They wouldn't want you to jump out of a perfectly good airplane or bungee jump off a bridge without a damn good reason. Your Mom isn't going to recommend you go shark cage diving off the coast of South Africa in the near future.

These things are risky. In some cases they are dangerous. The potential for failure and consequence is just too great.

And because the people who love you the most are the ones most responsible for protecting you from yourself.

Which is ultimately why they will hold you back if you let them.

You are responsible for your own decisions and the consequences that follow. But every time you make a decision that is not your own, you give up an experience, a life lesson and a truer understanding of who you are and what you want out of life. If you want to live a safe life, listen to those who love you.

But if you want to live your life, buy the ticket, take the ride.

"Unexpected intrusions of beauty. That is what life is." - Saul Bellow

I'm a Google+ fan.

It's been the Facebook replacement I've been searching for with the extensive privacy settings, wider variety of content and improved personal interaction that Facebook has, to date, failed to provide.

One of my favorite features is the ability to create and share albums with very particular groups of friends using "Circles." Images can be wildly thought provoking and inspirational in the right context, and it's nice to be able to share something other than last night's bar pics with my friends, co-workers and acquaintances.

My biggest move within Google+ is an album I ended up calling "Style Points." It's the tumblr I never got around to creating---a collection of images that made me think twice about the people, places and things captured within.

If you're on Google+, or even if you're not, check out the album and +1 the images you like. It'll help me as I continue to add to the album.

Click here to view the Style Points album.

"We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand." C.S. Lewis

It's only been a year.

But it's amazing how much life can change in such a short amount of time. Today, I find myself in a completely different frame of mind than I was when I wrote "Life at the End of 23." At the in-between age of 25, the growing pains of emerging adulthood are giving way to a new emotion---a nostalgic mourning of the sheer exuberance that was my late teens and early 20s.

After all, the early 20s are the final rebellion---the last time in life in which you can acceptably let one foot drag within the realm of adolescence as the other steps boldly into adulthood. But for me, at age 25, the previews have ended. The movie has started, and like it or not, my life means something.

At 25, I've been around long enough to have seen opportunities pass, to have seen doors shut, to have things to lose, to have a growing list of failures and accomplishments, and to have a whole lot of feelings of pride and regret.

And as I struggle to keep my focus in front of me with everything from my past slipping behind me, it is clear my choices now are more permanent than ever. The choices I make now cannot be tucked away and forgotten, written off as childhood lessons learned. These choices are creating my life; they are my life.

Now, more than ever, I must create the person I want to be.

Because I know, no one grows up wanting to be average. No one grows up thinking they will be at a dead end job, divorced or live their entire life in a place they hate. But these are things that happen when we grow lazy, content, frustrated and scared, when we start settling for what is easy or convenient instead of what is right or must be earned. It happens when we sell ourselves short and start compromising on the very thing on which we built our goals and aspirations---ourselves.

Because good enough will always be the enemy of great.

My Manifesto

I will...

- be opportunistic, not exploitative.
- know that hope is not a strategy.
- believe that luck is not a factor.
- understand that fear is not an option.
- take action not because I can, but because I should.
- know that he who apologizes first, wins.
- not envy what I can’t take with me, both material and other.
- always be sure to ask the right questions.
- trust that I, solely, am responsible for my life and the way it turns out.

For a while it seemed like things couldn't be happening any faster. It was one surprise after another. Trip to Austin for SXSW. Promotion at work. New partner projects and hours of planning, learning, stressing, executing. Ex-girlfriend drama. New people and new places every weekend with a few run ins with old friends in between.

But then without warning it all just sort of became mundane. I don't think any one event or sudden lack of events caused me to feel this way. I'm still going out on weekends with friends. Still swamped at work. Still planning, learning, stressing, executing. But slowly I'm starting to realize that what I fear most has arrived...

The day in, day out.

[Taken from David Foster Wallace's 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address]

"The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

By way of example, let's say it's an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home. You haven't had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it's pretty much the last place you want to be but you can't just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store's confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) and eventually you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough check-out lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can't take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.

But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and you pay for your food, and you get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.

Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn't yet been part of you graduates' actual life routine, day after week after month after year.

But it will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides."

The good news is this commencement speech by Wallace carried a much brighter lesson and much deeper meaning than this one small anecdote suggests. Unfortunately, it was a lesson I completely left out when I pulled this portion of the speech---a lesson I suggest you go read right now here. The reality is the day in day out portion of life is just one of life's many sides. It's a side you eventually learn to cope with. And while I know right now is a down time for me, I know the next great challenge is just around the bend. Just have to keep plugging away, day in, day out.

Image Credit

My old college roommate Brian and I decided to make a weekend trip to my parents’ beach condo, me sneaking out of work early to make the drive and he road tripping from Gainesville. With a wide open two-lane strip of asphalt whirring beneath me, the bluest ocean you’ve ever seen creeping up my left side and nothing but sunshine and cloudless blue skies above me, I couldn't help but feel like a 16-year-old on his way to pick up his girlfriend on a Friday night.

I pulled up to the condo just past 5:30pm and immediately spied the infamous blacked out Grand Cherokee waiting on me. Some of my best (and worst) college nights began and ended with a ride in that Jeep. Introductions were short and discussion immediately turned to booze…

This was the start to a “guy’s weekend”. Throwing the football on the beach, whiskey and tequila shots, possibly a cigar or two, an epic Grooveshark party playlist and nights out on the town in downtown St. Augustine. No plans, just an “all I do is win” attitude. And win we did.

What’s ironic about weekends like these is even in the midst of great times, you find yourself reminiscing about old times. Here we were creating memories that will ultimately stand out as much, if not more so, than the college stories we’re so fond of reciting and still we drift back to discussing the “good old days.” We’re still single, in our 20s, and life is good. It’s not college for sure, but with less time and more money, you adjust. All I could think was weekends like this should be the rule, not the exception.

Having stories to tell is a topic Brian and I have discussed many times. And after a wild night out in St. Augustine Beach, sitting out on the 4th floor balcony of the condo looking out into the darkness where the ocean was supposed to be, we covered life since college. We talked girls. We talked work. We talked about growing up. And with each topic I found myself rambling on about how life is really just a series of stories.

The takeaway from our balcony conversation didn’t hit me until the next day as we floated lifelessly around the pool, our heads still pounding from the awesomeness of the night before.

The only way to relive the "good old days" is to create new stories. And the only way to create new stories is to quit worrying about how things used to be and start enjoying how they are now. Not every moment of college was amazing or epic or even enjoyable. But the times that were, I've recounted a million times. My friends and I have told our best stories so many times, that I'm not even always sure what's true anymore. And to be honest, I'm not sure it matters, so long as we continue to create new ones.

Here's to creating new stories and to Summer 2010, the next set of good old days.

The headline of the post was 20 Warning Signs That Your Content Sucks.

Number 2 struck a nerve:

2. Your posts read like journal entries

Not too long ago, most people used their blog as a sort of online journal, where people took a few minutes every day to write down their thoughts. But blogs have evolved beyond that. Now they’re more like online magazines, with highly polished content.

If your posts look more like “Dear Diary” than a magazine you would see at the newsstand, you’ve probably got a problem.

The problem isn't that your posts read like "Dear Diary" entries. The problem is your posts read like shitty magazine articles.

I'll admit, I'm probably a bit more jaded than most, having lived and breathed the Internet for the last 5 or so years. But the way I see it, I can read a thousand crappy blog posts on how to write better content for my blog. But I can count on one hand the number of blogs I can go to read something that truly impacts my daily thought process---and those blogs are more "Dear Diary" than People Magazine. And that's the point. It's somebody writing about what they know best---their life and what goes on in it. Your life is about the only thing you really can know for sure. And it's not just a knowledge exchange. It's about your opinion, your experience. It's your story. It's what I try to write about, and what I always encourage others to write about. We're not journalists. We're bloggers with half-ass opinions about everything from our jobs to what we ate for dinner yesterday.

The only thing we have in this world is our own stories. And nobody will ever be able to tell your own story the way you tell it.

So get on with it. Write your shitty "Dear Diary" posts.

I waste a lot of time trying to be more productive.

What I mean is I'm always trying to find new ways to increase my productivity---at work, at home, even in my social life. The goal is to get more accomplished in a shorter amount of time. But often what happens is the exact opposite. You introduce new tools, methods or behaviors to increase productivity and you end up spending more time trying to stick to your new processes than you do getting things done.

I'm 95% confident that The Action Method is the cure.

The Action Method is a self-described radical approach to productivity and project management. Really it's just a system for getting things done with a strong bias towards taking action. It assumes everything in your life can be sorted into "projects." These projects can be divided into three parts:

1.) action steps
2.) references
3.) backburner items.

It's ridiculously simple, but for me at least, has been incredibly effective. If you're interested, I highly recommend reading the founder, Scott Belsky's book, "Making Ideas Happen." It helps lay the groundwork for how you approach the "projects" in your life and gives you extremely actionable advice---something not very common in most productivity books. Trust me, I've read most of them.

Then if you're a pen and paper kind of person, look into the action method paper products. But if you spend a good chunk of your time on a computer, go sign up for the Action Method Online. In my case, I dropped the roughly $90 (with discount coupon) for a year's subscription and haven't regretted it a bit. And once the next generation iPhone makes its way into my hands, I'll be adding the Action Method app to my productivity weapon set as well.

This ends my gross public display of affection for the Action Method line of products (for now).

Let me rephrase that. What I did was make the decision to cut back on the things, both tangible and intangible, that keep me from enjoying what I really want. I want life, minus the other stuff.

Because at its core, becoming a minimalist isn’t as much about swearing off material things as it is honing in on what is truly important to you. It's making an active effort to focus your life by prioritizing goals and removing distractions.

If this sounds a bit theoretical, that’s ok. It mostly is. But stick with me and I’ll give you some examples of what I’m aiming for and why it matters, not just to me, but to everyone.

Let’s start with some background.

For as long as I can remember I’ve had a slightly compulsive personality. It’s usually just little things. Things like having to move the shifter in my car side-to-side three times when it’s in neutral, even though I know it’s in neutral. Or having to cycle through my alarm clock settings multiple times to reach exactly 6:05AM because 6:06AM won’t cut it.

But it also shows up in more extreme ways. My most painful example would include my high school/college music collection, in which I painstakingly organized and tagged roughly 35,000 songs on my computer. At my peak, I was spending 5-6 hours a night tagging songs, ensuring that artist and song names were not just correct, but formatted and spelled correctly as dictated by allmusic.com's database. But it was more than a nerdy hobby. It was an addiction that eroded my sleep, hindered my social life and sucked the enjoyment out of my music collection.

Almost a month after "completing" my collection, a hard drive failure resulted in me losing all 35,000+ songs.

Since that loss, I've attempted to be more careful how I spend my time when it comes to organizing, collecting and perfecting. I tell myself time spent on processes is not time not spent at all. It's time wasted.

But still the compulsiveness manages to creep back into areas of my life.

One such area is my RSS feed collection. For those who don't know, an RSS feed allows readers to subscribe to a blog's content and have updates delivered directly to an RSS feed reader, effectively letting you see the latest content across a wide range of sites in one place.

Each day, my Google Reader delivers hundreds of blog posts to my desktop. Thanks to my unhealthy addiction to information and organization, I find myself clicking through close to 10,000 blog posts each month. And at the end of it all, I find myself more concerned with keeping up with the latest post than I do enjoying the content. Longer, more impactful articles are skimmed over in favor of keeping up with the hundreds of other posts waiting to be scanned and thrown away.

What it comes down to is the return on investment you get from the activities you devote your time to. When you let activities that are supposed to be enjoyable become a burden, you've given up a piece of your freedom. You've succumbed to clutter. Because clutter manifests itself in all areas of lives, not just in the material things we own.

I'm not even close to achieving what your standard definition of minimalism would call a minimalist lifestyle. But I have cut my 307 RSS feeds down to 189. I plan to drop that number by at least half. I've managed to give up time-draining hobbies like tagging music. Instead, I listen to online music-streaming services such as Grooveshark and Pandora. I no longer spend every Saturday detailing every inch of my car, when I know I can have the same impact with a quick wash and the occasional detail. And yes, in traditional minimalist fashion, I have discarded or sold off a portion of my material things, keeping only the ones that actually bring me enjoyment.

By taking a closer look at the return on enjoyment I get out of my actions and belongings, I'm slowly learning to weed out the things that don't really matter to me. By eliminating the distractions, I'm able to focus on the things I actually do enjoy. In minimalism, this isn't just a side benefit, it's the entire point. Worded another way, it's the process of becoming more efficient at achieving happiness. And I don't know anyone who wouldn't benefit from that.

If you don’t like it, change it.

It’s probably the single greatest piece of advice I’ve ever received. You’ve probably heard it too, but chances are you were too busy whining about how awful, boring, difficult or stressful your life supposedly was to notice. Sure, I get it. The playing field isn’t level–--we didn’t all drive BMWs in high school. We didn’t all go to an Ivy League school or marry the Homecoming Queen. But let’s face it. BMW drivers try too hard, college is a money pit and the Homecoming Queen got knocked up and dropped out of school anyway (Don’t worry. BMW drivers and Homecoming Queens are much too busy with their fabulous lives to be reading this blog).

Why am I wasting my time and yours telling you something you already know? Because most of you still don’t get it. You don’t take the time to realize all these so-called “awful” situations are a result of your own actions, or lack thereof. You’re too busy being victims instead of taking some responsibility.

But don’t worry. I’ve got a fix for your suck-fest-of-a-life. But it’s going to involve some changes.

Improve Your Mood

First, you need to change your mood from a whiny little brat to a confident, in-control human being. I’ve included a few tips to get you on track:

Turn Off Your Cell Phone

Few things can empower you like turning off your cell phone. It’s a message to the world and proof to yourself you have the ability to get away. You’re never truly alone when you have a cell phone, and sometimes being alone is the only way to figure out what’s really going on in your life.

Get a Haircut

Haircuts are cheaper than buying new clothes, and in most cases it has to be done anyway. It also happens to be one of the fastest ways to change your outlook on life. Confidence, self image and boredom often dictate whether or not you enjoy life. Something as simple as a haircut has the ability to shake up all those feelings in half an hour.

Clean Your Room

I can’t function when my room is messy. I don’t really care if it has to do with Feng Shui or with out-of-place objects emitting negative energy. What matters to me is having a clean room so I can focus on other things. Cleaning your room is also good to do when you are procrastinating. You’ll likely be be looking for anything else to do, so you might as well do something constructive. At least when you’re done cleaning you’ll be able to suck at life in a clean room.

Buy Healthy Food

Notice I didn’t say eat healthy food; just buy it. Eating healthy is annoying, but buying healthy food makes you feel like a champion. I like to fill my shopping cart full of organic, green, environmentally-special food just so the guy with a stack of microwavable pizzas and a six-pack of natty light feels like he's failing life when he walks by me. What’s even better is when you get home you’ll realize all you have to eat is a bunch of disgusting health food, and you’ll be forced to be a responsible, health-conscious individual. After all, you can’t afford to go out to eat–--you spent all your money on overpriced organic foods. Showoff.

Make an On-My-Mind List

The problem with to-do lists is they only cover things you have to do. They don’t typically include the issues you need to "think" about. An on-my-mind list on the other hand, includes all the things you need to get done as well as the issues you need to think about. It’s a way to get all of your thoughts on a single sheet of paper so you don’t have to think about them until you’re ready. By addressing the list on your own terms, you’ll realize all your problems are actually just a single sheet of paper, and are not nearly as dramatic or life-altering as you first thought. And if it turns out all your problems are actually much worse than you thought, at least you’ll have something to burn.

Go For a Drive

Driving, as long as you're not prone to road rage, can be a fantastic stress reliever. It’s literally you changing your course, position and place in life. It’s the ultimate analogy of taking control of where you’re going. It’s also a time to be alone and think while still being able to see and interact with the world, even if it’s only with your middle finger.

Identify the Issues

Once you’ve improved your mood, you’ll be able to think clearly and address the true obstacles in your life.

The common denominator in each of your problems is you. This doesn’t necessarily make you the cause of the problem, but it does make you a part of it. By assuming every issue is within your control, you will be better able to do what’s best for you and avoid unnecessary whining/worrying. Sure, certain aspects of the problem are out of your hands, but you must identify and act on those aspects that are in your control. It is only by addressing what you can change that you will be able to improve your life. Let’s look at some examples:

My Job Sucks

“My boss hates me. They don’t pay me enough. They make me work ridiculous hours. They don’t give me a chance.”

These are all phrases people use to describe jobs they hate. The point is the statements make it appear the problems are the company’s and not your own. The key is to make every problem you encounter your problem, because if it’s not your problem you can’t do anything to change it. We’ll start by rephrasing the above statements.

“I hate my boss. I don’t get paid enough. I work ridiculous hours. I don’t give myself a chance.”

Now that you’ve made the problems your own, you can identify the issues you can change. Let’s look at the first statement. If you think your boss hates you, have you ever considered you might hate your boss? After all, who could like someone when they think that person hates them? If this does turn out to be the case, maybe you should reconsider your feelings for this person or consider working for someone else.

Let’s look at the next statement. If the company doesn’t pay you enough, there’s really nothing you can do about it. But if it turns out you aren’t getting paid enough, we have some options. You could reevaluate how much your time is worth and ask for a raise or decide your time and effort could be better spent doing something else. If those options fail, your problem might not be with money, but with your priorities. People will often confuse not getting paid enough with not having enough time. If you value time more than money, you should adjust your priorities to emphasize a need for more time, even if it means less money.

The next statement is similar to the money issue. If you feel you are working ridiculous hours, then you need to do something to change them, even if it means adjusting your priorities. Start by looking at how you spend your time at work. Is your workload really forcing you to work late, or is your Facebook time forcing you to work late? If it's your workload, is everything you're doing being directly asked of you from the company? Or are you creating more work for yourself in an effort to stand out or "protect" your job? Whatever the case, you are in control of when you decide to stop working each day.

And finally, before you accuse the company of not giving you a chance–--whether it be a chance for a promotion, more pay or better hours---ask yourself if it’s really the company holding you back. In the end, I would much rather have my own set of problems than deal with someone else’s problems.

Next example:

My Girlfriend/Boyfriend Sucks

“My girlfriend always does this or never does that.”

Being with someone is a choice, not a necessity. If your girlfriend or boyfriend does something you don’t like or fails to do something you do like, it’s because you put up with it. Since you’re the one with the problem, you should be the one to bring the issue to their attention. If they refuse to make the change, the problem once again becomes your problem. You can either change the way you feel about it, or change your relationship with the person. There’s no way around it and no reason to whine about it to your friends. They can’t do anything about it.

The key in every situation is to make the problem your own. By doing this, you can be the one who makes the changes necessary to alleviate the problem. If you fail to make the problem your own, you will never be able to do anything about it and will live a sad, pathetic life.

Make the Changes

By this point, you’ve improved your attitude, identified your issues and come to realize you need to make some changes. But none of it matters if you can’t make it past this next step. Making changes means accepting that your life will be altered in some way. Whether it’s quitting your job, breaking up with a significant other or just choosing to move your life in a different direction, it all comes down to action.

Decide What To Do

You know the problems; now come up with the answers. My favorite way to do this is to list all my options no matter how ridiculous they may seem. Next, you could narrow the list down to the options that are most feasible. DON’T DO THIS. This is where people get into trouble. You'll think to yourself, “There’s no way I could do that.” Suddenly one of your preferred choices is gone. Instead, you should narrow the list to the options you’d like to see happen, no matter how far-fetched they seem. From here you can arrange your list from best-case scenario to the worst. Start with the best scenario and figure out how to make it happen.

If it turns out you aren't willing to make the changes necessary to achieve your ideal scenario, you can do one of three things:

1. Do it anyway.
2. Move to the next-best option.
3. Do something so crazy it completely changes the problem altogether.

An example of the last option would be trying to break up with a crazy girlfriend or boyfriend. The best-case scenario might be to ignore them and start dating someone else. The problem is he or she won’t quit stalking you. So your crazy scenario might involve you moving to another country and changing your sexual preference, effectively rendering the issue irrelevant.

Set a Date

And by set a date I mean do it now. Taking action doesn’t mean saying you’ll do something soon. It means actually doing it. Set a date and stick to it. The sooner the better. Changes come about for a reason. If you’ve already made the decision, don’t waste your time worrying about it. Just do it.

Do Something Permanent

If you don’t fully commit to your decision you will fail miserably and end up unhappy with your choice. If you plan on quitting your job, turn in your two-week notice. If you want to break up with your significant other, tell him/her you want to see other people and then do it. If you want to move somewhere else, put your house up for sale. Do something that signifies to yourself there is no turning back.

Don’t Look Back

At this point, you’ve already identified your issues, gone over your options and made your decision. There’s no need to play the “what if” game. Concentrate on moving forward. After all, the past will always be there; your future will not.

Disclaimer

The problem with a guide like this is exactly that---it’s just a guide. It can’t make you do anything. It can’t call your boss and tell him to “shove it.” It can’t make you take a much-needed road trip or exercise more. All it can do is attempt to catch your attention for a brief moment and hope by some strand of luck you will make sense of its meaning and incorporate it into your own thoughts and actions. Like anything in life, it’s only as serious as you take it.

But the issue is never can you finish. It's will you finish? Sure, it doesn't sound like that in your head---in your head it sounds more like "Oh dear God, please stop or your lungs are going to explode and your legs are going to melt off." But the reality is, for periods of time, you can ignore that voice. And for periods of time an amazing thing happens---your body accepts it.

I call it the truce---the point where your body accepts that no matter what it says, you are going to ignore it. So for a little while at least, it doesn't fight you on it and you can carry on stronger than ever. Being in good shape doesn't eliminate the need for a truce, it merely delays it.

Life is sort of like that on a larger scale. And as of lately it's been especially like that for me. I've been going through a lot of changes since I left Gainesville for good last year. At times it's felt like I've been pushed to the breaking point. And I think at an earlier time in my life, I probably would have broken. But not this time---not now. I've got too many good things going for me to ease off.

There's a saying that God never gives a person more than they can handle. I think the truth is people rise to meet their adversity. They do because they have no other choice. And when I look at my life, I haven't got a single thing worth breaking down for. When things get stressful or emotions run high, I kick it into overdrive and ride it out. And eventually the inevitable happens---things carry on much the way they always do. And while it may not always be quite as easy as I'd like, it's nice to know I'm in a lot better shape than I thought I was. I think if we really thought about it, we all are.