It was below freezing and I was sweating profusely. A light snow dusted the ground, hiding small patches of ice that littered the rocky trail and made each step questionable.

It wasn’t supposed to be a tough hike, but the weather, the extra clothing, and the weight on my back were all adding to the challenge.

I generally hike alone and for a short trek like this one I wouldn’t have brought a backpack. However, a friend came along this time and insisted that one of us bring a bag for food, water, and extra warm gear.

I always prefer a challenge so I asked to be the one to carry the bag. But halfway up the trail, sweating, and out of breath, I suffocated my ego and handed the bag over to my friend.

Without the bag, my body felt so light. I began hopping from rock to rock, practically running up the mountain without so much as an elevated heart rate.

The freedom was exhilarating.

And then I landed on a patch of ice and almost slipped.

I was so free of that weight, so free of the burden of carrying that bag, that I had nothing holding me back. There was nothing slowing me down and I almost lost sight of reality.

I could’ve slipped and broken my leg. I could’ve fractured my spine and become paralyzed from the neck down, preventing me from ever reaching the summit of a mountain again.

All weight isn’t bad. All things that hold us back are not bad.

Earth’s gravity holds us back, but it also keeps us from floating off into outer space.

Time holds us back, but it also keeps us humble and reminds us what’s important.

My backpack held me back, but it also kept me from leaping onto slippery rocks.

Sometimes we need to carry things with us to make us better prepared for what’s ahead. If we start eliminating everything from our life just because we deem it unnecessary, we had better be ready to accept responsibility for all that extra freedom.

We had better be ready to do something with all that extra potential.

Minimalist aspirations must be accompanied with a willingness to accept responsibility for the freedoms we inherit. Otherwise, minimalism is nothing more than a selfish attempt at tricking life into giving us more than we deserve.

Instead of dropping the weight and getting high on freedom — whether it’s freedom from expectations, material possessions, lifestyle commitments, or a backpack — we need to ask ourselves why we’re freeing ourselves and what we’re going to do with that freedom.

My friend and I reached the summit safely. I was thankful for the extra gear in the bag when the sweat on my hands and face began turning to ice in the sub-zero wind chill.

All weight isn’t created equal. Eliminate what you don’t need, but be proactive and make decisions based on your long-term goals.

Before you eliminate something from your life, define exactly why it needs to be eliminated and then examine how you will use the resulting freedom. Potential without direction is inert.

“What if I had a clone? What if my clone wasn’t complete and he needed some kind of information that would help him better understand who it means to be me?”

It was an odd thought, but I went with it anyway. I was sitting in an office, peering into the darkness that enveloped the city of Boston. The shapes of buildings were outlined with tiny lights and red, green, and white colors flowed on the streets below.

“What would I tell a clone to help him better understand me?” I began jotting down specific points that came to mind and stopped when I reached thirty-three.

“Was this me? Did this list convey the essence of what it’s like to live in my head?”

Over the course of the next few days, I went back to that list and spent time pondering each point. I jotted down stories, described examples, and otherwise tried to define what each thing meant to me.

Now I’m sharing that list here with you in the hopes that you will glean something useful from it.

1. Know Thyself

I’m always questioning who I am and what it means to be me (this post is evidence of that). But I’m not searching for a definition. I don’t expect to find an answer or reach a moment in time when I’ve defined everything it means to be me. I am the essence of that which cannot be defined.

But in asking myself who I am, I remain humble to the fact that I don’t know everything. I remain open-minded and always ready to learn new things. When I’m wrong, I learn to accept it. When I’ve made mistakes, I learn to recognize them.

The very act of asking myself who I am forces me to remain objective. To ask myself who I am, I need to stand in a place where only the true me exists.

2. Reflect From Another Perspective

When you look in the mirror, who do you see? I see this guy named Raam. He isn’t really me, he’s just a representation of what my physical body looks like. He’s a representation of how most of the world views the man named Raam Dev.

But what do people see when they look at me? When I smile, what do I look like? When I talk, what do I sound like? When I interact with people, what does my body language say? As I make choices throughout my life, how do others perceive those choices?

When I catch my reflection, I think about these things. I don’t feel a strong association with the person in the reflection, but instead I see it as an opportunity to learn something about myself that I couldn’t otherwise learn.

When opinions and judgments are passed on to me, I take the reflective position and allow those opinions and judgments to become building blocks for further growth. I allow them to give me a more complete picture of who I am to the external world. This lets me grow in ways that otherwise would have been impossible.

3. Cultivate Curiosity

How is a skyscraper built? How does a gun work? What exactly is color and how do we interpret it? How does propulsion work in space? How is sound saved to a CD and then converted back through speakers?

What is a headache? How does the world financial system work? Who or what determines the current value of money? What influences the weather? How much water is contained in a cloud? Why do babies cry? How are images stored in the brain?

Are ghosts real? Where do we go when we die? How do cavities form? How does text from one computer screen travel thousands of miles to another computer screen almost instantaneously?

The world is an incredible place with so much complexity. By remaining curious and always being interested in how and why things work, we gain a greater understanding of not just the world around us, but of ourselves.

Children are curious because they know that they’re missing a lot of stuff. They are surrounded by adults and older children who have more answers than they do and they’re not satisfied until they have those answers too.

As adults, we give up asking why and stop being curious because we assume there’s just too much to know. Everybody around us has given up, so we give up too. It shouldn’t be that way.

This is your world. If an alien came from another planet, teleported into your home, and then started asking you questions about how various things worked, how much would you be able to explain?

When you look at something, try dissecting it down to the molecular level. Do you understand all the parts? Can you describe roughly how a light bulb works? What about your car, the water heater in your basement, or your refrigerator?

4. Strive for Perfection

When I’m driving, I drive. When I’m walking, I walk. When I’m speaking with someone, I speak. When I’m being spoken to, I listen.

In each task, I strive for perfection. I aim to be the most skilled driver, the most conscious walker, the most thoughtful speaker, the most attentive listener.

When we strive for perfection, we give the task at hand our very best. We don’t cut corners or do things half-assed. It’s true that perfection doesn’t exist, but don’t use that as an excuse to be sloppy or careless.

You are an incredibly powerful and intelligent being, a member of an elite species. You should conduct yourself with a high level of professionalism and good character.

5. Be Present

Have you ever talked to someone when they were busy doing something and they responded with “uh huh…” to simply acknowledge that they heard the sounds coming from your mouth? They hear you, but they’re not listening. They’re here, but they’re not present.

When that happens to me, I feel like the other person is disrespecting my time. I feel like they’re treating my words as a cheap accessory that doesn’t need to be cared for or considered.

In that situation, I’ve learned to stop talking and leave my sentences half finished. It catches them off guard because then they’re forced to be present to figure out why the sentence wasn’t finished.

To ensure I don’t pass on the same disrespect to others when they’re talking to me, I’ve formed the habit of politely asking them to hold their thought until I’m finished with the task at hand. When I’m finished, I give them my attention and hear them out.

If I’m feeling daydreamy while listening to someone, I force myself to focus on their voice and remind myself there’s a time and place for daydreaming.

If you’re with a group of people having a conversation, be present. The time for daydreaming is when you’re alone, not when you’re supposed to be listening to the person beside you.

Not being present in the company of others is disrespecting their humanity. Pay attention or leave.

6. Listen

“The human body has two ears but only one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak.”

That’s something my dad would always say when I was younger. It stuck with me and I learned to become a good listener. (Some might say that I took it a bit too far and that now I don’t talk enough, but I digress.)

Hearing and listening are not the same thing. Hearing is passive and doesn’t require any effort. Listening requires effort. Listening leads to inner growth and greater understanding.

Real listening can be challenging because it requires that we temporarily block out our own inner voice. It forces us to make a conscious effort to understand and process what the other person is saying, even if we disagree with it.

When we listen, we have to give up our own selfish desire to be heard and face that inner beast that thinks it’s always right. When I feel that urge to interrupt, it feels like a bubble of energy building up in my chest or behind my throat, just itching to explode into a spew of words.

Taming that urge to interrupt is one of the toughest things to do, but forcing ourselves to listen and take the opposing view into consideration causes us to grow from within. It forces us to remain humble and open-minded.

7. Live By Your Values

What do you believe in? What do you consider right and wrong? What is important to you? Those are your values and principals. They make up the tiny rule book that helps govern your life.

That rule book shouldn’t be cast in stone and never looked at again, but it also shouldn’t be made up of words in the clouds. Never assume the validity of anything, even your values. Always test your assumptions. Reevaluate. Does the core of your being say those beliefs still hold true?

Define your values. Write them down somewhere and then ask yourself if your current lifestyle and associations reflect those values. When it comes time to make a decision, no matter how big or small, ask yourself if that decision is in agreement with your values.

8. Become Your Best Friend

When I’m traveling alone, I never really feel alone. I always feel like there is someone else with me. It might sound a bit odd, but think about this for a moment.

When you talk to yourself, who’s doing the talking and who’s doing the listening? It’s you, but a separate part of you. There really is another person that exists within, an entity separate from what everybody else sees.

Learn to develop a relationship with your inner self. Grow that relationship and really become your own best friend. Learn to love and support one another. Talk to yourself. Hold conversations. Laugh together. Cry together. Lean on one another.

Friendship involves trust. Do you trust yourself? Can you depend on yourself when you’re in need? How well do you know your inner self? Can you predict how you will feel, react, and respond to things before they even happen?

9. Treasure Solitude

I thoroughly enjoy spending long amounts of time alone and I will often go out of my way to create opportunities where I can be alone for days at a time. It’s not that I dislike people. I just find solitude incredibly relaxing and rejuvenating.

Solitude allows us to focus on ourselves. It gives us a chance to look inward and develop the relationship with who it means to be us. Just as spending time with a loved one is important to keep the relationship healthy, spending time with ourselves is vital to inner growth.

Everyone is different. Some people recharge by socializing and surrounding themselves with people. Others, like myself, are quickly drained by social interaction.

Figure out what works best for you but remember that solitude is an opportunity to interact with yourself, to connect with your soul. If you’re afraid of solitude, you probably haven’t developed a good relationship with yourself.

10. Know That Anger Is a Dead End

When I feel myself getting angry, I quickly ask myself where the anger will lead me and I always conclude that anger is a dead end and that it’s not going to solve anything.

Let anger become an indication that you need to slow down and take a step back. Instead of diving in with the anger, release the frustration and tension. Clear your head and view the situation objectively.

Hours, weeks, months, and even years of life can be wasted simply because anger got in the way. Anger doesn’t solve problems. Learn to really be grateful for every moment and anger will have no place to thrive.

11. Water Your Potential

Your potential is like a freshly tilled field on which millions of random seeds have been thrown. There could be flowers and oak trees, vegetables and fruits, grasses and vines. But none of that potential will ever sprout if it’s not watered.

Water your potential with confidence, curiosity, and exploration. Never stop giving yourself new ways to grow. Find new situations to put yourself in that virtually guarantee you’ll uncover a new seeds of potential that were just waiting to sprout.

If you’re not pushing yourself and discovering new limits, your potential will forever remain locked away and you’ll live your life never knowing what was possible.

12. Learn To Be Independent

Independence means being able to take care of yourself, mentally, physically, and emotionally. It means being able to think for yourself. It means trusting your decisions and recognizing your strengths. Being independent means becoming your own leader.

There is nothing wrong with depending on other people, but you should never use the availability of others as an excuse for neglecting yourself. If everybody on the planet disappeared tomorrow, would you be able to survive? If all your friends left you tomorrow, would you be able to move on?

More than anything independence requires a strong sense of self-confidence, a belief that you can depend on yourself and handle any situation no matter how difficult or challenging. If you don’t feel that way right now, what can you do to change that?

13. Aspire To Be a Jack-Of-All-Trades

When something needs to be fixed and I don’t know how to fix it, I have a burning desire to learn. If my car breaks down, I don’t just want it fixed, I want to learn how to fix it. If I get sick, I don’t just want a cure, I want to understand why I’m sick and what I can do to prevent being sick in the future.

Short of becoming a cyborg, it’s not possible to know everything. The next best thing, however, is to have the desire to learn and know everything. I never tell myself, “I could never do that.” Instead, I decide what information, knowledge, or skill is missing and then determine how I could obtain it (the Internet makes this incredibly easy).

Humans have the gift of adaptability. We can learn and understand anything. All that is required is the desire to do so and the dedication, persistence, and open-mindedness to accept something new. Throwing away the gift of adaptability and learning, the very thing that makes us human, is such a waste.

Aspire to know. Aspire to understand. Aspire become the best, the most well-rounded human being you can. Be a sponge for knowledge, a learning machine, a generalist of life.

14. Never Stop Exercising Your Imagination

Dream the impossible. See impossibility as an undiscovered path instead of a dead end. What will the world really look like 500 years from now? What about 1,000 years from now? What might your city look like if cars really could fly?

What might another solar system look like where dozens of Earth-like planets existed, all with human life that was only slightly more advanced than we are now? Would the planets have their own area codes? Would email addresses contain the planet name instead of the domain name?

We all brainstorm from time to time, but we should do more dreamstorming. We should never stop asking “what if?” and exercising our ability to think outside the box.

Children play and create things using all the small pieces of the world that they discover. As adults, our play pieces — the parts of the world that we know and understand — are incredibly complex and filled with potential for creativity. Ask yourself: What if?

15. Reevaluate Your Life Every Day

Are you on the right track? Do you feel like your life is heading in the right direction? When you wake up, how excited are you to start the day?

If too many days go by where you’re not enthusiastic to begin the day, you should really take a closer look at where your headed and figure out if that’s really where you want to be going.

For so many years I worked day and night, sometimes as many as eighty hours a week, doing various things that I always knew weren’t where I actually wanted to be. I won’t say the time was wasted, but it was definitely time that I could’ve been spending working towards my real passions and towards my real life goals.

The sooner you put yourself on the path that will get you to your desired destination, the sooner you’ll get there. Do a daily sanity check to make sure you’re not walking in the opposite direction.

16. Remind Yourself That You Will Die

Every day the thought crosses my mind that my life, my physical body and everything that makes up the person “Raam”, will one day cease to exist. My body will one day be nothing more than a pile of ashes.

I don’t spend too much time dwelling this fact, but I think about it long enough to feel humbled by it. It helps remind me that no matter what problems or difficulties I may face today, including a life and death situation, I will face it to the best of my ability.

It also makes me feel grateful for each moment and reminds me that time is running out. It forces me to put thoughtful consideration into whatever I’m doing throughout the day: Is this really how I want to spend one of my last days alive?

17. Remind Yourself That Everybody Will Die

Like yourself, every single person you have ever known will one day die. It could happen next year. It could happen tomorrow.

When I’m feeling self-centered or selfish around someone, I simply remind myself that they could die tomorrow. I remind myself that this really could be the last moment in my life that I see that person alive.

Feelings of jealousy, contempt, or hatred do absolutely nothing good. Cherish time spent with others. Be grateful for their presence. When you’re with someone, be present and respect their time.

18. Think Long-Term

Five hundred years. One thousand years. From the perspective of eternity, your life is just a blip in time. What should you do? What role in the evolution of the universe will your life play?

Being shortsighted is the quickest way to forget what matters. You will die. Your time here is limited. That’s a fact. What are the long-term implications of your actions today? How will what you’re doing today shape the future?

You cannot know the future, but that doesn’t mean you should pretend it doesn’t exist. What is your vision for the future? Are your choices and actions nudging the universe in that direction or further away from it?

19. Embrace That You Will Never Know Everything

There are places on this planet where you will never lay eyes or set foot. There are skills that you will never develop, languages you never learn, and people you never meet.

On the flip side, there are people on this planet who will never lay eyes on you or set foot on the place you grew up. There are people who will never meet you, never learn your language, and never develop the skills you possess.

Accepting these facts frees yourself from the feeling that you’re missing something. It lets you make the best of what you have now while leaving the door wide open for discovering and learning new things.

20. Think Yourself Young

From an early age, I would come up with all kinds of inventions for problems that I perceived in the world. I remember being nine years old and observing people hanging precariously from skyscrapers cleaning the windows.

So I invented a robot that lived on the roof and occasionally descended down to do the cleaning. I would draw out on paper all the parts I could think of: Where the robot would live, how it would function, where its cleaning material would be stored, how it would slide down the windows without scratching them, etc.

Earlier this year, while traveling on a train in India, I was watching the crowded villages fly by and began thinking about how overcrowded the planet will eventually become. There will come a point where will eventually run out of land.

So I invented a solution for people to live on the ocean in giant floating egg-shaped cities that anchored to the seabed. I drew escape hatches, designed sustainable power systems that used the ocean currents, and jotted down notes for how waste could be recycled.

I know next to nothing about building robots, designing cities, or inventing waste recycling systems. But I never let that stop me. Those exercises help me think through real-world problems and exercise my imagination. They keep my playful inventive spirit alive.

Develop and maintain an insatiable desire to learn, understand, and explore. Become relentlessly open-minded. Remain playful and curious. Foster an ever-expanding imagination. Maintain a strong desire to create and invent.

Life is spiritual. Age is physical. Youth is a mindset that can be maintained throughout life. Instead of thinking yourself old, think yourself young!

21. Take Responsibility For Your Body

In my late teens, I recognized that I wasn’t as healthy as I could be (I had asthma and I was seventy pounds overweight). With a little research I learned that the longer I waited the more difficult getting in shape would be.

Recognizing that every day I neglected my health was one less day I might live, I spent the next few years exercising, experimenting, and educating myself on everything related to fitness. I learned how my body responded to certain foods and how quickly it metabolized fat. I discovered a sensitivity to dairy that was triggering my asthma and giving me skin rashes.

I learned what it meant to over-train and to push myself too far. I discovered plateaus and broke through them. I lost those seventy pounds of weight and discovered a new sense of self-confidence and a new freedom for exploring the world. I committed myself to the journey of taking my body to new levels for the rest of my life.

Your body is your temple. It’s your permanent home for the duration of this life. You are the only person responsible for taking care of it. Feed it clean healthy foods. Exercise it. Maintain it. Stretch it. Test its limitations. Learn how it works. Respect it. Reconnect with it. Treasure it.

22. Be Ready To Sacrifice

Living life without sacrifice is like trying to become a great runner without breathing. To really live fully, you need to be ready to sacrifice those things in your life that are not of absolute importance.

Decide what truly matters to you and then figure out what you will need to sacrifice to focus on those things. If you’re not ready to sacrifice anything, you’re not being realistic about what matters.

23. Become An Optimistic Realist

Optimism lets us believe in possibility and hope. It gives us confidence that things will turn out positive even when there aren’t any hard facts to support it.

Will Earth reach a point where extreme poverty doesn’t exist? Yes. Will it happen within our lifetime? No. The first answer is optimism. The second answer is realism. Focusing solely on either one will lead us nowhere, but finding a place somewhere in the middle holds great potential.

Optimism is an incredibly useful tool for pushing us beyond perceived limitations. But unrealistic optimism — optimism that doesn’t take into account the hard facts — sets us up for failure. The key to becoming an optimistic realist is balance.

24. Think Abundance

It has taken me a long time to discover the abundance mindset (and I still have a long way to go). I clearly remember feeling the need for an expensive car, a lot of money, and lots of friends who admired me. I remember feeling the need to have my own career, my own success, and my own talents.

What I realize now is that I was living with a scarcity mentality. I felt that I needed things because they would somehow be gone forever or that somebody else would take them away if I didn’t get them first.

Nothing in this world belongs to us, not even this body. We are here for a short period of time and during that time we’re simply the caretakers. Everything we could possibly need already exists and it will continue to exist for as long as it’s needed.

When we grab onto things out of fear of losing them, we lose sight of what’s right in front of us. But when we focus on the abundance that always surrounds us, we immediately recognize the potential in everything.

25. Give Without Expectation

When someone emails me for advice or asks for my help, I don’t go in with the expectation that I’m going to get something in return. If helping them will require more time than I can commit, then I state that upfront. I don’t assume that they will give me something in return.

Love, kindness, compassion, and generosity should never be given with expectation. The act of expecting something in return for any of those things taints their authenticity. If you’re going to taint them with expectation, you’d be better off not giving them at all.

When you give, give without expectation. Giving without expectation is the fertilizer for good karma.

26. Receive Without Expectation

If someone sends me a few ebooks that I know cost them money, I don’t become suspicious and assume that they’re sending them to me because they want something in return. I thank them for the gift and accept it as an expression of love and generosity.

When you receive with an expectation that strings are attached, you’re throwing out all the good energy that comes with the gift. When you receive with love however, you accept a transfer of positive energy and enable yourself to pay that energy forward.

27. Trust Yourself

When I was making the decision to change my lifestyle earlier this year, I trusted myself to make the right decision. I knew that it meant losing my job, emptying my bank accounts, and basically starting from scratch.

But I trusted myself. I trusted that whatever the outcome, I would be triumphant. I trusted that whatever I decided to do in the future, I would not regret my decision.

Learn to trust that you will do the right thing. Know that you will learn from your mistakes and that you will see each choice in retrospect as the best choice you could’ve made with the information available to you.

28. Test Your Assumptions

Every time someone asks me something and I get ready to respond with “I assume so”, I’m reminded of what my dad always told me about assumptions: “When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME”. Needless to say, I very rarely use the word.

I don’t think assumptions are entirely avoidable but I also don’t think they are inherently bad. However, treating an assumption as fact is dangerous.

We make assumptions all the time. We assume the cars will stop for us when we’re crossing the road. But we still test that assumption by watching to make sure they actually stop.

We often make assumptions about what is right and wrong based on how we were brought up. But that doesn’t make those assumptions true. We need to verify for ourselves.

Never stop testing your assumptions. Never stop reevaluating. Doing this will not only keep you humble to the possibility that you might not know everything, but it will also allow for greater inner growth.

29. Never Stop Exploring

It is through exploration of the unknown that we learn and grow. When we stop exploring, we stop growing. The world we live in is defined by how we see it and if we learn to see the world from different perspectives, we discover an endless source of new worlds to explore. Our potential for growth expands without limit.

The universe is a big place and inside each of us exists a universe of equal size. Don’t trap yourself in a tiny sphere and pretend that you’ve seen, heard, and experienced everything.

That tiny patch of ground underneath the tree in your backyard? Go lay down on the ground and explore that. There’s an entire world right there. Don’t believe me? Go see for yourself.

30. Assess Risk

Is drinking a cup of coffee over your laptop worth the risk of spilling it? Is switching lanes on the highway without using your directional worth the risk of killing someone? Is spending the next few years working in an office and saving money worth the risk of never traveling and seeing the world?

In everything you do, assess the risks involved and determine if they’re worth it. When you make a decision, immediately adjust your actions and work towards creating new habits. Lean back from your laptop when you drink the coffee. Always use your directional when switching lanes. Quit your job, use your savings, and spend six months living abroad.

Risks are everywhere. It’s up to you to decide which ones are worth taking.

31. Become The Dictator Of Your Life

You make the decisions, nobody else. You need to take into consideration your responsibilities and the opinions of others, but at the end of the day the decisions are yours. You call the shots.

There may be events or situations that are out of your control, but how you choose to respond those is up to you. Let your values, principals, and passions guide your decision-making.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the guy on the television, the newspaper editor, or the president of the United States. It doesn’t matter if it’s your coworker, your best friend, your relative, or your spouse.

If something goes against what you believe to be right or wrong — if something violates your values — stand up and hold your ground. If nobody agrees with you, that’s fine. It’s far more important that you’re true to yourself than it is to please everybody else.

32. Dismiss Stress

Is your bank empty and the bills piling up? Stressing out about it won’t solve the problem. Is a project at work not going as planned and stressing everybody out? Stress won’t fix the problem.

When I feel myself getting stressed out about a situation, I take a deep breath and mentally step back. Have I done everything I can? If yes, then I let the stress evaporate. If no, then I do what needs to be done and let the stress evaporate.

Stress is an indicator that something is potentially wrong. It’s a reminder that you need to take action or make a decision. Once you’re aware of the situation and you decide to take action, stress has no place. It’s job is done. Let it go.

33. Take Ownership of Your Path

You’re already on your own path. You’re already blazing your own trail. Your path is, has been, and always will be unique to you no matter how much effort you might put into following the path of someone else.

Instead of looking at the paths of others and feeling jealousy or a sense that you’re missing something, take full ownership your own path. Embrace it. Nurture it. Feed it. Care for it.

It’s your path. Own it.

***

When you take a snapshot of the essence of what it means to be you, what things stand out? What combination of ideas, self-defined rules, lessons, and ways of thinking reflect what it means to be YOU?

If you could convey one piece of advice or knowledge that reflects who you are, what would it be? Please share your wisdom in the comments below.

Only 24 hours earlier I had been in another country, a place on the opposite side of the world so foreign and so different that it was easy to forget that I didn’t just arrive from another planet. Obvious differences stood out, but it was the subtle differences that really made the biggest impact.

The first thing I noticed was the faster pace of life. It’s not so much the physical speed of things, but pace at which you’re expected to respond to and process information. Simple things like paying for something at the register or answering the telephone felt hurried or rushed. Even conversations seemed needlessly accelerated. It feels as though you’re expected to think, act, and operate like a machine.

Everything also feels so geometrically perfect and picturesque. The paint on every house is neat and artistic; the doors are perfectly square; the windows, sometimes bigger than me, are made of perfectly clear glass.

The cars are fancy and they all seem to be well kept. Even really old cars and trucks look relatively new. Buses, trains, subways, and taxis. They all look like they were designed to last a thousand years.

Roads are flat and well maintained. Sidewalks can be found almost everywhere. Some roads even have separately marked lanes for bicycles!

All the people seem to be wearing new clothes. Even their bags and purses look like they just came off the shelf. Many people seem dressed well enough to appear in a movie. In fact, if you spend time watching people in a public area, you might actually begin to think that they really are acting out a movie!

Every line, wall, pillar, and post that should be straight is straight. Every circle that should be circle is circle. Every chair, table, light fixture, and floor is perfectly manufactured. There are no cutting corners, no makeshift replacements, no cheap materials.

Things are, in fact, so perfectly orchestrated and manufactured that everyone here seems to have run out of things to make perfect. They’ve now turned their attention towards nature itself.

They uproot trees and move them around, create their own visually appealing dirt and call it “mulch”, cut squares and circles into their concrete creations to design miniature pieces of nature to decorate the landscape and make their concrete jungles a little more appealing.

They don’t even stop with trees and flowers. They’ve begun modifying the fruits and vegetables; not even the animals are spared!

These people, with so much technology, knowledge, abundance, and resources, seem bored out of their minds. They start conversations about meaningless things and quarrel over issues of no significance. Their entire life seems to be full of searching for things to keep them mentally and physically occupied.

They can be seen voluntarily doing mundane things like mowing their grass, cleaning their cars, buying things they don’t need, and starting arguments just for the sake of arguing. When they run out of ideas for pointless discussions, or when they just get bored of themselves, they watch television to get ideas for more pointless things to gossip about.

It’s incredibly sad to see so much potential going to waste, to see so many people with so much power sit idly and twiddle their thumbs. Even stranger, it seems like many of them can sense that something doesn’t feel quite right.

It seems like they sense a lack of authenticity; a feeling that they might be living in a house of cards that could come tumbling down at any moment; a feeling that their life might be missing purpose and meaning.

The ironic thing is, I’ve lived nearly my entire life feeling exactly the same way, going through the same ups and downs, solving and making problems simply because they were there to be made or solved.

Insulated from real hardship, I voluntarily created hardship to challenge myself. I put myself deeper and deeper into debt, bought things I didn’t need, and pushed myself to work harder and harder until I burned out and needed to take a vacation.

I lived in a bubble where everything I needed was provided for me so long as I chose to conform to the rules and keep the mask of ignorance over my face.

When my thirst for reality finally got strong enough — when my burning curiosity finally overcame the fear of change and the fear of the unknown — I broke free. I stepped outside of that bubble. I took a walk on the wild side, into the great unknown, where I might get mugged, shot, kidnapped, or catch a deadly disease and die a horrible death.

And you know what happen? I survived. I lived. I got a taste of reality.

I got to see firsthand the way the majority of the rest of the world actually lives.

Life, while perhaps more chaotic and risky, felt more authentic and peaceful. Time seemed to slow down to a pace that felt more human. The people, while less restricted by laws and social stigmas, felt more genuine and neighborly. The lack of education and easy access to comfort didn’t make them more primitive, it made them more motivated to do things that mattered.

Happiness wasn’t something to look forward to on the weekend, but rather something to share between two people over tea. There were fewer fake smiles, more genuine handshakes, and a general feeling of enjoying life and living in the moment.

As I swallowed that lump in my throat and rapidly blinked my eyes to dry the oncoming tears, I realized that I was feeling an extreme sense of good fortune. I was feeling so grateful for everything I had been given in life that it brought tears to my eyes.

Sitting in the dark comfort of the movie theater with my parents, waiting for the movie to start, I couldn’t help but think about the thousands of scrawny kids I saw living on the streets. What was I doing? While I was holding that warm drink in my hands, hundreds of thousands of kids were going to bed on a cold dirt floors.

Why should 17,000 children die every day from things that we’ve already found a way to prevent? Why should there be people worrying about where they will find their next meal so they can stay alive while others are busy finding ways to entertain themselves and create strawberry flavored water?

Shouldn’t we be setting an example for the rest of the world to follow? As a privileged people with access to such an abundance of resources and information, shouldn’t we be doing more to balance the inequality that exists?

I’m sick of sitting around. I’m sick of reading statistics. I’m sick of seeing people waste away their life arguing over things of absolutely no significance. I’m sick of hearing people complain about going to work on Monday and then getting excited about drinking and partying on Friday.

All of us are privileged. The very fact that we can talk about these things — that we can write, read, and discuss the things that we do — makes us privileged.

Every time I hear a conversation or see someone doing something not directly related to survival, I’m reminded of how privileged I am. Those little daily events have become constant reminders that are fueling the growing fire inside me.

It’s one thing to recognize how much abundance surrounds us, but it’s something else entirely to recognize how fortunate we really are.

The meaning of life isn’t defined by anyone. It’s what you make of it. If you make your life a meaningless string of complaints and selfish pursuits, you’ll only have yourself to blame when life feels empty.

Your privileges and good fortunes give you immense power. How you choose to use those privileges and that power is entirely up to you. What life means is up to you. Make life mean something. Start now.

As the speed of my life comes to a screeching halt in the United States, I find myself desperately searching for something of my nomadic lifestyle to hold onto — some way to apply what I’ve learned without traveling.

I wrote these nine nomadic principles as a way to remind myself how to stay nomadic even when I’m not moving around — a way to keep that freedom alive inside regardless of how limited I might be location-wise.

You don’t need to be a nomad to apply these lessons and they’re just as relevant for a non-traveler as they are for someone who spends their life roaming the planet.

1. Embrace change

Change is the only constant in the universe. If your life is full of routines, it can be extremely easy to forget how natural it is for things to change unexpectedly. Change is normal. Resisting this universal constant guarantees you will encounter stress when things don’t go according to plan.

In the life of a nomad, change becomes the routine — change is simply an indication that adjustment or adaptation is necessary. Remaining flexible and adaptable are keys to survival for a nomad.

There is nothing wrong with making plans, but always remember that you cannot outsmart the universe. If the universe says change is inevitable, don’t become distressed or upset when things don’t go according to plan. Instead, embrace change and learn to adapt to every new situation.

2. Live in the moment

When you’re a nomad constantly moving from one place to the next, you don’t have the luxury of putting the present moment off until later. Today might be the last time you’ll find yourself with the opportunities that lay before you, so staying present and living in the moment becomes a necessity.

Whatever you’re doing, allow yourself to become fully present in that moment. Soak in your surroundings and allow the smells, sounds, colors, and textures to fully engulf your senses. When unrelated thoughts arrive, let them arrive but give them a lower priority.

You can be fully present while still taking care of what needs to be done, both now and in the future. Your goal shouldn’t be to ignore everything except what’s happening right now, but rather to prioritize things in such a way that you can maintain a fully present awareness while still managing the rest of life.

3. Keep your options open

Nomads like to stay flexible and ready to change whenever the need or desire arises. Keeping your options open doesn’t mean avoiding commitment, but the options you choose to keep open should enhance your ability to reach your goals.

If your one year goal is location independence, for example, renting an apartment instead of buying a condo would make more sense. If financial independence is your goal, buying a used car that you can afford would make more sense than taking out a loan and extending your debt.

Try not to close yourself into a corner or lock yourself out of opportunities. Whenever you have a choice to make, look ahead and ask yourself what decision would offer the least restriction and provide the greatest room for unforeseen changes.

4. Make use of familiarity

As a nomad, familiarity is mostly an unfamiliar concept. The only thing that becomes familiar is experiencing the unfamiliar. The constant stress of adjusting to new situations quickly reminds us how valuable even a little familiarity can be.

Use familiarity as an opportunity to refine your approach to life and practice open-mindedness. How can you best prepare yourself to react to the next unexpected situation? How can you be even more grateful for this moment?

Be careful not to let familiarity make you too laid-back or complacent. Instead, use the freedom it provides to work on things that will continue advancing you towards your goals. Speaking of goals, make sure you always have a few goals that require you to step out of the comfort of familiarity to continuously challenge yourself.

5. Respect your health

There are few things more important to a nomad than his or her health. Without good health, life stops. Freedom disappears and life becomes magnitudes more difficult.

Your health determines your freedom. The healthier you are, the more opportunities become available. Good health is also an insurance policy against unforeseen circumstances. You never know when you’ll be left alone to fend for yourself or when a situation will require you to put aside your own problems and help a loved one.

Your health is one of the very few responsibilities that is entirely your own. You not only have a responsibility to yourself, but also have a responsibility to all those around you who will have to bare the burden when you allow your health to deteriorate. Your health is your wealth and without it you will always be poorer than you need to be.

6. Cultivate frugality

Nomads don’t have the luxury of running to the store and buying a replacement every time something breaks. Instead, when something breaks, the item transitions from having one purpose to having a different purpose. Items that can serve multiple purposes are also valued higher than single-function items. Durability and taking the time to care for things to ensure they last a long time, are valued higher than anything else.

The next time you’re about to toss something, ask yourself if it could be used for something else. Think outside the box. Could it be given to someone who needs it? You shouldn’t become a pack rat and hoard junk, but don’t toss something just because it has a superficial defect.

Conversely, when you’re about to buy something, really ask yourself how much value it will add to your life. Is there something else you already own that will achieve the exact same result? Can you borrow an item from a friend or even offer to buy it from them?

7. Trust in nomadic serendipity

Traveling alone in a foreign country can oftentimes feel like traveling on an alien planet where the language and writing are incomprehensible. This forces you to rely on the kindness and generosity of the human soul and you quickly learn to trust in nomadic serendipity. You learn to accept that it’s OK for people to lend you a hand when you’re lost or need help.

But use common sense and never let down your guard. One evening I was walking back to my hotel in Vietnam when two young girls on a motorcycle pulled up next to me. As they waved me over, my first thought was that they must need help. It turned out they were hookers and, as I walked away, they got aggressive and grabbed my arm.

Always remain vigilant, but be open to the possibility of a total stranger offering a helping hand. When you know that you need help, or when you don’t think you can handle a situation on your own, remember that most people are genuinely good. Also remember to always be ready to provide a helping hand when someone else needs it.

Spread kindness and generosity and the universe will reciprocate. Be receptive to kindness and generosity and the universe will allow good energies to flow in your direction.

8. Learn to remain detached

Nomads recognize the impermanence of everything around them. They’re forced to accept, on a daily basis, that everything which currently exists will one day change. Possessions wear down and break, landscapes transform and change, people grow and move away.

Becoming attached to anything — cultures, possessions, outcomes, people, or even your own body — will only lead to unnecessary pain and unhappiness. When something you’re attached to changes in an unexpected way, you’ll become distraught and upset that things didn’t go as planned. If you’re not attached, you will never be disappointed — every change that occurs will simply add color to the canvas of life.

Avoiding attachment doesn’t mean being insensitive or not making commitments. It simply means preventing yourself from becoming shackled to an outcome. It means embracing the unknown and recognizing that even your existence is temporary.

A life free from attachment is a life with more room for love and happiness.

9. Develop a deep appreciation for family

Some nomads are lucky to travel with their families, but for those of us who travel solo, every day becomes a reminder for the importance of family; every day becomes a reminder for how big the world is and how few people on this planet we can say genuinely care for our well-being.

Even if you see your family every day, always remember how lucky you are to have each other. Greet them lovingly. Be polite. Speak with love. Argue with love. Be kind.

Remember that of all the billions of people that exist, they’re the ones who are most likely to be there when you really need help. That dedication deserves immense respect. Having family to love and care for is a privilege and they should be treated as such.

**

Travel teaches us so much and yet those lessons are often left behind when we return to our normal lives. It happens so easily because the context is so different.

Think back to the last time you traveled: What lessons or observations might you be able to adapt to your current life? Add your thoughts to the comments below and help me expand this list.

For days after returning to Pokhara, my stomach was upset and my body refused everything I fed it. My head was on cloud nine and my body was endlessly tired. My inner energies were dissipated and my life felt out of whack.

Any attempt to reply to emails, work on writing, catch up with social media, or even explore the city, was met with solid mental and physical resistance. All I could focus on was eating healthy and resting until my health improved.

I could have struggled. I could have sucked it up and battled through it. I could have ignored the fact that my temple was in need of repair and instead focused on work. I could have ignored my own needs and told myself that I needed to sacrifice.

But what good would that have done? How would being selfish towards myself help me in my quest to help others?

The words “be the change you wish to see in the world” are easy to say, but the danger behind the simplicity of those words is that changing ourselves is not an easy task. It’s a complex and oftentimes difficult endeavor. In fact, it can be so difficult that neglecting ourselves and choosing to help others is often the easier option!

But there’s a good reason why change starts with us. Our body is our temple. If we neglect it, we won’t have anywhere to go for shelter. We won’t have a vehicle to deliver our good actions. We won’t have an instrument to spread our positive energies.

If we let our homes deteriorate, we’ll be too concerned with what’s wrong at home to spend time working on anything else. We’ll become our own distraction.

Are you interested in helping others? Then begin by helping those close to you, starting with yourself. When you’ve become a professional at helping yourself — when you’ve become a pro at being you and fully understanding how you work inside out — only then will you have the skills and resources to help others.

If there’s something close to home that doesn’t feel quite right, take care of that first. If your health isn’t in order, focus on fixing it. If your family life isn’t in order, make the changes necessary to start improving it.

Every day do one thing that improves your situation close to home. Leave your ego behind. Leave your pride and your grudges by the wayside and start making progress forward today. One step today. One action that moves you forward.

When you do this, those around you will feel the energy of the progress you’re making and be inspired to improve their own lives. You’ll become a tractor of positivity that helps uplift them.

***

It took a bit longer than I expected to get my health back, but I’m feeling much better now. It probably had something to do with how my body was still recovering from the strenuous five-day trek.

While I was recovering, I decided to cancel my one week train adventure at the beginning of September around north India. I had already booked seven trains that would take me from Darjeerling, to Varanassi, to Agra (Taj Mahal), and then to Delhi, but my heart is no longer in it.

I have absolutely zero interest in doing anything even mildly touristy. Going against that feeling is only going to make me less capable of helping others, not more capable. Since all the train tickets were refundable, and since canceling them would pay for a plane ticket from Kathmandu to Delhi, changing plans seemed like this most sensible thing to do.

Now my plan is to go to Kathmandu this weekend to watch a traditional Sherpa dance and, after spending a week in Kathmandu, I’ll hop on a plane to Delhi where I’ll stay for two weeks before returning to the United States.

I still hope to catch a few classical Indian music concerts in Delhi and I have plans to have lunch with a school teacher to talk about education, but otherwise I’ll be relaxing, exercising, and planning what comes next when I return to the States.

My bladder was about to burst.

Just a few more minutes, two more pages and I’ll stop and run to the restroom.

OK, back to work. I’m on a roll. No time for lunch today.

And so went the three weeks that I spent putting together my first ebook. When it comes down to it I can be very stubborn, even obsessive. It’s a quality I struggle to put to good use, but when it finds good use it’s amazing what gets done.

The staff at the cafe knew me by name — some of them even have my phone number. When I arrived, they knew what I would order and where I would sit. Sometimes they would inquire as to what I was working on. Sometimes they would leave me notes telling me how impressed they were by my diligence.

When the cafe closed at ten, I would walk back to my hotel room, past the crowds of drunken tourists who were loudly making their way into one of several clubs, where even louder music was blaring, filling the streets of Kathmandu with sounds that didn’t quite fit with my idea of rugged and romantic Nepal — a country at the top of the world, home to the tallest mountains on the planet.

I would plug in my laptop, lay down on the bed, and continue working until two in the morning, wrestling with unreliable WiFi and the occasional power outage while the sound of monsoon rains trickled in through my window. Five hours later I would wake up and repeat the entire process again.

I was enjoying every moment of it. There wasn’t a single day where I wished I could stop and take a break. Every single day was filled with pure enthusiasm, pure motivation. There was absolutely nothing I would’ve rather been doing, not even catching up on sleep or exploring the back streets of Kathmandu.

But why? Why I was working so hard with no apparent short-term reward or promise for success?

It’s because for the past three weeks, the only thing that mattered in my life was the completion of that ebook. Everything else — from eating lunch, to using the restroom, to sleeping — was simply an obstacle I needed to get around to continue working towards that goal. The ebook project was the only bigger picture in my life.

And then the project was over. The ebook was released and everything I spent day and night focusing on, dedicating all my time and energy to, was gone. I was left feeling lost and wondering where I was and what I should be doing next.

That relentless feeling of enthusiasm seemed to vanish overnight.

And that’s when I realized that it had nothing to do with a lack of enthusiasm. It had everything to do with a lack of focus — I was missing the real bigger picture.

***

There are lots of things that we do for a bigger picture. We take care of our health or save a portion of our paycheck for the long-term health effects or the ability to have money when we need it. We fill our car with gas so that we can commute to work and earn money to support our family.

We simply could not function if all we did was tackle the big pictures.

What would happen if before filling our car with gas, we tried to list every single road we would drive on and every single place we would go with that tank of gas?

What if before we saved a portion of our paycheck, we tried to list every single thing that money might be used for in the future?

What if before we started exercising or eating healthy, we tried to determine every single illness and discomfort that we might avoid?

Nothing would get done! We’d spend so much time planning and “solving” the bigger pictures that the bigger pictures would forever remain unchanged and out of reach.

To affect the bigger picture, we need to focus on smaller, more manageable chunks. We need to take a tiny piece of that big picture and relentlessly focus on it until it’s ready for us to move on to the next piece.

We need to temporarily make the smaller picture our bigger picture.

And that’s exactly what I did for this project. For three weeks, the only goal in my life was the completion of this ebook.

But then something unexpected happened. After spending so many days and nights focusing on the project, I was left outside looking back in; the bigger picture was now just one piece in a giant incomplete puzzle.

The urge to fall back and continue focusing on that one single piece of the puzzle was strong, but I knew that if I did that, nothing further would be accomplished. Falling back and focusing on the already-complete smaller picture wouldn’t do anything to affect the bigger picture.

It didn’t take me very long to remember what the real bigger picture was — an entire world in need of help — but the experience made me realize why there are so many organizations, charities, and even individuals who are not doing everything they can to help.

It reminded me how easy it was to get distracted and lose sight of what matters.

***

As if the universe heard my thoughts and agreed with me, I was provided with an example to reinforce my realization.

The next day, an email arrived in my inbox from a new reader who had read the sections about micro-financing in the ebook. They wanted to alert my attention to a recent article in the NYTimes about how microfinancing was being misused.

For those who aren’t familiar with microfinancing, it’s a type of loan provided to small business owners and entrepreneurs, oftentimes in poor countries. The loans are generally small amounts of money — as little as $10 — and like any other loan an interest rate is charged.

However, microfinancing has grown so popular that some greedy people see it as valuable avenue for making money. Some lenders charge exorbitant interest rates — sometimes as high as 90% — in attempt to make more money and reduce their own risk.

The very people who are supposed to be helping rid the world of poverty were leeching money and stealing from the poor!

They were focusing their attention on the smaller picture and they had entirely lost sight of the bigger picture.

Poverty is the bigger picture. The smaller picture is their need to make enough money to support themselves. As long as they only focus on the small picture, the big picture — poverty — will never be solved. Instead of solving poverty, they will be doing the exact opposite and ensuring that poverty remains an excuse to continue filling their pockets.

It should be noted that Kiva, a popular organization that assists in the microfinancing process and one that was recommended twice in the ebook, goes through a lot of trouble to ensure the money loaned through their website is not misused. You can read their full response to the NYTimes article here.

I am in no way discouraging the use of microfinancing. I’m simply using the NYTimes news article as an example to show how losing sight of the bigger picture can cause us to forget what we’re working for in the first place.

***

After getting even less sleep during the night of the ebook launch, I spent the following three days sleeping nine to ten hours and eating a full meals.

I spent lots of time contemplating the prior three weeks and the strange feelings that were a result of the sudden completion of the project. I spent time thinking about how those feelings were so closely linked to how one of the greatest promises for ridding the world of poverty could so easily be misused and turned backwards.

Most bad things that happen in our life occur because we let ourselves get caught up in the moment. We take our eyes off the bigger picture and we lose sight of what really matters.

It happens all the time.

It’s obsessively checking the statistics for your blog instead of providing your readers with valuable content.

It’s focusing on what you want to say in a conversation instead of hearing what the other person is saying.

It’s becoming frustrated with a family member instead of remembering that today could be your last chance to express how much you love them.

We all do it, but the beautiful thing is that it’s never too late to start seeing the bigger picture and adjusting our priorities. It’s never too late to start focusing on what really matters.

What bigger picture do you focus on throughout your day? Do you find yourself occasionally feeling lost and losing sight of what matters?

I was sitting at a small coffee table in Kathmandu, Nepal and I had looked up from my laptop to find myself, twenty years in the future, sitting right across from me.

As I stared in disbelief, he leaned back and eased into the chair. His eyes smiled and he looked over me, as if he was inspecting a rare artifact.

“I’m you”, he said with a bit of humor in his voice, “twenty years in the future. I only have a few minutes and I’d like to hear what advice you can give me.”

Advice? What advice could I possibly give? What could I say to someone who knows every single thing about me and then an entire lifetimes worth on top of that?

This was difficult. Writing advice to my younger self was a lot easier. A future version of myself would invariably have more experience, a greater perspective, and far more wisdom than my current self. But there he was, and he wanted me to speak. He seemed a bit stronger than me, so I wasn’t about to ignore him.

What advice would a future version of myself need that he couldn’t give himself? What would he need to hear from the less experienced version of himself? What might time have taken away from him that only I could provide?

Here’s what I came up with:

Never settle. I’d like to say never settle in the literal sense (family, kids, house, etc.) but I’m a young, inexperienced, digital nomad who has just discovered his love for the nomadic lifestyle and I cannot begin to understand what you’ve been through or how you currently perceive your purpose in life. So instead, let me just tell you to never settle with ideas, with knowledge, with your accomplishments. Every day, every moment, is a fresh start. Keep the rebel in your heart alive until the day you die.

People need you. Help them. There are so many people in this world who need help. Whatever you end up doing in your life, remember them. Remember those people at every corner, every crossroads, and every intersection. Let them guide you. You won’t be here for much longer and they are the one’s who need the most help, so do what you can to help them. Remember that what you take goes with you when you’re gone, but what you give is immortal.

Stay young. Age is a measurement of how much you’re learning and how curious you are. Never stop doing either of them. Remember that youth is a state of mind, not a physical condition. Look to the younger generations to see what they’re doing and what they’re learning. Put yourself in their shoes and see their future. What can you do to improve their future?

Give unconditionally and remember your roots. If by chance you’ve found your soulmate and decided to have children, remember that strong moral values, immense respect for your elders, self-reliance, a willingness to learn, open-mindedness, and sense of fierce independence got you to where you are today. Teach your children the same, but don’t smother them. Remember that you can never give too much unconditional love and freedom so long as the two are balanced. Encourage learning and open-mindedness above all else.

Remember this one thing. You will likely take all this advice with a grain of salt because you’re stubborn and you probably feel that I’m so inexperienced and so naive that I couldn’t possibly have anything valuable to teach you. If you take just one piece of advice from this, please remember that stubbornness is only useful when it keeps you on track for a noble cause. If it’s holding you back from learning something, let it go!

Never stop questioning the status-quo. If you have kids, be sure to teach them the same. Never accept something as truth simply because someone, or everyone, says it is so. Use the information available to you, and the wisdom and experience of others, and then trust your own intuition and decide for yourself.

Music is your equalizer. Remember how important music has been in your life and how effective it has been for reeling in emotions and putting them in harmony with the rest of your being. Music helped you write this post in three hours when you were in the middle putting together your first ebook. Music will be around forever. If life feels like it’s in a knot, untie it with music.

You could die tomorrow, so make today count.

It’s never too late to start. Tomorrow holds just as much opportunity for you as tomorrow does for me.

Die running. Remember that you’ve always said you want to “die running”. No matter what happens, no matter how frail you become, no matter how many injuries you’ve sustained, no matter how sick you may be or how much you’re suffering, stay active and stay positive. Use it or lose it. If you slow down or let yourself be negative, you’re inviting death into your life.

Think forward. You might be thinking about me right now, about what life was like for me and all the things you wish you could tell me and warn me about. Stop. The past has been written and the only thing you can do a damn thing about is your present moment. No matter what your circumstances are, your future is still unwritten. Go write it.

***

I’m sure I will look back at this piece of writing twenty or thirty years from now and find it very interesting to see the perspective of my younger self. I go through the archives on this blog from time to time and I’m always astonished by how foreign my past self seems to me and by how much insight I gain from him.

If you have a blog, or even if you don’t, I highly recommend you try this exercise. Figuring out what advice we’d give our younger selves is easy, but to give our older selves advice we need to step into their shoes. By doing that we’re forced to take an honest assessment of where we think we’re headed and what type of person we think we’ll become.

I was encouraged to write this by Courtney Carver over at Be More With Less and we agreed to both do this exercise and then exchange links. Be sure to check out Courtney’s post, 20 Lessons for my Future Self.

The aged photo of myself was generated with a tool called Face of the Future.

My upcoming ebook (due out by the end of this month) wouldn’t be possible without the incredible contributions I’ve been receiving from bloggers and non-bloggers alike (thank you!).

Creating something for a good cause that brings together the collective knowledge of so many individuals is exactly the type of project I want to be apart of, so when a new friend on Twitter, Abubakar Jamil, invited me to contribute to a free ebook he’s putting together, I felt it would be the perfect opportunity to give back to the community.

Abubakar’s ebook will be a compilation of life lessons and advice from various bloggers and non-bloggers. The Life Lessons Series project already has over twenty contributors and the combined volume of knowledge and advice is incredible.

My good friend Farnoosh Brock, whose own list of life lessons is an absolute goldmine of advice, emailed me yesterday to make sure I was writing this post. I must say, there’s nothing quite like receiving motivation and support from someone you’ve never actually met.

***

So what advice would I give to that three year old boy in the picture above? To really answer that question, I needed to take a walk through time and bring with me the collective experience, knowledge, and lessons of all the mistakes I’ve made over the past twenty-eight years of my life.

The point of this exercise wasn’t to see how I could have done things differently, but rather to see how I could have been more prepared for the situations I would face in life.

I don’t wish I had done anything differently. I believe that accepting our mistakes and loving oneself is vitally important to continued inner growth and who I am today is a culmination of everything that has happened in my past.

I believe we should build on our existing foundation, not leave behind an empire of half-finished castles.

***

Sitting in a comfy orange armchair on the second floor of a cafe in Kathmandu, Nepal, surrounded by the noise of cars, the whirring of a latte machine, the delicious aroma of espresso, and the sweet sound of Indian flute music, I closed my eyes and opened a dialog with the eight year old version of Raam (talking to the three year old version seemed too unrealistic).

Here’s the advice I brought back through time to give him:

1. When something isn’t changing, it will likely continue not changing.

You gotta take action and do something about it, even if that means getting uncomfortable. Even if that means pushing your limits. Even if that means making mistakes. Even if that means risking it all.

Wasting time — the one precious thing we all have a limited amount of — is just not worth it. If you feel like you’re stuck in a rut; if you feel like life shouldn’t be this way; if you feel like there’s more out there for you; take action and do something about it.

It’s going to feel like the entire world is working against you. It’s going to feel like they’re all afraid of change and that they want to convince you that change is bad and too risky. That’s when you need to take a stand, hold your ground, and believe in yourself.

There is only one person you can count on and that person is you. Don’t let him or her down. Seriously, life is just way too short to waste it.

2. Take care of your teeth.

Once your baby teeth are gone, you’re stuck with one set of real teeth for the remainder of your life. If you neglect those adult teeth, you’re screwed.

Sure, you can have cavities filled and you can even get teeth replaced with fake ones, but there is no substitute for original healthy teeth. Unlike other aspects of your health, you cannot restore neglected teeth!

Some people are born with softer teeth than others and they need to spend more time taking care of them. Whatever your case, spend a few extra minutes every day taking care of your teeth. Your long-term health, peace of mind, bank account, and your future self will all thank you.

3. You cannot control the outcome of a relationship.

All you can control is your half of the relationship. If it’s not working, don’t be stubborn and think that with enough time, effort, and patience things will magically change.

Like the previous lesson, when something isn’t changing, it will likely continue not changing. If you’ve made your best effort (which means communication when it comes to relationships) be prepared to move on.

While we’re on the topic of relationships, remember that communication is life blood of a relationship. If communication is lacking, the life of the relationship is dwindling.

Communication ensures that both sides clearly understand the motivations, beliefs, and expectations of the other side. If both parties are constantly unclear, the relationship will stagnate and not move forward — you will be wasting time.

4. You cannot own anything. You’re just the caretaker.

Think about this for a moment: Your life is on rental. You won’t have this body forever. If you don’t even own this body, so how could you possibly own anything in the physical world?

You rent everything. Your car, your house, your TV, your phone, your life. Let go of that part of you that wants to own things; that part of you that wants to possess things.

There is nothing wrong with having a house, a car, a phone, or even this life. But when we think we own them, we forget how temporary everything is and we become attached.

Attachment leads to a never ending desire for more and an inability to be satisfied. Instead of being happy and recognizing the value in what we have, we look for something else to attach ourselves to; something else to “own”. You own nothing.

The illusion that we own things leads us to spend so much valuable time in the pursuit of possessions that have no intrinsic value to our lives.

5. Time is a currency that appreciates in value and simultaneously decreases in quantity over the course of your life.

There are only a few things really worth spending time and money on in life. Family, education, and more time are some of them. Yes, just as you can spend time you can also buy time. You can pay for time through getting rid of things in your life that require your attention.

Your family, your friends, your children, your education, your health — they all require your attention and therefore you pay for them with your time. You also pay for your time with your car expenses, your home mortgage, apartment rent, cable subscription, phone bill, and even your daydreaming.

To buy more of the things you love, you need to stop spending time on things that are of less value to you. If you consider your family or your health to be more valuable than your expensive car or deluxe cable TV subscription, then reducing those expenses so that you don’t have to work so much should be a no brainer.

6. Fulfill your crazy childhood dreams as early as possible.

It’s often the acceptance that we’ll never achieve our childhood dreams causes us to accept mediocrity in life; it causes us to settle and accept the status-quo. We don’t feel driven to really achieve anything substantial in life because we’ve accepted that the thing we want most, we can’t have.

Imagine you’ve already done everything you really wanted to do in life. You would feel so content and so at peace that it would be difficult for anything else to upset you.

You’d feel motivated to use the remainder of your days being happy, truly enjoying life, and helping others do the same. You would feel so content that time wouldn’t scare you. Death wouldn’t scare you. Death would simply be — as it is — a part of life, not something to fear.

Following your heart is worth every risk!

Fulfill your dreams as early as possible. Once they’ve been fulfilled, you may discover new purpose and new meaning in life. Or you may continue living those dreams. Either way, if you’re not following your heart and living life on your own terms, you’re wasting your life.

7. Use your free time wisely.

If you’re working a boring job that involves you sitting around for hours, instead of staring off into space daydreaming, why not spend that extra time studying, learning, or otherwise doing something that improves your chances of doing something you love?

Remember what I said about things not changing unless you change them? You don’t have to quit your job and struggle to survive doing something you love. Keep your job and use your free time wisely. If you cannot read at work, turn off the TV or skip the bar after work and spend a few hours every day learning what you need to learn to live the life of your dreams.

Every minute that passes is another minute you don’t have. Most of us have less than 20,000 days left to live. Think about that for a moment: your body will be a rotting corpse in less than 20,000 days. That’s about 480,000 hours or 1,728,000,000 seconds.

By the time you’re finished reading this, you may only have 1,727,999,880 seconds remaining to live. Are you spending your time doing something worth living for?

***

This was an incredible exercise for me and I encourage you to take a few moments, close your eyes, and travel back in time to visit that younger version of yourself.

What advice would you give him or her that would better prepare them for the life ahead?

I recorded this video while I was walking back to the farmhouse in Ujire, India, on the two-mile road between the main road and the farmhouse. Although I left Ujire several weeks ago, I’m posting this now because I feel this message is very important.

When we follow our inner compass — our intuition — we discover that life feels less restricted. Things just seem to flow from one thing to the next.

This effect can even be seen in the video. Initially, I wasn’t going to record anything and I began walking away from the stream to continue on to the farm. But I felt something tugging at me. My inner compass was telling me to turn around and capture the moment.

Unlike a compass, however, life doesn’t always point in the same direction. And it’s not supposed to. If you listen carefully, your inner compass will push you in the right direction, guiding you where you need to go.

But it’s important to recognize that “the right direction” isn’t always the easiest, most obvious, or even the most pain-free route. I wasn’t going to record this video initially because I was feeling sick and I just wanted to get back home. In the end, however, recording this video actually made me feel better.

Strangely enough, it was in this same spot that I learned and wrote about lessons from a crab on how the right path in life isn’t always obvious or easy. I think that’s an important lesson to keep in mind when following our compass.

Life isn’t all fun and games. It’s not all pleasure and happiness. Ignoring our inner compass and always looking for the easiest route will have the opposite effect and lead to more difficulties in life.

This doesn’t mean we should blindingly follow any whim that comes along. If we’re trekking and we come across a great chasm, do we listen to the compass and keep walking? No, we use the compass as a guide, to assist us on the journey.

In the same way, listen to your compass. Hear it. Be aware of it. Use it to help you make decisions. When in doubt, trust it. Let it be your guide; your mentor. Respect it. Just as a real compass is simply a tool, use your own inner compass to guide you on the journey of life.

It was my first day in Gokarna, a small beach town on the west coast of India. Getting here had been an all-day adventure of trains, buses with flat tires, and a sketchy taxi driver who had us switch cars halfway to the hotel (he told me his driver was picking us up… I thought he was the driver!). However, after spending several months away from any large bodies of water, I was looking forward to enjoying the beach.

I decided to venture out from the hotel barefoot, as my only other option was to wear the heavy hiking boots that had spent the previous 24 hours on my feet. A quick glance outside confirmed that walking barefoot was not only acceptable but common.

It was already mid-morning and the sun had been up for some time. The pavement was searing hot. My feet, apparently too pampered by socks and shoes, were unable to withstand the pain from the heat and I quickly had to find a shaded area of the road.

I wasn’t sure where I was going, only that the direction I was walking was towards the ocean. I knew this because I had checked my compass before leaving the hotel to ensure my sense of direction was correct.

The street was small, often only wide enough for a single car to pass through. People moved about slowly, entering temples, carrying flowers, chatting on their cellphones. Cars and bikes blared their horns while dodging cows, dogs, and people.

I looked at the ground as I walked, dodging piles of cow dung and trying my best to hide the pain my feet were feeling. The air smelled of strong incense and burning sandalwood. The chanting of prayers filled the street. If there was an ocean around, it seemed quite far away.

After about ten minutes, the street opened up and the ocean presented itself. Good, I thought to myself, at least I’m not in the wrong town. After stopping at one of the cafes to buy a bottle of water, I headed down to the beach.

Stepping onto the sand, my feet once again screamed in agony: the sand was too hot to walk on! This whole not wearing shoes thing was beginning to look like a really bad decision.

If could just make it to the ocean, I thought, I would be able to cool my burning feet off in the water. I took ten steps before my feet rudely told me that it was just too hot.

This was silly. I shouldn’t need to walk all the way back to the hotel to get my shoes just so that I can cross this patch of sand! There must be some other way.

Then I remembered I was carrying a bottle of water. I thought maybe if I doused my feet with water before walking onto the sand, that would give me just enough time to reach the ocean.

It worked. The ocean water was a lot warmer than I expected, so it didn’t relieve my painful feet as much as I was hoping, but I made it.

The beach didn’t look much different than any of the other beaches I’ve seen in the United States: Lots of sand, an ocean with waves, people relaxing, and — wait, are those cows? Yes, there were cows lounging on the beach right next to the people. OK, so maybe it’s not exactly like the beaches in the States.

I spent the next six hours walking along the ocean, stubbornly determined to discover just how far the beach went (turns out it’s 9 miles). I passed rows of wooden fishing boats, the carcass of a dolphin half buried in the sand, dogs cooling off in the ocean, and more trashed sandals than I could count.

Wait, sandals? My feet could really use a pair of sandals! Up to that point, my plan was to keep walking along the ocean until the sun went down and the sand cooled off enough for me to cross it again. If I could find a pair of sandals, I could not only avoid burning my feet, but I could also avoid spending money on a new pair and save some of my quickly shrinking budget.

I started sifting through the sand, pulling up sandal after sandal, periodically running back to the ocean when my feet couldn’t take the searing heat any longer. Most of the sandals were not even wearable, but after about five minutes I discovered a pair that fit. They didn’t match, but they fit. As I walked on, I felt pleased with myself that I just obtained a pair of free, wearable sandals. How’s that for frugality?

Later that evening, I walked through town exploring the area around my hotel. I felt a little funny wearing sandals that didn’t match and that were barely holding themselves together, but hey, I already look strange and out of place.

As I rounded the next corner, I noticed a man sitting on the ground. He caught my attention because he was positioned precariously close to the cars driving by. That’s when I noticed something: He had no feet; both his legs were amputated from the knees down.

Only a few seconds earlier, I was worrying about what other people might be thinking about my funny sandals while this man was sitting on the street with no feet. My junk sandals suddenly seemed worth their weight in gold as I began to realize just how lucky I was that I even had feet to wear sandals on.

Walking back to the hotel, I thought about how frugality and gratefulness are intimately tied together. If we’re constantly grateful and aware of everything we already have, our desire for the things we don’t have is greatly diminished. When you live grateful, frugality becomes a way of life.

“I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.” -Indian proverb