It's 10:30 at night. It's after dinner and nearing time for sleep. You are mildly hungry - not the sort of hungry that needs a full meal, but enough of a craving that you decide to peer into your pantry and peruse the options. To your dismay, you find there is nothing sufficiently enticing enough to pique your interest. You let the impulse go until a few minutes later you find yourself staring down the shelves of your pantry again. Now that old jam is starting to speak to you a little bit, saying, "hmm, that actually might not be a bad idea." And you're beginning to wonder about Johnny's coco puffs, "they've been there so long! maybe he has forgotten about them?"
Read MorePeople say that travel changes you. I say travel makes you more you. Imagine you had a whole day to yourself. You can do anything you want, with anyone you want, anywhere you want. Now repeat this process every day for the better part of the year. At the end of the year, what would you be interested in? How would your perspective change? Who would you become?
Read MoreAn interview I conducted with Peter Diamandis, co-founder and executive chairman of Singularity University and XPrize Foundation, co-author of The New York Times bestsellers Abundance: “The Future Is Better Than You Think” and “BOLD: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World”, and co-founder of the International Space University.
Read MoreAn interview I conducted with Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia and VaynerX and Michael Ovitz, co-founder of the Creative Artists Agency and previously President of the Walt Disney Company.
Read MoreAn interview conducted with Guy Laliberté, founder of Cirque du Soleil and Marian Goodell, CEO of Burning Man
Read MoreAn interview I conducted with Eckhart Tolle, bestselling author of “The Power of Now,” and “A New Earth”
Read MoreBack in June, when my partner Madison was scrolling through different exotic locations where she was hoping to study primates, admittedly I didn’t think much of it….
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The following is an essay I composed for the Youth International Essay Competition. The prompt asked: “What can we learn from nature?”
My essay was distinguished as an honorable mention, one of only 64 essays to place or receive mention, including one of only two American compositions chosen in the contest. The competition received over 15,000 submissions from over 150 countries.
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Think back to your first date. Was it with a high school sweetheart? Set up through a mutual friend? Or maybe it was with that person who made you nervous at the bar.
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Francisco is a handsome man. His build is slender, skin unblemished and hair neatly combed to his left side. His unsuspecting blue jeans and “Venice Beach” t-shirt conceal the fact that he is the leader of his Shuar community, an indigenous people local to the Ecuadorian rainforest.
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How do we stay calm when things around us aren’t?
You can have anger without acting angry. You can feel anger yet not be angry.
Anger is an internal state; it can be physiologically felt and cognitively observed.
When anger arises, a sense of tension is present in our bodies. Our breathing quickens and shallows, our temperature may elevate, or we may perspire. There are also notable mental effects. We may become cognitively impatient and negatively biased, as displayed by the cynicism of our accompanying thoughts.
This is anger; anger is internal.
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It’s the little moments that fascinate me: the walk with your head down, take a sip of water, blink-and-you’ll-miss-em type moments. Compound this perceptivity with a tremendous curiosity towards the social aspects of life and you become fascinated with human interaction and the human psyche. And that’s where this story is going - a seemingly minuscule moment, potentially missed by many, yet defining nonetheless.
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“Would you like a VIP ticket?” “Why not,” I thought to myself, as I proceeded to thoughtlessly purchase my first ever bus ticket.
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From a social standpoint the monorails of Kuala Lumpur are like the subways of New York. They are strictly a transport mechanism, rarely do people talk to one another.
Not following the implicit societal standards, I made a comment to a stranger "that's a cool shirt". This simple comment led to a friendship I couldn't have imagined.
Read MoreIf you have eyes to read, the mind to comprehend, you are fortunate with good health. If you live in the socioeconomic circumstance and have the ability to chose your own path (as I have), you are privileged. And of course to embark on this fellowship I am beyond privileged.
But here, I want to delve deeper into a more implicit layer of privilege.
Read MoreWhile I stick to my sentiments that there is no such thing as a utopia, outside yourself, Bukit Lewang comes close. It's that harmonious, quaint jungle village, which you only hear about in a children's book. (Of course the village isn't perfect, it comes with its own set of unique problems - over commercialization, aggressive locals to name a few.)
The harmony is not in the objects we typically associate with harmony - rainbows, butterflies and people holding hands in a circle - but rather more subtle devices. It lies in the fluid and playful interactions between locals. It lies in the kids swimming in the river, playing without a care or a screen to distract them from their environment. It's in the incessant sharing amongst locals, which isn't a question but an unspoken principal. Indicative of these constructs is the fact that they all look incredibly young. They smile and laugh often, and I haven’t heard the words “worry”, “stress”, or “anxiety”.
Read MoreHello Friends!
I have just returned from the jungles of Sumatra, and am going too play some catch up from last week.
This week brought:
Being treated like a celebrity at a raging mall concert in the busy shopping district of Malioboro. A serendipitous run in to another Michigander, in a place where there is aren’t many tourists! Beautiful mountains, surrounding exquisite temples. Teaching English to an eager 15 year old atop said mountains. Encountering new challenges in less westernized places ( it isn't all bliss over here). A solo waterfall journey ( which due it being "dry season" was hardly as exciting as it sounds), slack lining(!!), meeting with a Fulbright scholar who speaks near fluent Indonesian, and a temple tour straight out of an Alan Watts lecture.
Here I'll highlight my ride back from Borobudor, the biggest Buddhist temple in the world! The temple quite the sight, but I think it is the ride back that has made a deeper mark in my memories.
Read MorePeering over my right shoulder, at a crowded traffic stop , I see a Balinese women sitting on her bike. At first glance, there appears to be nothing distinct about her. She wears a black helmet, a mask covers her airways, headphones are lodged in her ears, and aviator sunglasses to complete the aesthetic. Of course I do not and probably never will know her.
Yet, I know her. Better yet, I can feel what she's experiencing. She is bobbing her head, chaotically back and forth, and strumming her fingers, in what seems to be an arbitrary pattern on the odometer below her. I know those movements. I know that feeling. I feel it on a daily basis.
Read MoreI find that it is the feeling of the experiences , not the events themselves, which have been most important. What I learn from the events, the feelings they provoke, and how they change me is what lasts longer than the actual events.
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