It’s the holiday season and the number one question on everyone's mind? Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Before we answer this question. The more pressing question for me is, should I let my kids watch Die Hard? Yippee ki-yay… 

With the first 100+ miles of the Colorado Trail down. I picked up a companion who would help me through the next 66 miles and beyond.

“It was time to get a look at my toes and see what horrors awaited. I pulled off my left shoe and then my sock to uncover a bloody mess and open wound that completely covered my big toe. The blister wrapped almost all the way around to the other side. There were wool fibers from my sock stuck deep into the coagulated mixture of blood and puss that layered the top of exposed flesh. The once massive blister was now a dead mass of white skin. My heart sank as I realized how bad of a mess my toes were in.” 

Who’d have thought I’d be thanking my 14 year old self for introducing a lesson in change that I wouldn’t learn for decades later. I wonder what I’ll learn next and what changes will happen in this new season?  

A story about a weekend I spent in the Congo over ten years ago and how the experience has continued to shape me and teach me new lessons about gratefulness.

I don’t want my kids growing up feeling like they have to live a perfect life, be the model citizen, or have the life envisioned and advertised by others. I want them to understand that it’s okay that life is messy but it’s a package deal, the mess comes with beauty and that can look however they want it to. There is enough pressure to have or be someone else’s ideal. I want them to have their own idea of what the good life looks like and live it out loud.

We all have our things that we are self conscious about. Elements of ourselves we live with on a daily basis that in certain moments we become acutely aware of other people's perception of us. As I work through those insecurities, it is helpful to frame them through the lens of parenting. Modeling and teaching my kids the way my dad taught me.

In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, the Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl writes a deeply profound essay on the analysis of existentialism from the experience of having spent a number of years in Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Not only is he apt to explore the questions in deep analytical and academic form because of his profession but to have lived an experience such as that can only shape a perspective about the meaning of life, in a way that lands on real truths even if they aren't absolute.

It doesn’t have to be elaborate or grand. For many people stepping foot outside their state or region may be the first step needed. That’s okay, start where you can. The ruins of Chichen Itza are not any more spectacular than the landscape of Yellowstone or the canals of Amsterdam. Discover what is near you that you have not seen and go experience it. It will change you only for the good.

Recently I have been reflecting on what we are capable of as individuals and how the different types of energy we possess influence our journey through life. It is a comforting thought that the type of vibes we invite into our life can provide more agency towards becoming the best versions of ourselves