I currently live in Seattle, which sits in a county where 73.9% of voters chose Clinton. My former city of San Francisco leaned even more blue at 85.3%. My Facebook news feed has been full of shock and disappointment since election night. I’ve been sitting on this draft for weeks as I tried to find the right words. How could this happen? I don’t personally think this means we are regressing, racist or sexist. I think those are easy answers. Scapegoats. I fully believe some portion of the population is and always has represented those viewpoints and this election, particularly, gave voice to certain elements that have been quiet on a national scale lately. Those aren’t the reason though and putting the blame on them diminishes our chances of moving forward in a productive manner. The reason this happened is that democracy is working as intended. Over the past year I’ve
My competitive nature manifests itself in various ways – healthy and worrisome – but one of the most important to me has been deep friendships I’ve created alongside strong competitive rivalries. The best rivalries are the ones where the scales tip back and forth. If it is clear who the better participant is, there is no soil for a rivalry to grow. Fertile ground requires head to head competition, close victories and a tide that turns. To have a rivalry, each side needs material to craft their own story of victory and enough doubt to undermine that of the other. It sometimes amazes me that Chris continues to make an argument for being a better runner than I am. Across a wide range of the most popular running race, I have a faster personal record – 1500, 5k, Marathon. Time and time again I’ve crushed him on the battle field – the
Over one human lifetime, Sixty five thousand kWh of energy directed. Thirty seconds in New York City, Sixty five thousand kWh consumed. For three hours, I ran the five boroughs, Powered by the city’s cheers. As though I lived three hundred lives.
A few months ago I gave a presentation on minimalism as part of my company’s ‘Hearsay Talks’ series. I wanted to share the general themes here in written format. My apology for minimalism is this: It is not about less of something. It is about more of something else. You give up things so that you have more room for something else. We each only have 168 hours in the week – our lives are finite. If we want more of one thing, the only way to make that possible is by having less of something else. From 2012-2014 I lived in a 400 sq/ft studio apartment with my growing family. Because of the time and money we were saving, we were able to spend much more time pursuing outdoor activities we love – including some of my challenges. That was our way of having less of something (housing space) in order to have
Most of what determines our success or failure is determined before we set a goal. How well we’ve defined our success criteria, how motivated we are and how focused we are. The hard work lies in the body, and we will certainly course correct along the way, but when we look back, it will be obvious where failure rooted its seeds. If we have taken the correct steps in planning, our only work is to maintain the health of our focus and motivation.
This weekend I head to New York to run the New York City Marathon. This will be my third marathon of the year and fourth time running 26.2. I realize though that the feat I accomplished is much different than the one most people think of when they hear the word ‘marathon’. The New York Marathon will have nearly fifty thousand finishers. For most of them, the race is a grueling test of their will lasting 4-6 or sometimes up to 8 hours . For many, the goal is just to finish – and doing so is a great accomplishment. That is a very different event than the races I have participated in. Though it was the same distance, it wasn’t the same type of test. It didn’t require the same type of grit. The race I ran lasted 2:42 minutes. I say this not to brag, but to set context