What is an intention when compared to a plan? —Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow What you intend to do is meaningless. What you actually do is everything. What requires a why for fuel in its darkest hours. What flounders without a plan. Habits carry plans to their completion. Plan your habits wisely, then follow…
My spouse recently deprioritized potato chips and Diet Coke from her life. For me, I could pass the rest of my days without ever consuming either of them, but for her these were a big part of her eating ritual. You make a sandwich for lunch, you need something crunchy and salty with it. And…
Many moons I have livedMy body’s weathered and wornAsk yourself how old you’d beIf you didn’t know the day you were bornTry to love on your wifeAnd stay close to your friendsToast each sundown with wineAnd don’t let the old man in— Written by Toby Keith/sung by Willie Nelson, Don’t Let the Old Man In…
Don’t look now, but as I post this on February 9th, we’re almost 11% through the year. How are those New Year’s Resolutions looking? Yeah, I know what you mean. Action plans without execution soon fall away like so many broken dreams. I don’t make resolutions, I chip away at habit formation. I’m particularly locked…
Friday offered heavy rain that turned to sleet and finally snow. With temperatures plummeting, this quickly turned into a frozen mess on the roads. And temperatures stayed well below freezing, guaranteeing that anything frozen was likely to stay that way for a few days. The snow was transformed to rock-hard ice, with a light frosting…
There are different kinds of snow, and different kinds of snowshoeing. Snowshoe hiking up a mountain is very different than snowshoeing across a snow-covered field. Like walking on these terrains when there’s no snow, there’s a certain tactical change that develops with each. Hiking up a mountain, there’s a unique relief in flipping up the…
“I wonder how long it would take you to notice the regular recurrence of the seasons if you were the first man on earth. What would it be like to live in open-ended time broken only by days and nights? You could say, “it’s cold again; it was cold before,” but you couldn’t make the…
Now we’re there and we’ve only just begunThis will be our yearTook a long time to come— The Zombies, This Will Be Our Year Normally I take time to assess the best memories or the favorite stuff accumulated to wrap up a previous year in the final days leading into the new year. This year,…
What do we make of this last day of the year business? What do we make of any day, really? 2021 was a tough year, just like 2020 was, but looking back there was still some epic in-country travel, there was still some great hikes (fewer than I’d have liked), there was still time with…
“To achieve a goal you have never achieved before, you must start doing things you have never done before.” – Jim Stuart, The 4 Disciplines of Execution We’ve reached that time of the year again, when people start listing New Year’s resolutions and thinking about life goals. I don’t believe in once-a-year resolutions, but I’m…