I love reflection and especially the reflection that bookends a calendar year. The ruminating, meditating, thoughtful examination of the previous year colliding with the hopeful, optimistic, anticipatory dreams of what tomorrow will bring. I like taking stock, and recommitting to a better me living in a tomorrow that I try to make better. The traditional New Year’s examination gives me both of those. My son Gavin (9) asked why there was so much hoopla around two minutes of celebrating. Why there were hours of build-up that dissipates almost instantly. But in those two minutes we close the past and turn to the future as we look hopefully towards what lies ahead.

I start with two quotes to set the tone. The first from Emerson:

“Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt creep in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

And the second from a talk Jeffery Holland gave at BYU in 2009. I’ve read this talk twice in the last day or two and find it chockablock full of insight and wisdom worthy of reflection – especially at New Year’s. I actually read it to my boys on New Year’s Day, unfortunately with no perceived success. It was sadly lost on them (was it George Bernard Shaw that said “youth is wasted on the young??”)

“as a new year starts and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. So a more theological way to talk about Lot’s wife is to say that she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she already had. Apparently she thought—fatally, as it turned out—that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind.

Let me start first with a quick recap of some 2016 accomplishments.

In 2015 I climbed my first 14er and fell in love. It was the perfect simile for the mountains I was climbing in my own life.  There are 53 peaks in Colorado that are over 14,000 feet and another 14 in California and Washington for a total of 67 14ers in the Continental United States. It is my hope to climb them all.

After putting 2015 behind me, it felt fitting to start 2016 atop mountains. I made my first two winter ascents in the first days of 2016, finding myself on one of the highest peaks in the country. There is a beautiful juxtaposition between summiting physical mountains and ascending figurative ones. In many ways, I find myself today on a higher plane than at any point in my life. And I see the peaks – both distant and near, real and metaphoric – that I’m aiming for. I followed my January summits with a climb in November, a day after the first snowfall. I summited Mount Harvard and now have 10 of the 67 summits under my belt. I’m looking to climb 2-6 14ers in 2017.

After running my first marathon in October 2015, followed by my second in November 2015, I went on to run 6 marathons in 2016 (Washington DC, Big Sur, San Francisco, Venice Italy, New York City, and Singapore). Running 6 marathons in a year was never my intent – it just, well, sorta happened. I know what you are thinking, “marathons don’t just happen!” One of the highlights was running the Big Sur marathon with the Move For Hunger team and fundraising in their support. I forgot how much I love fundraising for worthy causes, and I think Move For Hunger has one of the most worthy missions. I don’t want to run as many marathons in 2017, but I’m looking at North Korea (yes…I know), Cuba, Chicago, and maybe one other one.

I did my first triathlon in 2016. Miserable! I thought I was going to drown through the entire swim. It took me half way through bike to catch my breath. In 2016, I also did my first Gran Fondo (finished dead last – Woot!), followed by a second in September. I biked roughly 860 miles and ran 715 miles in 2016. In all my miles I thought often of the lyrics for the Avett Brothers song “The Weight of Lies”: “So, when you run make sure you run to something and not away from.” As the last pillars of my marriage dissolved in 2013, I did a lot of running away. In 2016, for the first time in a long time, I finally felt like I was running towards something instead of away. I hope to do 2-3 tris in 2017, perhaps one of which can be longer. I’d also like to do a few Gran Fondos.

New countries in 2016 included Bosnia, Montenegro, and Albania. All visited with my three sons. Those three boys are my everything. The trip wasn’t perfect. Definitely a few things I wish I could have done differently. A few things I’d like to redo. I still find myself constantly praying the trip will be a fond memory for each of them. In the coming months I’ll try to post more about this trip. New countries I’m eyeing for 2017: North Korea (yes…I know), Cuba, Iceland, and Aruba. But who knows where the tide will take me.

One of the highlights of 2016 for me was my 40^th birthday. I spent my 40th birthday sleeping on our trampoline with my three boys. A milestone birthday came and went and there is no other way I would’ve wanted to spend it than with my sons. The highlight of my birthday was spending it with them. It will be a birthday I will forever remember and always cherish because in many ways it was nothing more than the best of a very normal day with my sons.

Now onto some of the things I learned in 2016.

1) Process Matters.  In 2016 I learned that process matters. Maybe not as much as outcome, but very very close to it. This was a lesson I’ve long needed to internalize. I have, for a very long time, burned the proverbial candle at both ends. For a decade plus, I was able to do this mostly successfully. There were hints and flashes of crashing and burning, but in the end, for the most part, I delivered. And my, at-times, chaotic process was tolerated by others because the end product was valued. In 2016, and to an extent 2015, this all collided and I learned the hard lesson that no matter how great or grand the deliverable is, a messy process can negate much of the value created. In 2016, I focused less exclusively on what I delivered, and looked more collectively at what I delivered together with the process in which I delivered it. I made concerted efforts to hone the process in an attempt to minimize stress placed on others.

2) Make Time for Self-Discovery. I think I’ve had four major periods of self-discovery in my life. The first was my freshman year of college in Hawaii. I imagine college, especially the freshman year, is a period of self-discovery for many. I think mine was magnified by the distance I placed between myself and home and the time I was able to spend in nature. Hawaii can be very slow (Island Time) which also helps facilitate time for self-discovery. This period was followed by the two years I spent living in the Netherlands as a Mormon missionary. Recently, I’ve started going back through the thousands of pages I wrote in my journal during those 24 months. It’s been interesting to see themes that remain constant in my life still today. I seem to have been haunted then, as perhaps I still am, with a feeling that I simply come up short. I fail my own expectations of myself – whether seemingly high or not. And it’s always followed by a doubling down to do more and try harder tomorrow.

The third period of self-discovery was the period during which I studied in the Middle East followed by the months I wandered around East, Central, and Southern Europe in the late 1990s. This area was under tremendous change at the time, as it shed its former identify and reached for independence. I had very little money which ultimately augmented my experience. I wandered where the tide took me. I slept in parks and fields, in the homes of strangers and of newly found friends. I slept in a field near Dracula’s castle, under willow tree in Hyde Park, and even spent a night in the double bunk of a semi-trailer truck after I hitched a ride across France. I thought often of George Orwell while he was Down and Out in Paris and London.

And then, after this third period of self-discovery, I spent the next 15 years doing what most spend their lifetime doing. I graduated college, got married, had kids, added graduate degrees. Tried to build the proverbial “career” and make it a successful one. In general, I tried to keep up and make the sacrifices that seemed to be the right ones at the time. I was living life, or something like it.

One of the many great things to come out of my divorce was the chance to once again make self-discovery a priority. In 2016 I learned more about myself as an individual than I have for well over a decade. This was driven by a number of factors including slowing down and focusing and optimizing on the things I value most in life. Perhaps in the  coming months I’ll write more about what I’ve learned about myself.

3) There is Beauty and Power in Being Vulnerable. I have found beauty in vulnerability over the last two years – both in being vulnerable to others and in being receptive to the vulnerability that others show me. I have had amazing conversations in the last year because I was receptive to the vulnerability of others. Some of the people I have grown to admire the most are people I didn’t even know a few years ago. My first marriage lacked vulnerability completely. When I think of the non-negotiables of romantic relationships, vulnerability is at the top of the list.

4) Optimize on What Matters. 2015 was a year filled with a tremendous amount of change as we formalized the dissolution of our marriage. I remember a specific moment wherein I was facing a long series of decisions and I was struggling to determine which of all of the good choices were the best. Moreover, many of choices were tightly interwoven so one decision here would impact another decision over there. Wise counsel from my oldest brother helped me to realize that I needed to identify one or two core priorities and then optimize all of my decisions around those priorities. From there, I could let all of the other choices fall around that single priority. My three boys are the most important thing to me. They far exceed anything else in my life. Whenever I’m faced with options, decisions, and alternatives I simply optimize on them. This simple decision tree has fundamentally changed how I see the world and how I decide between many good choices. I’m not perfect, but optimizing decisions on them helps me overcome decision paralysis and also brings with it a tremendous amount of peace that I am doing all I can.            

5) Be Present. I think I’ve always made efforts to be present, but I really saw the beauty and significance of this over the last year – especially as it relates to my kids. Good luck to anyone trying to get ahold of me when my boys are with me. I often put my phone in a drawer in my bedroom when they are. Related to this, I made one simple change in my life in 2016 that has made a tremendous difference in allowing me to be present – I set my phone to “Do Not Disturb” from 9PM to 5AM. It’s awesome! My phone doesn’t ring. I’m less likely to notice texts. I’m able to be present. Over the last year I volunteered as much as I could in my boys school and found tremendous joy doing so. I try to have lunch with them once a week. At one point, my ex-wife called me “Mr. Volunteer.” She was being pejorative. And in that moment I realized in the insults of my ex-wife are some of the greatest complements a guy could ever hope for.

6) You Can’t Push Again the Wind. One of the most valuable, and beautiful pieces of advice I received in the last year was that “you can’t push against the wind.” I didn’t fully understand this at first, but overtime I’ve come to realize the power and wisdom of this advice. We all have in our life distractors, those people who are critical of us and seek to find fault in what we say or do. They might be former spouses or someone else that we can’t fully get out of our lives for a wide array of reasons. These individuals feel compelled to send derogatory texts or emails. They say belittling things. They seek to degrade, demean, and disparage. Nothing we can say or do in response will stymie their crude, coarse, commentary on our lives. They, and their comments, are the wind. You can’t push against the wind. You can’t stop the wind from blowing. But its’ blowing has no bearing on you and eventually, though it might take decades, it will blow itself out.

7) Write Your Narrative. Michael Lewis said, “I get such pleasure out of knowing that I’m lucky. It also allows me to assume that I will continue to be lucky. I am creating a narrative of my life, and it makes me braver and less fearful.” I have similar feelings, though I think I would be inclined to replace “lucky” with “blessed” and in place of feeling “braver” I’d say it makes me feel “greater peace.” I think we have more control over our stories – especially the chapters that lie ahead – than we allow ourselves to realize.

8) Love Unconditionally. After a year-long battle with a rare brain tumor, Josiah Lanier died in May 2016 at the tender age of 10. He touched thousands of people and his life left a giant wake in this world. I’m not sure a day goes by that I don’t think about him. In the final weeks and months of his life, I would carry him up my stairs when he would visit my house. He possessed deep, profound humility unmatched by anyone I have ever met. I’ll never forget the last time he visited my house, and the feeling I had after carrying him downstairs, that it would be his last visit there. I went back inside and falling to the floor, bawled until I couldn’t breathe. Josiah’s life taught me what unconditional love looks like. I saw it in his father, dressed in a matching superhero outfit. I saw it in his mother, when she’d lean in to hear and ascertain his needs. I saw it in the thousands of people who were touched by Josiah’s life. By people who donated time and money and talents to Josiah and his family. And I saw it in Josiah himself. They he would give his precious time to others. He would allow people to visit him and to ask how he was doing. He’d allow adults to talk to him, in the horrible way that adults talk, something no 10 year-old likes to do. He showed constant compassion and deep unconditional love.

9) Our Emotions and Our Actions are Choices. Be Kind. Be Grateful. In 2016, I saw clearly our emotions and our actions are both choices dictated by free will and agency. We choose how we feel and how we respond. I want to choose kindness, gratitude, and ultimately happiness. Happiness is a choice. Maybe it starts with gratitude. Gratitude and kindness together with humility and acceptance. And in the end, we can choose happiness.

10) Be Prepared. Yes, I channeled my inner Boy Scout in 2016. Take time. Have the right gear. Know when to ask for help before a series of mistakes ends with that final fatal mistake that so often follows a series of errors. Take a few minutes to prepare.

It has been over a year since I last posted anything to this blog. I imagine it isn’t uncommon for many uncommitted bloggers like myself to begin anew shortly after the start of a new year (and new resolutions). Only the coming months (and years) will tell if my determination to blog more frequently will land on the massive pile of broken resolutions and missed goals. Already I’m slipping from my original intent of writing daily. Perhaps I’ll adjust and shoot to post 365 times over the coming year. Here is what I wrote on January first as I flew from Washington, DC to Denver:

I entered 2015 with the explicit goal to post more frequently to this blog. I’ve never given this site the attention I have always intended to give it and I felt more frequent blog posts in 2015 would be a good start towards reinvigorating it. Headed into 2015 I didn’t believe I could post daily, but I thought writing a few times a week was a realistic and obtainable goal. In 2015, as in past years, I’ve always started my “New Year’s Resolutions” AFTER CES because of the sporadic and chaotic nature of that week for me. This goal, together with others I set headed into 2015, weren’t going to materialize as planned however.

Immediately following the 2015 CES I flew to San Francisco to officially launch “Digital Destiny: How the New Age of Data Will Transform the Way We Work, Live, and Communicate.” I marked the official launch of the book on the morning of January 13, 2015 by speaking at a Churchill Club event. Later that day I had a meeting at Infinite Loop (Apple’s HQ). When the meeting was cancelled I decided to beeline it for SFO in the hopes of jumping an earlier flight than the redeye I had scheduled. I was anxious to see my family and liked the idea of surprising them by getting in earlier than expected and being there when they woke up.

The late afternoon flight I caught got me to my house around 2AM. I walked into my house to find everyone gone and divorce papers waiting for me on the kitchen counter. Yes, my wife filed for divorce while I was at CES – a cliché seemingly ripped from a Silicon Valley episode.  Divorce is hard whether you want it or not. My priorities changed as suddenly as my paradigm.  Goals like “blogging three times a week” dissolved quickly. Our divorce was finalized in September after futile attempts to reconcile over several months. I’m appreciative for a year filled with much self-reflection. In the end, it is clear we didn’t bring out the best in each other and I’m grateful for the peace I feel.

I enter 2016 with the goal to (once again) revisit the blog and write and post daily (yes daily!). It is an ambitious goal because the habit isn’t yet solidified. Unlike past years, wherein I’ve started my new year’s goals and resolutions after CES, I decided I would try to jump right in. My intent is to shoot for 500 words (or more) a day. Topics will very drastically. I might scribble some early thoughts that will feed an op-ed down the road. I’m currently engrossed with exploring and researching how the Internet is impacting society and imagine this will become a frequent topic for blog posts in the year ahead. I’m sure I’ll comment on things I see happening in the tech sector – especially when I feel like the vast majority of people are missing it. I’m sure I will undoubtedly post on vulnerability and love and family and friendships and divorce and peace and all assortment of similar topics should I feel so moved to write.

In the past I have been a prolific journal keeper. For several years I wrote every day and as a result I have thousands of pages filling boxes of books. I hadn’t kept a journal for years but began again last year. I enter 2016 with 163 entries on 117 different days over the last 13 months. I suppose my hope intent with my blog is to bifurcate my writing.

It will be difficult to write on days when I am with my boys – I tend to pour all of my attention into them when we are together. But I will do the best I can. And with that, here we go!

At the start of the year, I set a goal to post more frequently to this blog. I’ve done a poor job. I’ve been very active on other platforms like Twitter and Instagram, have done nothing with Tumblr and have posted only infrequently on this blog since the start of the year. I have yet to master the art of short – but still meaningful – posts. Perhaps I can still salvage my goal.

A recent article by Kevin Kelly caught my attention and I found myself wanting to add more than just 140 characters to the conversation. Kevin makes the claim that time is more valuable than money when traveling. I fully agree with that premise. Like Kevin, though perhaps not (yet) quite as extensively, I’ve traveled constantly over my lifetime. His quick log at the start of his post even resembles my own experiences in many ways. Though I haven’t (yet) walked 1,000 miles on a single trip or bicycled across the US. I did once fly to Hawaii on a door-prize win. I’ve traveled first class and been pampered. I’ve hitchhiked penniless on multiple continents and wandered for months across country borders with no destination and only a return ticket several months away. I was once robbed in a small train station where everything of value was taken and I was grateful because the only valuable items to me, my journals of prior 6 months, were viewed as worthless papers.

As the son of an Army Officer (hoorah), I grew up moving around. Growing-up, a small sign hung in our kitchen that read: “Home is Where the Army Sends You.” Home for me included multiple locals on two continents before I was 18 and I followed by adding several more in the few decades since.

In many ways travel defines me and I’m extremely lucky to have a day job that allows me to travel. And when I travel – especially to far-off locations where I’ve never been – I always try to take a few extra days to get lost. Like Kevin, I believe it is far better to have more time than money. As Kevin writes:

When you have abundant time you can get closer to core of a place. You can hang around and see what really happens. You can meet a wider variety of people. You can slow down until the hour that the secret vault is opened. You have enough time to learn some new words, to understand what the real prices are, to wait out the weather, to get to that place that takes a week in a jeep.

Unfortunately today I have more money than time. But when I travel, I try to use money to get me where only time matters. And then I watch and wait.

With the 2014 CES officially behind me, I can finally take a minute and set some “New Year’s” Resolutions for 2014. While no longer technically the start of the new year, in recent years I’ve started waiting until after the close of CES because – as 150,000 others also know – CES (and Vegas) occupy such a big part of January any goals or resolutions set on 1.1.14 would have quickly been tossed to the wayside. By waiting until after CES I at least have a fighting chance of keeping the resolutions alive until mid-March….

I’ve focused on five elements on life: Spiritual, Professional, Physical, Education, and Family:

Spiritual: As my life has gotten busier over the last few years, I’ve noted recently that I’m not making sufficient time to meditate, ponder, and reflect. I’m too busy running from one assignment to the next. In 2014 I want to cordon off 60 minutes a week for meditation.

Professional: At the onset of 2013, I planned to write more but really didn’t write as much as I would have liked. I allowed other tasks to take precedence. In 2014 I want to write 500 words a day. I plan to write more blog posts here and elsewhere, and attempt to publish editorials, op-eds and generally wider than I currently do. Related to this resolution, I want to finish the manuscript I’ve been working on with the intent to publish it in 2015.

Physical: I’ve never felt compelled to run a marathon and that still remains true. But the idea is warming on me. Not for 2014, but perhaps for 2015. With that said, I would like to run more in 2014. I’m going to target 250 miles for the year. I’ve never tracked what I run so we’ll see if this is too little, too much, or just about right. Last fall I started spending 15-20 minutes most mornings doing something physical (ie sit-ups and push-ups). I want to continue this 5 days a week.

Education: Simple. Finish a long overdue PhD dissertation.

Family: With three boys running in different directions, I am often running from one formal activity to the next. While we spend a fair amount of time together, try to just “hang-out” as much as we can, and I do hold a formal meeting with each of them individually once-a-month, I’d like to spend more one-on-one time with each of them. I plan to do one thing with each of them individually each quarter. A date night with dad if you will. And with that, I see several nights at Chucky E Cheese’s in my year ahead.

In 1999 I lived in the Middle East. En route back to the United States I stopped in Europe. I had lived in the Netherlands and Belgium from 1996 to 1998. There were now other parts of Europe I wanted to see. Changing parts of Europe. I would start in London and push eastward. The Berlin Wall had fallen 10 years prior and to the east was transition. Countries in motion.  Countries redefining themselves. I wanted to see the old Eastern Europe meeting the new Eastern Europe. I wanted to experience the old before it was all new. And while much had changed over a decade, I was hoping some remained.

I had relatively little. I had few possessions. Everything I owned rested in the bag on my back. I had maybe two or three t-shirts.  I had a single pair of shoes. I had few plans. No expectations. I had about $300 dollars and a passport tucked under my waist belt. I had a return ticket leaving from Berlin in about two months time.

I slept in fields and parks, in train stations and back alleys – the last of which I would recommend against even in periods of deep life exploration.

In London I picked up a few books, among which was George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. In this, his first full length work, Orwell recounts living in poverty in these two great cities.  It remains today among my favorite books. It would become my battle cry over the ensuing months. I never tarried in one city long enough to establish myself as Orwell did. But I also wasn’t trying to survive as he was. I was experiencing the rawness that is life.

In London I spent my first night in Hyde Park under a giant Weeping Willow Tree, the weeping branches draping over me. Providing a faux cocoon of protection. Of blocking out the outside world. My second night was spent in Salisbury – in an alley not far from the train station.  I still see it.  I still feel it.  I wonder if I could find it today. It was dark when I arrived in Salisbury. I wonder if I could have found it the next day.

I was officially on the road. My thoughts becoming my only companion, my only diversion, my only friend.  This is the journey.  This is on the road. Thoughts – in all of their states – personal and raw – propelling you forward, sideways, forward.

I experienced the hollowness of transition. As Kerouac’s Sal Paradise put it,

I  woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was — I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.

Where are today’s journeys? Where does this discovery take place today? Eastern Europe has largely matured. The U.S. is easy to navigate and many of the old ways of navigation – stowing away on a train or hitch hiking to the limits of the next town or street intersection is largely gone. Even things like the old Chinatown Express – an informal bus system that traveled between Chinatowns and was historically used to transport immigrant friends to family has become popularized by companies like Bolt and other competitors who have added Wi-Fi and formalized the process with websites and paper tickets.

Perhaps Africa still offers the potential – though in many places the potential is dangerous. Perhaps in that danger is the potential. When I was in Ethiopia last month I had zero connectivity during the day.  I was left to nothing but my own ideas.  My own thoughts. Left to only what my eyes could see, comprehend, and make sense of. Africa is in massive transition – a petri dish for self discovery. Though only there for three short days, the taste of being back on the road was bubbling at the surface.

As Kerouac wrote, the ones for me are “the ones who are made to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved.”  The ones for me are the ones “desirious of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn…but burn, burn, burn…”

I too want to strive for life.  Constantly in motion.  On the move.  Burning, burning, burning.  I find sleep a waste of time – and avoid it as much as I can. I fear media has the ability to provide us memories that are not our own. I’m constantly seeking to supplant these memories with ones that can’t be videoed, recorded, or captured. They can’t be instagrammed or tweeted or facebooked. These memories live deep in our bellies. These memories can’t even be sufficiently described with words, diagrams, or drawings.  We feel these memories.  We live these memories. And these memories live deep in us. They are the wrinkles in our face, the scares on our arms and legs. These tell stories of our on the road, stories that reside deep in our souls. Stories that define us.

Can an On the Road experience be had in 2013?

Can self-identification, self-recognition, self-definition still take place as it has for centuries – between one location and a destination that remains hazily undefined.

In the November 16, 1952 New York Times Sunday Magazine, John Holmes writes “one day [Kerouac] said, ‘You know, this is a really beat generation’ … More than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It involves a sort of nakedness of mind, and ultimately, of soul: a feeling of being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness. In short, it means being undramatically pushed up against the wall of oneself.”

Kerouac spoke of a generation. Self-discovery taking place individually – but collectively across a generation.  Much has been said and written about today’s Millennial generation – but never once have I seen them referred to or discussed in the context of self-realization.

Today we dial-up luxury towncars and black SUVs with the swipe of our smartphone. Can self-discovery be found in the back of a sedan while we change our phone charges – perusing twitter and reading Facebook updates? This isn’t a critique, but a legitimate question.  I think it can, but rather than happening, we must make it happen.