope to visit within the next year or so.  I don’t dream of seeing any place – I simply plan it out.

What’s the one place you would love to see?  Go type it into Google and pull up a map.  Click on My Maps – and save this spot.  Start looking for places you would visit – restaurants you would eat at – hotels you might stay at – hikes you might take – and mark those places on the map.  Look into what it would cost to fly there next month – 3 months from now – 6 months from now – a year from now.  Write down those prices, and prices of hotels or camping spots you might stay at.  Know the facts of your dream and you begin to plan. The more you plan, the sooner reality occurs. The planning itself is part of the thrill of travel – and the more you plan, the more likely you are to make it happen.  And once you’ve visited the place you would love to see, you have nothing left to do but pick another spot.