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A Weekend in Hong Kong
I spent the weekend in Hong Kong, which sounds a lot more extravagant than it actually was. Early last year there was a flight deal that offered a round trip flight to Hong Kong cheaply enough that the miles earned in the process were worth the price of the ticket, and the flight alone was…
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How to Think About Bad Days
I took a nap today. I slept for about an hour and a half, woke up, thought about doing something productive, and then went back to sleep. Sure, I’d gotten a handful of small things done before the nap, but overall it was a pretty unproductive day. Having unproductive days isn’t the end of the…
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Why You Shouldn’t Worry About the World
In 1894 there was a major crisis in London. It seemed that there was no solution in sight, and that the city was destined to be doomed. The problem was the incredible amount of manure being deposited onto the streets by the city’s horses. Horses were the way to get around, no one wanted to…
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Remember Why You’re Really Doing It
As you may know, my friend Sebastian and I have a bet going where we must write a blog post every single day for two years. We ironed out the terms and conditions, but one area was left slightly fuzzy– we both travel a lot, so what happens when time zones interfere? We agreed that…
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Why It Doesn’t Matter Where You Travel
It turns out that sometimes, in South America, four hour bus rides take seven hours. And sometimes the air conditioning doesn’t work, and it’s the middle of the day in the summer. Today all of those things turned out to be true. Unpleasant as the ride was, I found it relatively easy to focus on…
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How to Tell a Story
On the cruise a friend was asking me about my days in pickup. What was the worst rejection I experienced, he asked? That’s a path paved with so much rejection that it’s sort of like asking which leaf on a tree is the greenest, but one stuck out in my mind. I was at a…
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Having Very Few Constraints
A friend asked my yesterday why I do so many crazy things. What’s my raison d’etre? He mentioned a few specific examples, and I had reasons for each, but those reasons weren’t similar to each other. I’ve been thinking about it since then, though. Is there some universal motivator that’s behind everything I do? If…
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Cogs in the System
I used to think that it was a really bad idea to be a cog in the system. I thought this for two reasons. First, I was personally averse to being a cog in any system, and of course any preference I have is the right one to have. Second, there were a ton of…
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Things Besides Money and Time
We’ve started a new tradition on our cruise called BLunch, which stands for Business Lunch. One member of our gang presents some background on their business, followed by the biggest challenge they’re facing, and then receives feedback from everyone else. We all take it seriously, and the group is comprised mostly of entrepreneurs, so the…
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The Traveling Yuppie
The other day Todd and I were sitting in a cafe. Next to us was a guy who appeared to be a typical San Francisco yuppie. I wouldn’t have talked to him, but Todd is more extroverted than I, so pretty soon we were chatting away. He had overheard us talking about travel, so that’s…
