Blog Reboot & Reflections on a Year of Leisure

Writing less than once a year in your blog is the polar opposite of badass, but there is no time like the present to right wrongs. It has taken this time for me to step back, reflect, and create a clear vision for moving forward. So thank you for your patience dear readers (all 3 of you).

Over this past year, I have learned more about life and its motion, than at any other point in life thus far. And I did this by doing almost entirely nothing. How does that work? What I mean is that I didn't do anything that would conventionally be considered 'productive'. But what does that word even mean exactly? Getting the email inbox to zero? Multitasking? Knocking off items on the to-do list like a boss? Or perhaps more sensibly, accomplishing something that leads to a sense of fulfillment and achievement?

This past year, I've freed myself of weekly team meetings, office politics, 'urgent' emails, or any of those other corporate shenanigans that we all detest. This freedom was made possible by a frugal life approach that sought to optimize bang-for-the-buck for almost expenditure. In fact, the runway is approximately 10-20 years at current burn rates. However, this approach doesn't suit everyone, even though everyone can choose to follow it if they wanted to. We'll save that discussion for another post (please let me know in the comment section if you're interested in hearing more about finances!).

9 month old, badass Burner, Taiga

So we gave ourselves this generous gift of time. What did we do with it? A year ago at this time, we were preparing for our second year at Burning Man with our then 9-month old baby, Taiga. We got to share it with our very dear friend, Peter Burchhardt (replete with pictures of him ringing the bell). And also the great Camp Decimation gang. And a big thank you to Kat & Ryan for letting us set up at their home in Mountain View! All of this directly followed a summer spent on Isla Mujeres, a fantastic island off the Mexican Riviera.

Our decision to spend a summer on an island stemmed from talks with my wife, Mayui, about our ideal life. We both love the ocean, and visualized an island life to be ideal, so we took the opportunity to truly test this. We found out we were both right and wrong. Summer life consisted of deciding what to eat (tacos de cabeza anyone?), what beach to visit, and which politician to support (cultural joke, Mexicans know how election periods can be). Days flowed, one into the next, a rhythmic metronome beat marking a languorous passage of time. We took walks along the beautiful shoreline, cooked daily, had Tuesday siesta with our neighbors (gracias Rocky!), learned Spanish, kickboxed (thanks Joe & Julio!), and much more. Island life was amazing, and yet we lacked a sense of true fulfillment, more specifically, of meaningful work.

Never got tired of the views on this walk

So we changed scenes, and headed off to travel through Japan, visiting family and friends from Tokyo to Okinawa. It's been an absolute pleasure getting to know Mayui's parents, Michio & Mizue. I'm grateful and happy that we had the chance to spend quality time with loved ones.

Grandparents love grandchildren

At the start of 2014, I moved to Hokkaido to pursue my goal of being able to throw 360s in all four directions (front/back, regular/switch) with steeze. To even be able to do this, I had the help of a magnificent wife, who gifted me 2.5 months of kid-free time to work on this. I guess in the instruction manual for becoming a Badass Gentleman, it should say that an awesome life partner is more or less required.

Awesome life partner - check!

Turns out, on my 29th day of riding, I knuckled a jump and messed up my right knee badly enough to keep me sidelined for the rest of the season. But what a time it was up until then. I identified something that I enjoyed working on so much, that it didn't feel like work. I was getting closer. After over a year of hearing that non-stop, persistently buzzing question, "what am I supposed to be doing with my life?" I was finally beginning to formulate an answer.

A little switch frontside 1

My primary takeaway from my year of leisure is this: fulfillment comes through the step-by-step realization of dreams that create meaningful value for others. As I reflected on our experiences, I soon recognized that we were so focused on simply living the best life for ourselves, that we almost entirely neglected thinking about how we can use our minds, energy, ingenuity and resources to add value to the world we live in.

And so, during this strange and unexpected summer of 2014 in Niseko, purpose has began to build within me, and it's gaining momentum like an avalanche. And it's taking me in directions I'd never even imagined previously (and I don't mean that in a master-of-the-universe sort of way). It took over a year for me to truly unlearn a lifetime of assumptions, whilst constantly grappling with that question of purpose. Now the real journey of becoming a Badass Gentleman begins.