We make our lives as we choose

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."  - Lao Tzu

It is a strange where life takes you sometimes. I have recently moved out to Germany after being so certain that I was going to settle down in San Francisco. I knew California is where I wanted to be and I knew that I wanted to raise my family there. It is the state that I grew up in and became who I am today. But who I am today isn't about where I was, but where I am going and where I set myself up. It's a scary thought, not knowing where you're going to be. But I believe that it's an even scarier thought to know that you're not going anywhere.

I moved out here for a variety of reasons. I wanted to see if I could handle living abroad again. There is a challenge of transitioning to a platform and grow my skill set in managing a platform. I also looked around and saw that I have this unique opportunity among my friends to live abroad for a few years before settling once and for all. As I write this now, I know that I still want to head back to California and raise my family because I still believe that it gives them the best opportunity to succeed.

I don't know where I will end up, but I do know I made the best decision for myself. I will take it slowly, schritt für schritt.

Fundamentally change yourself.

People change for different reasons. Sometimes it's a slow, gradual change that you don't realize until you reflect back years later. Sometimes it's a sudden knee jerk that is spurred on by momentous changes in ones life. Regardless of what that change is, you only get so many opportunities to redefine yourself and who you are and what you believe in.

For the past few weeks, I have fundamentally changed myself by just reading. It's as simple as that. Life is difficult. When you are exposed and vulnerable, it is easy to be affected by everything around you. I chose to read and make my mind stronger and clearer and to understand the world around me. That, I believe, is one of the fastest ways to change from within.

Individual Sports

I had an observation recently that there is much more of an emphasis on team sports and the lessons you learn from them - leadership, teamwork, influencing - to name a few. I definitely agree with the importance of team sports and hope that one day my children get the opportunity to participate in them (my favorite sport to watch is the NBA anyways). However, individual sports are rarely held to the same standard as those team sports.

The epiphany came as I was swimming in my friend's pool one weekend morning. The beauty of individual sports is the ability to to be introspective. As the water runs by you, you can hear only the the ripple of waves and the dull sounds made by your arms propelling the water by. As your exercise becomes rote, you start thinking about all those external issues that have been eating at you. No more distracting yourself with your iPhone or Netflix - just you and the water, thinking what it all means and planning for the long-term. This is deeply therapeutic for me as I figure out what I want to do with everything in my life.

I encourage people to swim (or run) sometimes and be alone in your thoughts, you never know what you think of.

Climbing the stars

Climbing Kilimanjaro was one of the most introspective moments in my life. Oftentimes, climbers talk about the physical pain that they had to endure to reach the summit. Although this is definitely true, I found myself reflecting on my mental and spiritual states.

The start of the summit begins at midnight in the cover of darkness. After months of planning, weeks of training and days of trekking, everything culminates at the summit in the next couple of hours. As I was trekking up this last stretch, I found myself in a place of fear and contradiction. All of this work is finally reaching an end and the fear of not knowing what to do afterwards made me reconsider even reaching the summit. The thought of reaching the peak meant I was thrown back into the unknown to search for something else, anything, that can give me another goal in life. So much in life teaches you about the planning and preparation to get you to your goals that we fail to know what to do when we get there. I was scared about how to handle the the next phase of this journey. This was the fear of the unknown, fear of not knowing what to do next and how to find "that," whatever it is. There were moments where I was considering going back because of this realization.

Almost as quickly as I became fearful of this, I almost immediately knew that the reason I was here was to reach the top so I can find my next adventure. I knew I couldn't let my own self-doubt hold me back. The reason I came to Kilimanjaro wasn't to get to the top, but to conquer my own fears and give me the confidence I need going forward. I realized that there will be a voice inside your head that may question your abilities, but there is a louder voice that pushes you to accomplish more than what you thought you could ever do.

You don't really know what to expect on summit night. You get a lot of rest throughout the day and by the time you wake up, adrenaline is rushing through the tips of your fingers. The night is pitch black and the only light comes from the moon, stars and headlamps. Off in the distance, you see the lights of the groups ahead of you following an invisible line up the mountain. The darkness of the mountain seamlessly blends with the starry night into one giant obsidian canvas. A sense of awe rushes through you when you look up at the groups. It is as if the stars are moving ever higher to join the constellations in the sky. Their movement can be described by a slow, somber march to their inevitability to finally float up into the skies. It has to be one of the most spiritual moments in my life. When you look up and down the mountain, you realize that you are also part of this magical journey. We were all climbing to the stars and each ridge we climbed over got us one step closer. This must be the closest feeling to ascending heaven that we can experience on Earth.