Life Lessons From a Convict

Three years ago, I walked 160 miles with a convict. As we took our first steps, he shared his first words: "It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured." We walked our miles in 43 hours over a span of five weeks. During this time, I learned numerous life lessons from the convict. The convict is Gregory David Roberts.

The convict, Gregory David Roberts.
(Image from: www.goodreads.com)

Gregory is the author of Shantaram, a novel that tells the story of a man named Lin. Lin, like Gregory, was a heroin addict and bank robber. Lin, like Gregory, escaped from an Australian prison. Lin, like Gregory, fled to the streets of Mumbai and lived life as a fugitive in the Indian underworld. At a lengthy 944-pages, I opted to listen to the audiobook so I could enjoy the novel while on foot. As I walked miles-and-miles of country roads listening to Lin narrate his story through my earbuds, I came to know and admire Gregory.

Reflections on My Guatemala Trip

I spent two and a half months in Guatemala earlier this year. It was supposed to be three months, but for various reasons, including the fact that I wasn't enamored with the country, I came home early. Of the twenty-four countries I've visited thus far, Guatemala ranks near the very bottom. Here's what I enjoyed and didn't enjoy about my time in Guatemala.

What I Enjoyed About My Time in Guatemala

A Little Earthquake Excitement

Located on the Ring of Fire, Guatemala is prone to earthquakes. During the first week of class, we had an earthquake that hit 6.6 on the richer scale. I was impressed to see how quickly and safely the locals responded. At the same time, it was an eye-opener for me to realize just how vulnerable I would have been, as a traveler, had the earthquake been more significant. From then on, I expanded my supply of extra food and water.

Immediately after the earthquake,
my teacher's Facebook feed was bombarded with quake-related posts.

In my remaining time in Guatemala, I was hyper-sensitive to anything that resembled a quake. I awoke on March 8th at 2:50am in the morning, thinking we might be experiencing another tremor. As I lay in bed, eyes wide awake, I tried to muster up the energy to head out to the safe zone in the courtyard. Just as I sat up and swung my feet onto the floor, I heard what sounded like heavy breathing. This was no earthquake -- the "tremors" were from my neighbors upstairs enjoying a little mid-night love makin'. Geez, Louise!

There's No In-Between

I try my best to walk my walk and to talk my talk. Recently I had a lapse in practicing what I preach.

I am an evangelist of Mark Manson's Law of Fuck Yes or No. The gist of the law is that if you can't enthusiastically say "Fuck Yes" to something that crosses your path, then that something should not be pursued. Though Manson's law was intended to help navigate romantic relationships, the law is apropos to all aspects of life.

Happy 6th Re-Birthday to Me!

Happy 6th Re-Birthday to Me!

Six years ago today, I held my breath, crossed my fingers, and mixed together the ingredients of the early retirement elixir -- a dash of hope, a dash of crazy, and a whole lot of courage. Voila! All of the sudden, I found myself free of a job, free of the tedium of normalcy, and free of the confines of time.

Reflections on My Baja Trip

As was alluded to in my last post, Biking the Baja Divide: A Photo Journal, my trip to Baja was less-than-inspiring. In fact, it was so lackluster that I returned to The States a month earlier than expected, having only biked 600 of the route's 1700 miles. As is the case for all my travels, the venture resulted in significant reflections and a handful of lessons learned.

I Prefer Certain Types of Nature 

Walking the beach at Los Frailes.
(Photo: El Mecánico)

The principal reason I travel is to immerse myself in nature. I love being in temperate forests -- majestic trees, babbling creeks, the sounds of forest life. I love being near alpine lakes -- shimmery aquamarine waters and craggy snow-capped peaks. I love being on the shorelines of The Sound -- the rich orange bark of madrona perched high atop the tides.

My New Set of Wheels

Someone has a new set of wheels. And that someone is me!

Wanna guess what kind of wheels I got? Here's a hint:

My new set of wheels.

Yup, I got myself a Brompton! For those of you not familiar with Bromptons, they are the coolest little folding bicycles on Planet Earth.

Reflections on My Patagonia Trip

My trip to Patagonia ended seven weeks ago. As with all my travels, I have spent time reflecting on the trip.

In Reflections on My Turkey Trip: What I Learned About Myself, I compared life experiences to the tiles in a mosaic. Just as tiles are combined to create a unique picture or pattern, our experiences combine to create a mosaic of our unique selves. And just as a mosaic becomes clearer with a greater density of tiles, our true selves become more apparent as we acquire more life experiences.

The individual tiles in this mosaic are photos from the Patagonia trip.
You may wish to enlarge the image to fully appreciate the mosaic.

The Patagonia trip added more and more tiles to the mosaic of my life. Though some of these experiences confirmed what I already knew, others revealed new insights about Patagonia, Chile, and myself.

Reflections on My Recent Trip

I've ridden three "big" bike tours thus far -- a 21-day trip down the Pacific Coast, a 52-day cross-country trip from Portland, OR to Portland ME, and a 50-day ride through the Sierra-Cascades from the Mexican border to the Canadian border.

After all three tours, I've reflected on the lessons learned from the trips. Doing so has not only provided closure for the trips, but it has also enabled me to continually improve my touring experiences by recognizing those things that did and did not go well.

With each subsequent trip, the number of lessons learned has decreased. I interpret this to imply that the more touring experience I acquire, the closer my experience asymptotes to the ideal touring experience.

Unlike my first two trips, however, some of the lessons learned from my recent Sierra-Cascades trip have been more profound. A mere statement, abbreviated within the confines of a bullet point, fails to fully capture the importance of these lessons.

Lessons Learned: Sierra-Cascades

My recent Sierra-Cascades tour was neither the longest in terms of miles nor the longest in terms of days. The trip, nonetheless, offered opportunities for learning.

Just as I have done for my previous bike trips, I have composed a list of the lessons learned from my Sierra-Cascades ride:

Lessons Learned: Portland, OR to Portland, ME

Portland, OR

As mentioned in my pre-trip Lessons Learned post, I'm a fan of post mortems. Not only do they provide closure, but they also allow for continuous improvement by enabling reflection on the things that went well and the things that didn't go so well. Identifying, reviewing, and incorporating learnings from my bike trips helps pave the path for even better tours moving forward.

Portland, ME 

In the spirit of post mortems, here are the learnings from my recent bike trip from Portland, OR to Portland, ME. This will be a "living post," meaning that I will add to the list if additional lessons come to mind.

Lessons Learned

In my product management life, I always looked forward to the project "post mortems." For one, they provided closure to the projects. But more importantly, they allowed for continuous improvement by enabling me (and my team) to reflect on the things that went well and the things that didn't go so well. Reviewing and incorporating the learnings from the post mortems facilitated efficiencies and helped to ensure smoother projects moving forward.