I’m writing this from the Merry Inn in Marion, Virginia, where I somehow landed the biggest eight-bedroom suite $70 will probably ever buy me again. It’s out of season, the entire place is empty, and I have it all to myself. After living out of a backpack, it feels like the fucking Ritz.

Fantastic. Hostel day!

I’ve been wet for what feels like a week, either from rain or sweat, and sometimes both. I bonked my big toe climbing over a downed tree, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be losing that nail in a few days. Then I got caught in a hell of a storm Saturday evening but managed to get to camp, and pitch my shelter just in time.

Now I have eight beds to choose from, a hot shower, dry clothes, and absolutely nowhere else I need to be tonight.

I’m having a great time.

Before I left Charleston, I was talking with someone about section hiking the Appalachian Trail. They were asking about the miles, the mountains, and why I keep going back out there. Then they asked if I would ever want to climb Everest.

I told them I had no interest. The people who climb Everest have a very different goal than I do, and I have a lot of respect for what that requires. I just don’t want to do anything that might cost me my life.

I’m not trying to prove anything like that. I have a wife, kids, dogs, a cat, and a life I genuinely want to come home to. I don’t need to stand on top of the world badly enough to risk never seeing any of them again.

I just want to push myself. I want to get uncomfortable and find out what my body and mind can do when they’re both telling me they’ve had enough. I want to walk right up to that line, look at it honestly, and figure out whether I’m actually done or just tired, wet, hungry, and ready to complain for a while.

The Appalachian Trail gives me plenty of opportunities to find out.

Since I started section hiking the AT, these are the mountains, balds, knobs, ridges, and high points my legs have carried me across:

Springer Mountain — 3,782 ft

Sassafras Mountain — 3,350 ft

Ramrock Mountain — 3,225 ft

Big Cedar Mountain — 3,737 ft

Gaddis Mountain — 3,510 ft

Blood Mountain — 4,459 ft

Levelland Mountain — 3,860 ft

Cowrock Mountain — 3,842 ft

Wildcat Mountain — 3,675 ft

Blue Mountain — 4,025 ft

Rocky Mountain — 4,017 ft

Tray Mountain — 4,430 ft

Young Lick Knob — 3,748 ft

Powell Mountain — 3,850 ft

Buzzard Knob — 3,656 ft

As Knob — 3,460 ft

Rocky Knob — 3,569 ft

Standing Indian Mountain — 5,435 ft

Albert Mountain — 5,250 ft

Wayah Bald — 5,342 ft

Copper Ridge Bald — 5,080 ft

Wesser Bald — 4,627 ft

Swim Bald — 4,710 ft

Cheoah Bald — 5,062 ft

Brushnell Knob — 3,930 ft

Shuckstack — 3,889 ft

Big Bald — 5,516 ft

Little Bald — 5,220 ft

White Rocks Mountain — the AT crosses its shoulder around 3,967 ft

Pond Flats — 3,689 ft

Iron Mountain — the AT reaches roughly 4,100 ft

Whitetop Mountain — the AT reaches roughly 5,090 ft

Brier Ridge — 5,234 ft

Wilburn Ridge — roughly 5,416 ft

Stone Mountain — 4,820 ft

Hurricane Mountain area — roughly 3,865 ft

Some of them gave me incredible views. Some gave me nothing but rain, mud, sweat, sore legs, wet clothes, and trees.

A whole lot of view blocking trees!!!

The names and elevations don’t really tell the story anyway. They don’t tell you about the climb that seemed to go on forever because I hadn’t eaten enough. They don’t tell you what it feels like to put on wet clothes in the morning because everything is wet. It seems nothing dries on the AT. They don’t tell you about the roots, rocks, downed trees, swollen feet, losing a toenail, losing a few toenails. They don’t tell you about stepping over the same kind of rock for six hours until you begin taking it personally, or looking at the next climb on FarOut and thinking, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

More importantly, they don’t tell you what happens when you keep walking.

There’s always a point during a hard day when my mind starts negotiating with me. It tells me I’ve done enough. It starts making a very reasonable case for stopping early, setting up camp, eating everything in my food bag, and dealing with the remaining miles tomorrow.

Sometimes stopping is the right decision. The trail has taught me there’s a difference between discomfort and real danger. Weather can turn quickly. An injury can get worse. A deer fly bite can double the size of your knee and pull you off the trail and into an urgent care in Abingdon. Once you hike farther into the woods, you’re farther into the woods. There’s no prize for being too stubborn to make a smart decision.

Most of the time, though, I’m not in danger. I’m tired. My feet hurt. My clothes smell like something died in them. I’m sick of climbing, and the next mountain looks like bullshit.

So I keep walking.

That’s the part of hiking I’ve fallen in love with. Out here, the conversation with myself gets brutally honest. There’s nowhere to hide from discomfort and nothing around to numb it. I can’t skip ahead. I can’t buy my way out of the climb. I can’t promise a big tip the mountain into better service. The only way through is to keep putting one foot in front of the other and trust that eventually the trail will lead me somewhere.

Sometimes that somewhere is an incredible overlook. Sometimes it’s a wooden shelter full of mice. Sometimes it’s a wet patch of dirt where I’ll pitch my tent, crawl inside, and eat another high caloric bird seed bar. The trail doesn’t promise me the reward I pictured. It only gives me the next step.

The elevations listed above aren’t added together to calculate how much I’ve actually climbed. The real number is the cumulative gain from every climb and descent along the trail. The AT takes you up a mountain, drops you right back down, and then sends you up another one as if the first climb never happened.

By that math, I’ve climbed somewhere around 60,000 vertical feet since I started section hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Everest is 29,032 feet above sea level.

Obviously, that doesn’t mean I’ve literally climbed Everest twice. I didn’t battle the death zone, cross a ladder over a bottomless crevasse, or pay a small fortune to stand in line wearing an oxygen mask.

But my legs have climbed the vertical equivalent of Everest twice.

I didn’t do it in one heroic push. I did it over different sections, different seasons, beautiful mornings, violent storms, good decisions, bad decisions, strong days, and days when I questioned what the hell I was doing out here.

Honestly, I think I like that better.

Most of the meaningful things I’ve done in my life didn’t happen in one giant, heroic moment. They happened slowly. I got sober one day at a time. I rebuilt my life one decision at a time. I’ve learned who I am by putting myself in uncomfortable places and paying attention to what shows up.

The trail works the same way. Another mile, another mountain, another morning pulling on wet clothes, putting the pack back on, and heading north.

A man must leave home in search of adventure. In adventure, he finds danger. In danger, he fights his demons. Then he returns home to his true love more of a man than when he left.

I don’t need Everest. These mountains are teaching me everything I came looking for.

Adventure calls me.

I crave the Wild.

I think one of the biggest mistakes I made for years was believing I had to solve my life before I could actually live it.

I wanted to understand everything. Why I drank the way I drank. Why I thought the way I thought. Why I kept making the same mistakes. Why relationships were hard. Why everything I got my hands on fell apart. I treated my life like one giant knot that had to be untangled before I could finally relax.

The problem is, life doesn’t work that way.

The greatest things recovery ever gave me wasn’t sobriety.

It gave me a process.

And once I understood the process, I realized it had almost nothing to do with alcohol, and drugs.

When people first decide they want to work on themselves, they usually make the problem way too big. They want to figure out their entire childhood, every resentment they’ve ever carried, every relationship they’ve ever screwed up, every fear they have about the future, and every question they’ve ever had about purpose. It’s like standing at the base of a mountain wondering why you can’t see the summit.

You’re not going to figure out your entire life in one pass through this.

You’re not supposed to.

The point isn’t to solve your life. The point is to learn a process you can come back to for the rest of it.

That’s why I love the question, “What’s robbing your serenity today?”

Not your whole life.

Today.

What’s taking up so much space in your head that it’s stealing your attention from everything else? What’s the conversation you keep replaying? What’s the resentment that follows you to work, comes home with you, sits beside you at dinner, and climbs into bed with you at night?

The funny thing is, most of us already know.

I know exactly what it is.

I just don’t want to fucking look at it.

That’s been true more times than I care to admit.

I always thought the hard part was finding the problem.

It isn’t.

The hard part is becoming willing to stop running from it.

Recovery taught me that if I can get honest about the thing that’s robbing my serenity today, I don’t have to worry about solving the next ten years. I take care of today, and then tomorrow I do the same thing. Somewhere along the way those days start stacking up, and before you know it you’ve built a life that looks completely different than the one you were trying so hard to control.

That’s the process.

The more junk I cleared away, the bigger life got. Or maybe life didn’t get bigger. I just started noticing it.

Think about how insane this is.

We’re standing on a rock flying through space. Against every imaginable odd, we get one shot at this. We get sunrises. We get mountains. We get music. We get our kids. We get to fall in love. We get to laugh until we can’t breathe. We get to watch a thunderstorm roll in from the ocean or sit around a campfire with people we care about.

It should leave us in absolute awe.

Instead, we’re pissed because traffic is backed up.

Or because somebody cut us off.

Or because the line at the grocery store is moving too slow.

Meanwhile, a huge percentage of the world is wondering where their next meal is coming from.

That’s not a traffic problem.

That’s a perspective problem.

And I don’t say that because I’m perfect at this, but I am aware of it.

Hell, I still catch myself doing it all the time.

That’s exactly why I keep coming back to the process.

Because life has a way of slowly covering us back up. The Small Self creeps in. Fear creeps in. Resentments start piling up. We start believing every thought that pops into our head. We start carrying things that profit us in absolutely no way.

Then one day we’re irritated by everything and amazed by nothing.

That’s a terrible trade.

Who are you, really? And what is your purpose? And don’t answer that with your job, your title, what you’ve built, what you own, or what you’ve survived. Strip all of that away. If none of it existed, what’s left? Who are you underneath the inventory of your life?

I don’t think those are questions you answer once.

I think they’re questions you keep asking.

That’s what recovery has become for me.

Not a program to stop drinking.

Not a fixing tool.

A way of removing whatever is standing between me and the life that’s happening right in front of me.

Because I honestly believe the magic is right here.

It’s always been here.

We just spend so much time trying to solve our lives that we forget to look up long enough to notice it.

I believe that’s the whole deal.

We’re not here to figure everything out.

We’re here to wake up before it’s over.

I’ve always been fascinated by how quickly we assume the answer to almost every problem is more.

If I’m unhappy, I must need a different _________.

If I don’t feel fulfilled, maybe I need another toy, another vacation, another book, another accomplishment.

Somewhere along the way I fell victim to the idea that life is built through accumulation. Keep adding enough things, enough knowledge, enough money, enough experiences, and eventually you’ll arrive at the version of yourself you’ve always wanted to become. I believed that for a long time.

However, when I look back over the biggest turning points in my life, almost none of them came from adding something. They came from removing something.

Recovery was the first place I really saw that. When I got sober, my life was actually incredibly small. I’d wake up. Go to work. Grab a few drinks throughout the shift. Leave work and head to the bar. Drink until I black out. Then, wake up the next day and do it all over again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

From the outside, it didn’t look like I had accumulated much. Inside was another story. I’d spent years collecting resentments, fears, shame, excuses, stories about other people, stories about myself, selfish behavior I refused to acknowledge, and enough negative thinking to fill a dumpster. My mind was carrying a way bigger agenda than my life was.

Like most people, I assumed recovery would be about replacing all of that with positive thinking. Read motivational books. Listen to inspirational podcasts. Put sticky notes on the bathroom mirror reminding myself how awesome I was.

Instead, recovery handed me a shovel.

Before we start adding anything, let’s see what’s already buried in there. That meant getting brutally honest. Writing everything down. Organizing it. Looking at it without flinching. Then asking one simple question over and over again. Is this helping me build the life I want, or is it destroying it?

If it wasn’t serving me, I had to become willing to let it go. Not because someone told me to.

Because carrying it was killing me. That’s when I realized something I’ve continued to see everywhere else in life. Growth usually isn’t about addition.

It’s about subtraction.

Removing those old behaviors took big chunks out of the person I had spent decades calling Ben. People love talking about reinventing yourself because it sounds exciting. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s exhilarating. Other times it’s deeply uncomfortable. There were times where I honestly had no idea who I was anymore. The old version of me was disappearing faster than the new one was showing up. This can be an extremely painful place to be.

Oddly enough, there was one thing I could always come back to. I knew I was an alcoholic. It’s a strange thing to call grounding, but it was. Humbling. Honest. Safe. Everything else about my identity felt like it was under construction, but that one truth kept me from drifting too far while I figured out who I actually wanted to become.

The simplicity was a blessing.

Alcohol had made my world so painfully small that I finally became willing to change it. It forced me to slice away huge pieces of the person I thought I was making room for the person I was actually supposed to become. Then life started changing. Not slowly, either.

Things began accelerating. Relationships improved. Opportunities showed up. I found purpose. Before long I was running into a completely different problem.

There weren’t enough hours in the day.

I’m the kind of person whose brain starts working before my feet ever hit the floor. The second my eyes open, the task list begins printing like the ticket machine in a kitchen. Order after order after order after order.

The funny part is, I grossly enjoy being in the weeds. I like having too much to do. I’ve spent twenty-five years in hospitality. Somewhere between sixty and eighty hours a week wasn’t unusual. I wore those hours like a badge of honor. I believed that if I just kept my head down and worked hard, life would eventually reward me.

It didn’t.

I realized something that was uncomfortable to admit. I could work myself to death just as easily as I could drink myself to death. Different addiction. Same outcome.

After twenty-five years of grinding, I had very little to show for it financially. Sure, I had managed to support a hundred-dollar-a-day drug and alcohol habit, but you don’t exactly see waves of comfortably retired restaurant people riding off into the sunset. Hard work by itself wasn’t saving me.

Once again, I had to subtract.

Now, when that ticket machine starts firing first thing in the morning, but today I ask myself a different question.

What actually has to happen today?

Not this week.

Not this month.

Today.

Every single time, the list shrinks.

What felt infinite inside my head usually becomes six or eight meaningful things. Rarely more than ten. Everything else is noise.

Meditation has taught me exactly the same lesson. People sometimes ask me what I get out of sitting still for thirty minutes every morning. I don’t really think of it as gaining anything. I’m not trying to manufacture peace or force myself into some enlightened state.

If anything, meditation is another practice in subtraction. For thirty minutes I watch thoughts arrive without believing every one of them deserves my attention. I notice the urge to solve every problem before lunch. I watch fear show up. The fixer shows up. Planning shows up. Anxiety shows up.

And then, as best I can, I let them pass. I’m not adding peace. I’m removing everything that blocks it. Once enough of that noise quiets down, the peace was already there.

I see the same philosophy every time I pack for a backpacking trip.

People think ultralight backpacking is about becoming obsessed with ounces. They aren’t entirely wrong. I know exactly how much my tent weighs. My quilt. My stove. My pack. Every piece of gear gets scrutinized.

But it isn’t because I enjoy spreadsheets. It’s because every single item forces the same question.

Do I actually need this?

Not, Would this be nice to have?

Need.

It’s amazing how differently I answer that question at home packing up for a hike, than I do climbing a mountain ten miles from the nearest road. Every unnecessary item becomes another ounce on my back. Another decision. Another thing I have to carry uphill. Eventually you realize carrying less isn’t about deprivation. It’s about freedom.

Life isn’t much different.

We carry core beliefs long after they’ve stopped working. We carry expectations that belong to someone else. We carry commitments we should have walked away from years ago. We carry guilt, resentment, comparison, unfinished conversations, unfinished dreams, and stories about ourselves that expired a decade ago.

Then we wonder why everything feels so heavy.

I’m still working on this.

Walk into my house and you’ll find plenty of evidence that I haven’t mastered the accumulation of stuff. I still like gear. I still buy plenty of things I don’t need. I’m very much a work in progress.

But I’ve become convinced that the quality of my life has very little to do with what I add. It has everything to do with what I’m willing to lay down.

What can I remove that would make room for the life I’m actually trying to live?

If you’ve read much of my writing, you’ve probably noticed I keep circling back to the same underlying idea. I call it the small self nowadays. It’s that part of me that’s always lurking somewhere in the shadows of the human experience, quietly narrating my life. It’s the voice that compares, competes, seeks approval, worries about what other people think, and whispers that I’m somehow falling behind. For a long time I treated it like an enemy I needed to numb, or destroy. Today I don’t think that’s possible. I think it’s woven into what makes us human. I’ve stopped trying to kill it. Instead, I’ve learned to recognize it, accept that it’s there, and offer it a little grace without handing it the keys to my life. I think that’s where free will actually lives, not in whether the small self exists, but in whether I choose to surrender to it or rise above it. Every day presents the same choice. Some days I choose well. Other days I don’t. But awareness has made all the difference. I still notice it in small, almost mundane moments too. Look, I am wired to have too much of something. I have a bit of a problem hitting the Apple Pay button sometimes. It used to be constant, but now it comes in waves, though the awareness around it is still very much present.

Once I started paying attention to this part of myself, another question showed up that I couldn’t ignore.

Who benefits from my insecurity?

The more I dig into it, the more I realized that insecurity isn’t just an uncomfortable emotion. It’s one of the most valuable resources on Earth. Since the beginning of civilization, someone, somewhere, discovered that if you can convince people they’re incomplete, uncertain, or not enough, they’re remarkably easy to influence. They’ll buy certainty. They’ll buy belonging. They’ll buy status. They’ll buy beauty. They’ll buy safety. They’ll buy success. They’ll even buy salvation. The products change, but the business model stays surprisingly consistent.

I don’t think religion itself is the villain in this story. In fact, the older I get, the more appreciation I’ve developed for it. Anything that helps someone believe there’s something greater than themselves can be a beautiful thing. I think believing that we are not the center of the universe is one of the first real steps toward escaping the prison of the small self. Religion has offered millions of people hope, purpose, community, forgiveness, and a framework for living a meaningful life. Those are gifts worth acknowledging.

But put something beautiful in the hands of imperfect human beings, and eventually someone will find a way to profit from it.

Over thousands of years, organized religion stumbled onto one of history’s most durable business models. If people believe they’re separated from God, afraid of eternal consequences, and convinced that your institution alone holds the path back to salvation, they’ll come back week after week. They’ll donate. They’ll conform. They’ll recruit. They’ll defend the institution. They’ll stop asking difficult questions because being wrong suddenly carries unbearable consequences. History is filled with wars fought in God’s name, denominations convinced they alone possess the truth, and magnificent monuments built while ordinary people sacrificed everything to support them. None of that means religion is bad. It means human beings have always been remarkably talented at turning good things into systems that serve power alongside purpose.

The blueprint didn’t stay inside religion. They reiterated. It evolved.

Today the business model has become more sophisticated than ever. News organizations have learned that fear keeps us watching. If every headline feels like the end of civilization, we’ll come back tomorrow hoping someone will tell me everything is going to be okay. Advertisers remind me of everything I supposedly lack because dissatisfaction sells products. I don’t just need shoes anymore. I need the 9th version of the shoes. I don’t just need a watch. I need the watch that tells the world I’ve made it. Social media may have perfected the formula. Every swipe gives me another opportunity to compare my ordinary Sunday afternoon with someone else’s carefully curated highlight reel. Their vacation. Their relationship. Their body. Their career. Their house. Their happiness. My small self eats it up, always whispering that everyone else figured something out that I somehow missed.

The fascinating part is that none of these industries had to invent my insecurity. They simply learned how to monetize something that already existed.

That’s what makes awareness so powerful. The goal isn’t to become immune to insecurity. I don’t think that’s possible. My small self still wakes up every morning with me. It still wants approval. It still wants certainty. It still wants to compare, compete, and control. The difference is that I don’t automatically believe everything it tells me anymore. I’ve learned to pause before handing over my attention, my money, or my peace of mind.

Because once I realized my insecurity had become someone else’s product, I started protecting it differently.

I became more selective about what I consume. More skeptical of anyone promising to complete me. More willing to question whether I actually wanted something or whether my small self neeeeeeeeeeds it.

I still want to grow. I still want to become healthier, wiser, kinder, and more useful. But those desires come from a very different place. It feels  like following a genuine interest in who I want to become.

I don’t know if humanity will ever stop building businesses around insecurity. I doubt it. As long as fear exists, there will always be someone willing to sell it relief.

But I do know this.

The moment I became aware of the game, I stopped being quite so easy to play. And maybe that’s what freedom actually looks like.

We talk about comfort like it’s a good thing. Like if we work hard enough, someday we’ll finally earn the right to relax. But the older I get, the more I think comfort is one of the most expensive things we ever buy.

The strange part is that it never feels so costly when you’re paying for it.

Sleeping in instead of getting up for a walk feels harmless. Brushing the difficult conversation under the rug until next week feels reasonable. Staying in the job you secretly hate because the paycheck keeps showing up feels responsible. Waiting another year before making a big decision, changing careers, leaving a toxic relationship, or chasing the dream feels practical. None of those decisions hurt in the moment. In fact, they usually feel pretty good….back to the couch.

That’s why comfort is such a dangerous purchase.

It lets you walk away thinking you got something for free.

Then the taxman shows up.

Not tomorrow. Years later.

I’ve spent enough time on both sides of this equation to know the difference.

Getting sober wasn’t comfortable. Walking into recovery convinced I had completely destroyed my life wasn’t comfortable. Telling strangers the truth about myself wasn’t comfortable. There were days when I would rather die than show up again. But every uncomfortable day bought me a little more life than I had the day before.

Changing careers wasn’t comfortable either. Going three years without a paycheck, hoping my idea would come to fruition, was probably the most fear I’ve ever felt. Watching ideas fail. Completely starting over again and again after I thought I’d already figured a system out. Every meaningful chapter I’ve ever lived began with the sentence, I really don’t want to do this.

Even something as simple as hiking reminds me of it.

People see pictures from the top of mountains and imagine peace. They don’t see the five hours before that. The sweat running into your eyes. Your lungs burning on another endless climb. Your legs wondering why you’re voluntarily carrying thirty pounds uphill. Nobody stands on top of a summit wishing they could go back to the parking lot. The discomfort disappears almost immediately. The memory stays forever.

The regret works in the opposite direction.

I’ve never regretted having the hard conversation.

I’ve regretted waiting, sometimes decades, to have it.

I’ve never regretted going for the walk or the gym.

I’ve regretted another day spent on the couch telling myself I’d start tomorrow.

I’ve never regretted taking action.

I’ve regretted every year I spent waiting until I felt ready.

That’s the illusion comfort plays on us. It doesn’t ask for much today. Just one more day. One more excuse. One more cookie. One more year until the timing feels right. It’s always asking for something small, which makes it almost impossible to notice what you’re actually giving away.

Eventually, you stop making decisions based on what you want your life to become. You start making them based on what allows you to stay comfortable.

And after enough years, that isn’t just a habit.

It’s who you are.

You become someone who avoids discomfort without realizing that’s what you’re doing. You tell yourself you’re being realistic, careful, responsible, patient, or not interested. Sometimes you are. Sometimes those things are true. But sometimes they’re just different masks of fear.

Discomfort has a completely different payment plan. It asks for everything upfront.

Embarrassment.

Pain.

Fear.

Failure.

Uncertainty.

A good chance that you might look stupid.

But once you’ve paid that price, it rarely asks for anything else. The conversation is over. The workout is done. The rep becomes a muscle. The extra mile becomes on less pound of fat. The first day sober becomes the second. The first awkward attempt becomes muscle memory.

You paid once.

Comfort never stops collecting.

It compounds. Miss enough workouts, and one day your body can’t do the things it once could. Avoid enough honest conversations, and relationships slowly become polite instead of intimate. Keep putting off the dream, and eventually you stop talking about it because you’ve convinced yourself you never really wanted it anyway.

The tab keeps accumulating while you keep yourself distracted.

I don’t think the goal is to live an uncomfortable life. That sounds horrible. We all need rest. We all need peace. We all need moments where we put our feet up and enjoy what we’ve built.

But I do think we’ve confused comfort with safety.

The things that have made me feel most alive have almost never felt safe at the beginning.

They felt uncertain.

They felt awkward.

They felt difficult.

Then, somewhere along the way, they became home.

Comfort isn’t the prize waiting on the other side of life.

The right kind of discomfort is.

Because every life you admire was built by someone willing to be uncomfortable long before anyone saw the result.

Comfort isn’t free.

It’s often the most expensive purchase you’ll ever make.

(Part 3 of 3 — Mind, Body, Spirit on the AT)

This was probably the hardest part of the trail to write about because most of it happened in moments that don’t really fit neatly into words while you’re experiencing them.

The physical side is easy enough to explain. Your body hurts, you adapt, you keep moving. The mental side at least organizes itself into lessons eventually. But the spiritual side of something like the Appalachian Trail feels different because most of it sneaks up on you while nothing important appears to be happening at all.

And honestly, it started right when I took my first step.

Amanda and I walked together from the Springer Mountain parking lot to the southern terminus, the official starting point of the Appalachian Trail. Then we turned around and walked the approach back together to the parking lot where we said our goodbyes. She got back into the car to head home, and I walked off into the woods alone.

That was the moment it hit me.

Not excitement. Fear.

The kind where all the planning suddenly becomes real and you realize you’re actually walking off into the wilderness carrying everything you need on your back, hoping all the obsessive preparation clicks once the trail starts.

I was afraid of it all. Something failing. Gear not working. Skipping something I would desperately need or bringing too much of the things I didn’t. Injuries. Not finding water. Looking like a rookie. Realizing I wasn’t actually capable enough to do this. And underneath all of it was probably the awareness that once I walked away from that parking lot, I really wasn’t in control anymore outside of my ability to keep myself safe and alive.

And strangely enough, I think that’s part of what made the experience spiritual almost immediately.

Modern life gives us this illusion that we’re in control of everything all the time. Temperature-controlled homes, endless food, GPS, phones, schedules, constant self-induced stimulation, answers available instantly for almost any question we could possibly ask. The trail strips most of that away pretty quickly.

Out there, water matters.

Light matters.

Weather matters.

Your body matters.

Your judgment matters.

And after a while, something started happening that I honestly didn’t expect.

I started intuitively knowing things.

I could usually spot water sources before checking FarOut just by the grade of the land or changes in foliage around drainage areas. I started instinctively knowing when I needed fuel, salt, sugar, protein, or rest before I consciously thought about it. I would crave exactly what my body needed next, and most of the time it was right.

That became emotional for me in a way I didn’t expect.

It felt like there was some older operating system underneath all the noise of modern life that had been sitting dormant my entire life and finally got switched back on. And every time that intuition surfaced, it came with this overwhelming sense of connectedness.

Not in a blazing red baseball cap kind of way.

Not conquering anything.

Almost the opposite.

Like remembering I was part of it all.

One thing the woods make very clear is that nature does not need your observation to continue existing. There are entire ecosystems out there continuously running whether a human being passes through them or not. Trees fall. Moss grows. Streams move through valleys. Insects pollinate. Animals survive droughts. Life just keeps unfolding quietly whether anyone is there to witness it or not.

There’s something deeply humbling about that.

And then there were the little moments that somehow felt bigger than they should have.

One afternoon during the drought stretch, I stopped for lunch and a large moth landed directly on my chest and started drinking sweat through my shirt for hydration. Instead of brushing it away, I remember feeling genuinely grateful that I could somehow be useful to another living thing trying to survive the same dry conditions I was walking through.

Another morning I was hiking before sunrise with my headlamp on and crossed through this overgrown ridge where the undersides of all the leaves reflected the beam back down across the forest floor. The entire woods lit up in this glowing green illumination that honestly looked like something out of Life of Pi. I remember just stopping in my tracks staring at it.

And weirdly enough, I became extremely swallowed by the whole experience.

Partly because it was beautiful, but mostly because I couldn’t figure out what the purpose of any of it was other than beauty itself. It felt like this hidden masterpiece sitting deep in the woods that almost nobody would ever see, existing completely independent of whether a human being walked through to appreciate it or not.

Like maybe not everything needs to justify itself through productivity or usefulness or attention. Maybe some things exist simply because creation itself is enough.

Then there was the carpenter bee.

I was walking through an overgrown section of trail and accidentally startled this huge carpenter bee off a blade of grass it had landed on. It flew off erratically like I had interrupted its entire morning, then circled back around and bounced its big fat body directly into my face before flying away again.

And I swear the whole interaction somehow felt intentional.

Like, yeah, you scared me… but don’t get confused about who actually has the upper hand out here.

Those moments probably sound ridiculous written out loud.

But I really do think they only happen when you’re completely inside the experience itself. Fully present. Not distracted. Not rushing to the next thing. Not mentally somewhere else.

Actually there.

And maybe that’s what I was really looking for the entire time without fully realizing it.

Not accomplishment.

Not escape.

Just presence.

Because somewhere between the silence, exhaustion, simplicity, fear, pain, beauty, and repetition of walking every single day, my mind and body finally stopped pulling against each other long enough for something deeper to surface.

Not a voice.

Not some giant revelation.

Just a feeling that underneath all the noise of modern life, there’s still something very old inside all of us quietly waiting for us to slow down enough to hear it again.

Maybe that instinct never really leaves us. Nature just waits patiently for us to hear it again.

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”

- John Muir

At 47 years old, I’m probably in the best shape of my life, which honestly sounds ridiculous considering where I came from physically.

For most of my adult life, I was overweight. At one point I hit 300 pounds after years of treating my body like a public bathroom. Twenty-four years of heavy drinking, drugs, cigarettes, uppers, downers, late nights, kitchen stress, shitty sleep, fast food at midnight, and the general chaos that comes with living hard and fast for a long time.

And even after getting sober and losing the weight, none of it magically became easy.

People have this idea that once you “get healthy,” you just arrive somewhere and stay there. That hasn’t been my experience at all. I still have to work at it constantly. Diet, exercise, movement, recovery. There are still stretches where I drift a little, eat like an asshole for a few days, or get out of rhythm, but for the first time in my life I’ve found something sustainable enough to always come back to.

Walking became the center of that.

I love walking in a way that’s hard to explain to people who don’t. It feels natural to me. Almost primal. Like it’s one of the few things modern life hasn’t completely disconnected us from, or alter. Human beings were literally designed to move across land all day long, and somewhere along the way we replaced that with sitting in cars, staring at screens, and convincing ourselves we’re too busy to move our bodies.

So when I committed to hiking the Appalachian Trail, I didn’t just “prepare.” For maybe the first time in my life, I actually trained for something.

Which is funny considering I live in Charleston, South Carolina, where training to climb mountains basically means pretending parking garages and bridges are alpine terrain.

My routine became incline treadmills, stair steppers, step-down exercises for descents, loaded walks, outdoor walks multiple times a week, active recovery days, weighted vest training, and long walks carrying either a fully loaded backpacking pack or a 25-pound vest. I looked like an absolute royal goob crossing the Ravenel Bridge decked out in full backpacking gear with trekking poles while tourists casually walked by holding iced coffees, looking at me like I was lost.

But I was committed.

And honestly, by the time I got to Springer, I felt ready. Scared shitless, but ready.

What I didn’t understand yet was that trail fitness and regular fitness are not remotely the same thing.

Preparing for the Appalachian Trail is kind of like reading every baby book imaginable before becoming a parent. You can study, research, watch videos, buy gear, train your body, optimize nutrition, and convince yourself you understand what’s coming. Then they hand you the newborn and your brain completely leaves the chat.

That’s the trail.

Nothing fully prepares your body for carrying your life on your back over mountains for ten hours a day.

And the biggest surprise for me was that it wasn’t even the climbing that hurt.

Going up is hard because your lungs are screaming at you.

Going down is hard because the mountain is trying to drive your knees through your ankles.

The descents in Georgia were brutal. Just constant rollers. Up, down, up, down, up, down, over and over again while carrying multiple liters of water because daytime highs were hitting 84 to 87 degrees. Water weighs 2.2 pounds per liter, so with three-liter carries, food, gear, and everything else, the weight adds up quickly.

I went into the trip convinced my feet would be the weak point.

That fear made sense. I spent twenty-five years standing on concrete kitchen floors for ten to sixteen hours a day wearing the cheapest non-slip shoes I could afford. Kitchens absolutely wreck your body over time, and my feet have probably paid the highest price for that.

But the trail had other plans.

My feet actually held up pretty well.

Instead, my knees and shins started getting hammered from the descents. Every downhill felt like repetitive impact testing. Thousands and thousands of tiny braking motions stacking onto each other day after day.

And the crazy part is you still have to keep walking.

That’s one thing the trail teaches you really quickly. Discomfort isn’t an event out there, it’s just part of the environment. You wake up sore, hike sore, go to sleep sore, and then do it again the next day.

By the time I rolled into the NOC, things had gotten real enough that I wasn’t sure if I could continue.

The shin splints had gotten bad enough that I took a full zero day with my legs elevated and packed in ice trying to figure out whether I needed to call it and shuttle to Fontana, which was already my pickup location anyway.

That was probably the first real moment where the possibility of ending the trip became real in my head.

Not dramatic. Not emotional. Just practical.

Can the body keep doing this or not?

The next morning I woke up feeling significantly better. I KT taped my shins, which I honestly should’ve done towns earlier, adjusted my pace, and decided to take it easy the rest of the way in.

And that ended up becoming another lesson the trail kept teaching me over and over again.

Adapt early.

Your body softly asks for attention long before it screams.

The funny thing through all of this is that physically, I also surprised myself.

Even with the injuries, the soreness, the heat, and the miles, there was still a part of me that felt incredibly capable out there. Not because I was dominating the trail, but because I kept getting up and walking again every morning.

And underneath all the pain, I realized something pretty simple.

I genuinely love walking.

Not as exercise. Not as a fitness trend. Not because a watch tells me to hit ten thousand steps.

I love it because it feels connected to something older than all of us. Something human.

Every day on the trail, I had one responsibility.

Walk.

That was it.

Wake up and walk.

And somehow that simplicity made life feel clearer than it has in a long time. No emails, no meetings, no notifications, no noise. Just movement, weather, terrain, water, food, sunlight, pain, exhaustion, and another white blaze waiting up the trail.

It also happened to be the hardest and longest walk I’ve ever done in my life.

And thankfully, I’ve only got about 2,000 more miles to go.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about the first 167 miles of the Appalachian Trail without turning it into some long, drawn-out gear, and waypoint recap that even I wouldn’t want to read.

Because it really wasn’t just one experience.

It was a few different things happening at the same time, and trying to force all of that into one piece didn’t feel right. There was what was going on in my head, there was what my body was dealing with, and then there was the spiritual component, which is pretty easy to tap into in the woods when you’re pushing yourself, living off the land, and away from constant distraction. Then there was the deeper side of it that started showing up once my mind and body finally fell into unison.

So instead of forcing it, I’m breaking it up.

Mind, Body, and Spirit.

This one is the mental side of it—what I brought with me, what worked against me, and what started to change pretty early on.

⸻

There’s a version of me that shows up anytime I step into something I’ve decided I’m doing.

Not just focused or prepared, but borderline obsessive once something gets pushed into that “I’m doing this” column. I think about it, plan it out, run it through my head from every angle, and by the time I actually step into it, there’s already an expectation attached whether I realize it or not.

By day two, heading toward Blood Mountain, that version of me was fully in control.

Somewhere between planning the trip and actually being out there, preparation had quietly turned into expectation. And expectation, at least for me, almost always turns into some kind of internal competition.

Not with anyone else, just with myself.

Before Blood Mountain, I was pushing everything. Pace, breathing, effort. The kind of pushing where your body is clearly giving you feedback, and instead of listening, your mind just overrides it. You would think gasping for air or feeling your feet start to light up would be a pretty obvious signal to slow down or take a break.

That would be the logical move.

But that’s not how it was going.

In my head it was more like, let’s just get to lunch, you’ll stop then anyway. Or just get to the top and you can rest there. So I kept going, even when it didn’t really make sense anymore, just trying to hold onto a pace that I thought I should be able to maintain.

At some point during that climb I ran into a triple crown hiker who had completed the AT, PCT, and CDT multiple times over. He said a few simple things that stuck with me.

Gasping for air is never a good thing. It’s usually what you do right before you drown.

If you can’t catch your breath on a climb, you slow down. As slow as you need to. Even if that means moving at a pace that might feel a little ridiculous if someone was watching. And if people laugh, they laugh. You’ll end up passing them later while they’re the ones trying to recover.

There wasn’t anything complicated about it, but it was exactly what I needed to hear.

So I tried it.

Instead of pushing to the next stopping point, I slowed things down enough that I didn’t need to stop at all. I kept my breathing under control and just kept moving. No big surges, no crashes, just a steady pace that I could actually hold the entire way up.

Once I settled into that, things started to make more sense.

I realized I was putting less stress on my feet, taking fewer breaks, and actually moving more efficiently even though it felt slower. And when the trail leveled out, I still had something left. I could move, make up time, and not feel like I was constantly trying to recover.

More than anything, I noticed my head wasn’t buried in the climb anymore.

I was actually looking around. Taking it in. Not just trying to get through it, but actually being there for it.

And that’s probably the part that stuck with me the most.

Because it’s not just a trail thing.

It’s how I tend to move through everything.

Push from here to there, get to the next thing, earn the break, keep the pace, don’t fall behind. Always somewhere slightly ahead of where I actually am.

What I learned on that climb was that everything actually worked better once I stopped trying to overpower the mountain. I moved more efficiently, made fewer mistakes, didn’t burn myself out, and still got where I was going—if anything, a little faster.

But I also didn’t miss it.

And that’s the part I’m still working on bringing back with me.

Taking things a little slower, not in a lazy way, just in a way where I don’t run myself into the ground trying to get to the next checkpoint. Letting things unfold at a pace I can actually sustain.

Turns out you still get where you’re going.

You just don’t have to blow yourself up to get there.

I’ve been thinking about this for a bit now. And the thing I keep coming back to is this…

A lot of you reach out after reading these posts. Which, first off, I don’t take lightly. It’s honestly one of my favorite parts of writing here.

But there’s a pattern to those messages.

It usually starts with something like,

“Man, that hit,” or

“I’ve felt that exact same way before.”

And then somewhere in there, almost every time, comes the follow-up:

“What do you actually do when that happens?”

And the truth is… I haven’t really been answering that part.

Not because I don’t have an answer, but because I’ve always been careful not to turn this into me pretending I’ve got life figured out and handing out instructions like I’m standing at the front of a classroom.

That’s never been the point.

I’m just a guy who’s made a lot of mistakes, figured a few things out through trial and error, and is still very much in it—trying keep his shit together, trying not to drift too far off course.

But the more I’ve sat with it, the more I realize… I do have things I actually do.

Real things.

Not perfect, not polished, not always consistent, but things that help me when my head starts getting loud, when I feel off, when I’m slipping into old patterns, or just when life starts to feel heavier than it should.

And that doesn’t just live in the mental or emotional side of things.

A lot of you have asked about the more tangible stuff too—

my fitness routines,

how I actually eat,

how do you pack/plan a trip,

what my days look like when I’m trying to stay on track.

And I get it… on the surface, that stuff can sound a little boring.

“Here’s what I eat.”

“Here’s how I work out.”

But if you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know it’s never really just about that.

It’s about what’s going on underneath it.

The discipline, the resistance, the negotiation in your own head.

The days you don’t feel like doing any of it, but you do it anyway.

Or the days you don’t—and what happens after.

That’s the part I care about. That’s the part I’ll always write from.

So here’s the shift.

I’m not changing the way I write.

I’m not turning this into some polished, step-by-step life optimization newsletter.

What I am going to start doing is adding another layer to some of these posts:

I’m going to show you what I actually do with it.

The real-life application.

The routines.

The frameworks.

The thought processes.

The small things that keep me steady when everything else feels a little off.

Some of that will be part a paid side.

Not because I want to put a wall up, but because I want to create a space for the people who are asking those deeper questions and actually want to apply this stuff in their own lives.

If you’re here to read, reflect, and take what you need, nothing changes. That part will always be here.

If you want the specifics—the “how I actually do this day-to-day”—that’s what I’ll start building out on the paid side.

And I want this to be useful, not just something I think is useful.

So if there’s something you’ve been wondering about—

something specific you want me to break down,

whether it’s mindset, relationships, fitness, food, routines, any of it…

tell me.

Because chances are, if you’re thinking about it, someone else is too.

That’s it.

Just a small shift.

A little more depth.

A little more honesty around what this actually looks like in real life.

Appreciate you being here.

— Ben

A few therapy sessions ago, I got hit with something that stuck with me more than I expected. She told me that even though she knows I’m a sensitive guy—and yeah, we’ve definitely hit things in there that have had me crying like a baby—she said she doesn’t get a strong sense of outward warmth from me.

Ouch.

That one kind of lands in a place where you almost question what you’re paying this person for, but at the same time, I know better than that. Growth is usually hearing the hard things and being willing to actually look at them instead of defend against them.

And if I’m being honest, if warmth is really about empathy, compassion, and just a genuine, human, personal touch—when it’s appropriate—then yeah, this is something I struggle with. It’s something I work on, but when I try to show it, it often feels awkward, almost like I’m forcing something that should come naturally.

I rolled into my last session and she asked how my homework went from the week before, which was basically to find opportunities to show warmth. And I told her straight up, I felt like I failed. Not because the opportunities weren’t there, but because I couldn’t bring myself to follow through on them. What I did notice though is that I was now aware of them. I could see them happening in real time. I just couldn’t push it over the finish line.

And awareness is growth, I know that, but it still left me sitting there asking myself… what’s the hold up?

That’s when we got into something deeper. The idea that because of things that have happened in my life, there are parts of my character—real parts of me—that I’ve exiled. Not gotten rid of, just pushed down and decided they weren’t safe to bring into the world.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Because I’ve always thought of myself as an authentic person. I mean, for God’s sake, I have “to thine own self be true” tattooed around my neck. But I’m starting to realize that even that can become something you hide behind if you’re not careful.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last nine years of really trying to understand myself, it’s that the answers to most of our problems are buried in the lies we tell ourselves. And one of mine might be that I’ve been fully authentic this whole time.

Because the truth is, who I am today is a mashup of everything I’ve experienced, every room I’ve walked into, every version of myself I’ve had to become to survive or fit in or protect something. So if I really want to get honest, I have to go back. Way back.

I started asking myself, how can I be sensitive, but not warm?

Because I do feel things. I spend a lot of time in my head thinking about other people. Not worrying necessarily, but replaying conversations, thinking about what they’re going through, what’s stressing them out, what might help, what might make them smile. I feel their pain because I get it. Life can be a real shit sandwich sometimes. And recovery taught me that I can’t change that path for anyone, just like nobody could change it for me.

But even with all of that going on internally, I struggle to actually express it. It’s easy for me to give Amanda a hug, but with other people, it feels different. It’s hard for me to put a hand on anyone’s back and just say, “I’m right there with you,” even if that’s exactly how I feel.

And the crazy part is, I want that connection more than anything.

So I started looking at where this all began.

I’ve always chalked it up to this moment in my life where something kind of fractured and I decided, fuck it, I’m not going to play this game anymore. I’m not going to try to fit in. Society can do whatever it wants, I’m going to live on the fringe and go against the grain.

For a long time, I thought that was me being authentic. But if I’m really honest, isn’t that still completely driven by what other people think? It’s just the inverse of it.

Because before that, I was just a kid trying to belong. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I think that’s actually the most natural thing in the world.

And when I really go back, there were parts of me that existed before all of that got complicated.

I was imaginative. I played with toys way longer than I probably should have, at least according to everyone else, and yeah, I got ridiculed for it. But there was something real there that I didn’t protect.

I had this sense of wonder about everything, especially nature. I could go down rabbit holes about how things worked or where they came from and just get completely lit up by it.

I was playful. I liked to play in a way where imagination was the whole point. I was also a goofball. Just silly for no reason.

And somewhere along the line, those things stopped feeling safe.

So I shut them down.

And in their place, other parts of me showed up to protect them. Wonder turned into logic. Play turned into seriousness. Creativity turned into needing to look like I had everything under control.

I became the guy who had his shit together instead of the kid who was curious about everything.

And now I’m starting to see that all of those original traits—the ones I pushed down—those are the exact traits that would actually create warmth in my life if I allowed them back in.

But to do that, I have to be willing to be seen again in a way that doesn’t feel controlled.

And that’s the uncomfortable part.

Because it’s one thing to feel something internally, it’s another thing to express it out loud or through touch or presence and risk it not being received the way you hoped.

But I think that’s the work.

Not becoming someone new, but allowing myself to return to who I was before I decided those parts weren’t acceptable.

Because if I’m being honest, that version of me… the one with imagination, wonder, play, and softness… that kid was warm.

And I think he’s still in there.

I’ve just spent a long time keeping him locked up.

For most of my life, I thought the seven deadly sins were some old religious idea meant to scare people into behaving.

Lust. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Wrath. Envy. Pride.

They sounded dramatic. Medieval. Like something that belonged in a history book rather than modern life.

But the older I get, the more I realize they weren’t just warnings about how we treat other people. They’re also a surprisingly accurate map of how we sabotage ourselves.

I recently read The Mountain Is You, and I loved the way it breaks down self-sabotage. The premise is simple but uncomfortable: the biggest obstacles in our lives are often not external. More often than not, the obstacle is us.

When I started thinking about that idea through the lens of the seven deadly sins, something clicked for me. Most of these sins line up almost perfectly with what many recovery communities call character defects. They show up in behaviors that ripple outward and harm the people around us, but they also quietly pull us away from our own potential.

They keep us small.

Not because we’re bad people, but because they distract us from doing the work required to become who we’re capable of becoming.

Take envy, for example.

Jealousy is one of the easiest emotions to justify. We tell ourselves we’re just noticing unfair advantages or bad luck. But if I’m being honest with myself, envy usually looks like someone else living a life I want while I sit there frustrated that they have it.

Instead of studying the recipe, we criticize the chef.

Instead of asking what they did to build that life, we focus on why they don’t deserve it. The energy that could be used to create something ends up being wasted on resentment.

Sloth is a little sneakier. Most of us picture laziness as someone lying on the couch all day, but that’s not how it usually shows up in real life. Sloth is knowing exactly what would improve your life but choosing comfort instead. It’s putting off the call, skipping the workout, avoiding the conversation you know you should have.

Sloth is the voice that says, “I’ll get to it someday.”

The problem is that someday never comes.

Pride is the one that kept me stuck for the longest time. For years I thought asking for help meant weakness. I thought admitting I didn’t have something figured out somehow made me less capable.

Recovery taught me the opposite.

Asking for help isn’t just efficient. It isn’t just smart. It’s powerful. The moment I stopped pretending I had everything under control was the moment my life actually started to move forward.

Wrath is another one that can feel justified. Something doesn’t go our way, someone disrespects us, or life feels unfair, and anger shows up quickly. But for people like me, wrath rarely stays as anger for long.

It turns into resentment.

And resentment is poison. It quietly sits inside your life, contaminating everything—your perspective, your relationships, even your peace of mind. The cruel part is that resentment rarely hurts the person you’re angry with. Most of the time it just ends up hurting you.

Greed isn’t always about money. Sometimes it shows up as the constant need for recognition, validation, or status. The tricky thing about greed is that it’s never satisfied.

Its gut is bottomless.

There is never enough more.

Gluttony shows up in modern life as excess. Too much food, too much alcohol, too much scrolling, too much distraction. Anything that numbs us from sitting still long enough to face ourselves.

The problem with gluttony is that you can always find more.

And if you’re not careful, more will eventually kill you.

Even lust, which people often reduce to sexual desire, is really about chasing intensity instead of meaning. It’s the urge to pursue the next thrill, the next rush, the next distraction that promises to make life feel exciting again.

But thrills fade quickly.

Purpose tends to last longer.

What fascinates me about all of these is that they share the same root. At their core, every one of them is tied to wanting. Wanting more validation, more pleasure, more recognition, more comfort, more control.

All forms of wanting.

Even when life has already supplied everything we truly need.

That said, none of these traits are inherently wrong. In fact, we need some of them to survive. Desire motivates us. Pride can help us stand tall. Anger can protect us. Ambition pushes us forward.

So give yourself some grace.

There would be no growth without these forces inside us.

The goal isn’t to eliminate them. It’s simply to notice when they start steering the wheel.

Because the mountain standing in front of us is rarely the real obstacle.

More often than not, the mountain is us.

For the last nine months I’ve been meditating every morning for thirty minutes. I can count on two hands the number of days I’ve missed, and on the days that I do miss it, I feel like I forgot to brush my teeth. Something just feels off. If you had asked me two years ago about meditation, I would have told you I couldn’t do it. You know the line people always say — “my brain won’t shut off”? That was me. Meditation wasn’t what got me sober, and it certainly wasn’t a prerequisite for getting sober, but somewhere along the road I knew it was something I needed to start trying in one way or another.

Looking back, my idea of meditation was completely wrong. I thought meditation meant sitting with your legs twisted into a pretzel, clearing your mind completely, and floating off to some enlightened place where the whole house could burn down around you and you’d just sit there with a little half smile on your face. Turns out that’s not meditation — at least not the way most of us experience it. If you asked a million people what meditation is, you’d probably get a million different answers, and I think that’s exactly what meditation actually is. It’s infinite, and the practice is trying to connect with that.

Before going any further, I should probably say this: I’m a pretty spiritual guy. But to keep this post from turning into me rattling off saints, monks, and gurus, I’m going to try to keep this as practical as possible. And for those of you who like your practicality backed up by data, I’ve actually been tracking this entire stretch with my Oura ring. Over the last nine months my readiness score has climbed from the mid-70s into the mid-80s most mornings, my sleep score regularly sits in the high 80s or low 90s, and my HRV has nearly doubled from where it was when I started. I’m not saying meditation is the only reason for that, but it’s the biggest change I’ve made during that time, and the numbers seem to agree that something good is happening.

For me right now, meditation is the practice of disconnecting from myself, or more specifically disconnecting from the voice in my head. You know the one. The voice that says meditation won’t work. The voice that wants to talk about everything while you’re trying to sit still.

When I first started meditating, I thought I was failing. I would sit there trying to be calm and quiet and my brain would immediately start firing off like a radio stuck between stations. Did you send that email? What are you going to say on that call today? Did we run out of milk? Did you feed the dogs? That guy yesterday was acting like a real piece of shit. And what the hell was that jacket he was wearing? What a douche bag. And the guy that rode my ass in traffic yesterday and honked at me — who the hell does he think he’s messing with? Cue the movie scene where I’m kicking his ass on the side of the road. That was the first minute. No wonder I quit before. Who wants to sit and listen to that shit?

No matter how emotionally healthy you think you are, try this experiment. Sit alone with no phone and no distractions and just be with yourself for five minutes. If you’re feeling brave, extend it to twenty. And if you want to beg someone to hand you a gun so you can end the misery, try an hour. That voice is relentless. And of course it tells you that you can’t meditate and that it’s never going to work. But remember something — that’s the voice saying that.

Which leads to a pretty interesting question. If I want to meditate and the voice says I can’t, who the hell is that voice? Because it’s definitely not me. For most of my life I thought it was. I reacted to it. I followed it. I let it run the whole show. How could it not be me? It’s literally inside my head. But about three months into meditating something started to change. In the beginning I was thinking the thoughts, then I started listening to them. Once I started listening, I noticed something that was pretty disturbing — that voice rarely has anything good to say. I mean extremely rarely. If another person talked like that all day long, I guarantee I wouldn’t hang out with them. I would stay as far away from them as possible. Yet somehow I’d been carrying that voice around in my head my entire life.

Around the three-month mark something strange happened. The voice stopped, at least for a little while. It was like the tank ran empty. Like it had nothing left to say. Like it realized I wasn’t interested anymore and I wasn’t listening. And in that quiet moment something happened that’s hard to explain. It felt like a lightning bolt hit the top of my head and ran straight down my spine, and then there it was — complete peace. Not forced calm or pretending to be relaxed, just silence. What a person becomes when they get on the other side of that voice and realize there’s a whole other side of them without it.

From that moment on meditation stopped feeling like something I had to do because I said I would. I started craving it. I felt less without it. Something just felt off when I didn’t sit. Then I started to see something even more interesting happen. The peace I could touch during those thirty minutes began to bleed into the rest of my day.

It started showing up in small moments. When someone cut me off in traffic, instead of building a whole revenge movie scene in my head, sometimes I’d just let it go. When someone said something that normally would have set me off, there was suddenly a pause — just enough space to respond instead of react. In the middle of the chaos of my day, whether that’s running businesses, dealing with problems, or trying to keep a dozen things moving at once, I noticed I wasn’t carrying every situation like it was a personal attack anymore. With my kids it meant slowing down enough to actually hear what they were saying instead of half-listening while my mind was somewhere else.

It even started changing the way I talked to myself. That voice that used to run nonstop commentary — criticizing, judging, replaying every mistake — started losing its authority. It was still there, but it wasn’t driving the car anymore.

Everything started to feel a little slower. A little softer.

The voice hasn’t disappeared completely. It still shows up. Sometimes it ruins the first ten minutes of a meditation session. Sometimes it still gets me worked up about things I can’t control. Sometimes it still wants me to judge people instead of understanding them. But one thing is completely clear now — that voice isn’t me.

And if my life has changed this much in nine years without a drink, I can only imagine what it might look like in nine years being separated from that voice.

I didn’t wake up one day and decide to hike the Appalachian Trail.

Years ago, I worked with a guy who dropped everything and thru-hiked the AT. When he came back, we’d sit around after shifts and listen to him talk. Not because the stories were wild. They weren’t. We listened because he sounded alive.

That stuck with me for decades.

At the time, I wasn’t doing great. I was in active alcoholism. Running a great restaurant on the outside and completely underwater everywhere else. Broke as hell. Behind on child support. Juggling utilities. Always doing mental math about what could get paid late without everything shutting off. I worked nonstop. I drank nonstop. Inside, I was dead.

I remember listening to him and thinking, I’ll never do something like that.

Not because I didn’t want to.

Because my life felt too effed up to even consider it.

For years, the trail kept showing up. Online. In documentaries. Every time I stepped onto a trail or looked at the mountains. It wasn’t chasing me. It just kept appearing.

A Walk in the Woods somehow became my nightly reading a few years back without me ever setting out to read a “trail book.” I didn’t even clock it at the time. It just slid into my life and stayed there.

All these little winks, but the small voice always returned. Life was never going to let me disappear for months and hike the whole thing in one shot. That was obvious. But the idea didn’t go away. It just sat on the shelf, waiting.

Fast forward.

Sobriety. Stability. Rebuilding everything from the ground up. Still busy. Still responsible. Still a full life.

Then last November, out of nowhere, the thought popped into my head.

This time, crystal clear.

That’s it. I’m doing it.

No back-and-forth. No pros and cons list. No inner debate. The decision landed.

There was one conversation I did have. I talked it through with Amanda. Because this is a big deal. Because this is a real marriage with a real life attached to it. I told her what I wanted to do. Two fifteen-day stints a year. Hike as far as I can. Come home. Go back when life allows.

She didn’t roll her eyes. She didn’t ask me to sell it. I think she understood.

She’s graciously giving me thirty days a year to disappear into the woods, spend a bunch of money, and live like a homeless person on purpose. That’s what this is. No spin. No romance.

I don’t take that lightly.

I think she’s okay with it because she knows this matters to me, and she knows what doing hard, meaningful things does for people—and how they show up in the rest of their lives.

I’m grateful for that. For her trust. For her patience. For being willing to carry some of the weight so I can carry a pack.

This isn’t something I’m doing alone, even if I’ll be walking alone most of the time.

Then the fun part.

Gear. Research. Logistics. I wasn’t trying to talk myself into it or out of it. I was just getting ready to go.

I haven’t stepped foot on the trail yet. I don’t know what April is going to be like. I know the weather won’t care about my plans. I know things will go sideways. That’s fine.

I’m not hiking the Appalachian Trail to prove anything. I’m not chasing a finish line or a title. I’m doing it because it’s been sitting in my life for years, showing up quietly, and one day the answer became obvious.

Day after day. Walk. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Carry what matters. Let the rest fall away.

That guy I worked with didn’t inspire me in the traditional sense. He didn’t change my life. He just showed me, at a time when I was dead inside, what aliveness sounds like.

I didn’t think I was capable of that back then.

Turns out, I was just listening to the wrong voice.

I don’t know what the trail will take from me.

I just know this—when something keeps showing up in your life for years, and one day you finally answer it, ignoring that would be a disservice to life.

So I’m going.

What does money mean to you?

Not the answer you give out loud.

Not the one that sounds reasonable and responsible.

The real one you feel in your chest when rent goes up, groceries creep higher, or a number in an account suddenly changes.

Who are you when there isn’t enough of it?

Who do you become when there’s too much?

And how much is enough before it starts owning instead of providing for you?

I’ve lived on all sides of it.

I’ve been broke in a way that strips your freedom down to one option: work. Work more. Work harder. Work desperate. And still come up short. That kind of broke isn’t character building. It’s disorienting. Financial hopelessness is powerful. It doesn’t just stress you out; it wears you down. It gives you horse blinders. It makes your days transactional and nights escape routes. It got me chasing numbing agents that didn’t even make sense financially. Cheap relief with long term consequences.

When money is scarce, it takes more than comfort. It takes choice. You’re not deciding who you want to be.  You’re reacting to pressure. Survival mode doesn’t make you weak, but it makes you smaller. Less patient. Less generous. Less able to think beyond the next pop of relief.

Then there’s enough.

Enough is the part no one brags about. The middle ground. The sweet spot. Enough loosens the rope around your neck without letting you forget what it felt like when it was tight. Enough lets you breathe. Enough still allows you to appreciate a splurge. Enough keeps you grounded, and awake to your life.

That balance shouldn’t be taken for granted. Especially now.

Because the world is getting better at outpricing the people who live in it. Housing, food, healthcare, education, basic human dignity is being auctioned off while everyone else is told to grind harder inside a maze that doesn’t have an exit. It’s not laziness. It’s math. And the math is getting worse every year.

Then comes the most confusing.

Too much.

Not BDE money. Not yachts and private jets. Just enough to change how you feel inside your own skin. Just enough to let the fear creep in. You stop worrying about how to survive and start worrying about how not to lose. I was afraid I’d fuck it up myself. Afraid I’d become dependent on something I’d lived most of my life without. Afraid that if the number disappeared, I wouldn’t know who I was without it.

That’s the part no one warns you about.

Money gives you options, then asks which one you’re afraid to lose. It calls that security.

The lie is simple and persistent: more will fix you.

It won’t.

People create impact at every income level. Growth isn’t gated by wealth. Healing doesn’t require a certain number. Meaning isn’t locked behind a paywall. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.

What money can do, when you don’t confuse it with identity, is act as a tool. Nothing more. Nothing sacred.

A tool that removes friction.

A tool that buys back time. Not to escape life, but to show up for it.

Time to take care of your body.

Time to sit with your mind instead of running from it.

Time to be present as a father, a partner, a human being who isn’t constantly outsourcing their soul to a paycheck.

So I keep it in its place.

A tool.

A lever.

A means. Not a meaning.

Used well, it gives you room to live with intention and contribute to the stream of life, instead of drowning in it. Used poorly, it becomes just another thing you chase while life slips past you.

The fall of the Benjamins is realizing it was never all about the Benjamins.

I grew up with one pair of shoes.

Age zero to eighteen, one pair at a time, worn beyond reason. Holes, duct tape, frayed laces, the whole survival mode starter kit. There wasn’t a backup pair. Backup wasn’t a word in my vocabulary.

From eighteen to forty, nothing really changed. I had my one pair of shoes that I wore everyday, and my kitchen shoes. That was the whole situation. And I never had a pair of “nice shoes” for weddings or funerals, mostly because I wasn’t invited to either, and even if I had been, I would’ve shown up in whatever I already owned.

There’s that line in Shawshank Redemption:

Andy Dufresne walked out of prison wearing the warden’s perfectly polished shoes, and Red said, “I mean, really, how often do you actually look at a man’s shoes?”

Exactly. Nobody was looking at mine.

So here’s the part that still blows my mind:

I counted the other day.

I now own 14 pairs of shoes.

Fourteen.

That’s two pairs for every day of the week for a guy who spent most of his life getting by with one. And that got me thinking:

If I only need one pair, who are the other thirteen for?

Because it sure as hell isn’t me.

There’s a global addiction no one wants to talk about. Somewhere along the way, we got pulled into the gravity of consumerism. Not just buying what we need, but buying things that signal something. Things that tell the world who we want them to think we are.

It stopped being who we are and started being what we have.

That’s the story I bought into without even realizing it.

A nicer house.

A newer phone.

A louder car.

Fourteen pairs of shoes for a guy built on one.

And it still surprises me how normal it all started to feel. How easy it was to forget that none of this was ever required.

Meanwhile…

A huge percentage of the world doesn’t know when their next meal is coming.

Hundreds of millions don’t have clean water, electricity, transportation, or safety.

There are people who would kill for what’s inside our trash cans.

That’s a reality that should hit us every time.

And yet we get frustrated because:

The WiFi was slow.

A package didn’t get delivered on time.

The traffic is moving to slow, with no where to go.

A restaurant took too long.

A flight got pushed twenty minutes.

Things that wouldn’t even register for someone who’s just trying to survive the day. I don’t write any of this to preach. I write it because I need the reminder too.

I need to constantly remember where I came from. I need to remember what actually mattered back when I had less. I need to remember how blessed my life is today.

When I look at those shoes lined up in my closet, I don’t see status.

I see perspective.

I see how easily I can drift into wanting more, even when I have enough. I see how much of my life today would’ve looked like a miracle to the kid with one pair of duct-taped shoes.

And I see how lucky I am to have problems that aren’t life-or-death.

Most of all, I’m reminded to be grateful deeply, intentionally grateful for the blessings in my life.

Fourteen pairs of shoes for a guy who only needs one.

Everything else is a distraction.

And today gratitude is the attitude that keeps me grounded in what matters.

Every time I come to New York, I tell myself the same lie: I’m just here for a couple days. In and out. Keep it simple.

And then the second my feet hit the sidewalk, I’m out here acting like the happiest tourist alive.

Everyone who visits this city tries to pretend they’re from the city. They throw on the fast walk, pretend they know the subway like the back of their hand, talk about “their spots,” and try to blend in like they’re lifelong New Yorkers.

But let’s be honest — if you weren’t born here and raised here your entire life, you don’t know this place. You’ve barely scratched the surface. Nobody should take themselves that seriously.

So I embrace it.

I’m a fucking tourist.

And I absolutely love it.

John’s of Bleecker — Starting the Trip Off Right

We kicked things off with John’s of Bleecker, which might be the most confident pizza place on earth. The giant “NO SLICES” signs say everything you need to know: Sit down, commit to a full pie, and stop wasting our time.

Real New York energy.

And the pizza? Unreal. Whole pie, blistered crust, proper sausage, the kind of bite that makes you forget every average slice you’ve ever eaten in your life. It’s tradition without trying to be nostalgic. It just is.

The Subway — The Great Equalizer

Too cold up top, retreat to the subway. I love it down there. It’s loud, chaotic, smells like… New York, and somehow makes you feel completely anonymous in the best way.

Nobody cares who you are.

Everybody’s going somewhere.

You just get swept up in it.

It’s the opposite of Charleston, where you can’t go anywhere without running into someone who knows you. Down here, you disappear into a crowd of a million moving stories, and there’s something grounding about that.

The Summit — Worth the Nausea

Then we went up to The Summit, which is basically a giant glass box suspended in the sky designed to test whether you truly trust architecture.

Let me be clear: heights make me sick. Being that far off the ground flips my stomach, locks up my legs, and forces me to make peace with every life decision I’ve ever made. My brain immediately goes, “This glass better be NASA-level.”

But the views? Man… they’re worth every ounce of nausea.

It’s the same feeling as those gross pimple-popping videos — you’re disgusted, your whole body tenses up, and yet you can’t look away. You actually go back for more. That’s The Summit. I hate it and I love it, and I’ll absolutely do it again.

And watching Amanda up there, calm and content while I’m internally negotiating with gravity, was peak relationship energy.

The Chrysler Building — Still My Favorite

You can keep the brand-new towers. The Chrysler Building still wins. It’s tough, elegant, old-school, futuristic, and doesn’t need anyone’s validation. It’s the New York version of confidence: sharp, iconic, timeless.

I take a photo of it every time I’m here. I’m not ashamed.

Bagels, Markets, and Letting the City Lead

We hit Zabar’s for an everything bagel with lox — the works. Somehow it tasted like dessert even though it’s breakfast. New York bagels don’t need defending; they defend themselves.

From there, we wandered Chelsea Market. No agenda. No schedule. Just walking, looking, eating little things, smelling food from all over the world. It’s the type of place you could spend hours in doing absolutely nothing productive and feel great about it.

Then we made our way through the Union Square Holiday Market, which turns the city into a holiday movie set. Lights, vendors, handmade gifts, hot drinks — you name it. Great spot to get hyped up for Christmas.

New York right before Christmas is magic. Messy, cold, crowded magic.

The Best Part: Seeing My Son

The real highlight of this trip wasn’t the food or the views — it was seeing my son Nathan.

He’s basically living up here now, building his modeling career, figuring out life in one of the hardest cities on the planet. And he’s doing a damn good job at it.

Seeing him navigate this place with confidence at his age made me proud in a way I’m still processing. There’s something powerful about watching your kid step away back into his own life, especially in a city that demands growth.

It made the whole weekend mean more.

Why I Keep Coming Back

I love New York.

I love the streets, the chaos, the neon, the random conversations, the food, the markets, the noise — all of it.

And most of all, I love the freedom of being a tourist here.

Of not pretending to be anything I’m not.

Of wandering with curiosity instead of ego.

Because that’s the real magic of this place:

It doesn’t ask you to be a New Yorker.

It just asks you to pay attention.

And I’m happy to do exactly that.

I used to think being self-reliant was my superpower. Turns out, it was my downfall — warped enough to look like confidence, insidious enough to keep me alone.

So there I was, standing at the crossroads of yet another self-improvement rabbit hole, and it hit me — we’ve basically built a whole religion around the idea of doing everything ourselves.

Let’s call it The Cult of Self-Reliance.

The scripture? Figure it out on your own.

The fellowship? Just you and your shadow.

I baptized myself into that cult early. My dad drove away one day, and I learned not to expect anyone to show back up. My mom did her best, but we moved so often that by the time I’d start getting comfortable somewhere, we were already packing boxes again. That kind of instability trains you to stop depending on people. You start quietly crossing names off a list in your head — people, places, any kind of safety net. By the time I hit my teens, the list was damn near empty.

Then came the betrayals — friends talking behind my back, girls leaving, bosses who sold the ghost and never delivered. Each one chipped away at the idea that anyone could be counted on but me. Before long, I’d become completely self-reliant. If I wanted something done, I’d do it myself. That became the motto. It sounded like bravado, but it was really fear.

Here’s the thing — when you stop trusting others to do things for you or with you, you start relying only on yourself to get everything done. In the grown-up world, that mindset turns into one of two things: an incessant fixer who can’t stop jumping in to solve everyone else’s problems, or someone who can’t delegate to save their life. Either way, it’s exhausting — for you and for everyone around you.

Fast-forward a couple of decades, and that mindset had hardened into a way of life. I didn’t ask for help. I didn’t trust anyone with the details. I carried everything — the responsibility, the pressure, the secrets, the shame. And when the drinking came along, it fit right in. Isolation loves company, and alcohol makes a hell of a lover when you’re trying to keep the world out. Before long, I wasn’t part of the cult — I was the cult leader.

What I didn’t see back then was how self-reliance had stopped being a survival skill and turned into a prison. It made me good at surviving, but terrible at connecting. People weren’t people anymore; they were tools, obstacles, or threats. Everything became mechanical. Everything was a transaction. The more I tried to control, the lonelier I got.

It took losing almost everything to see it clearly. Somewhere between the bottom of a bottle and the end of another burned bridge, I realized the walls I’d built for protection had become my own prison.

These days, I still believe in showing up for myself — that part doesn’t change. But I’ve learned that real strength isn’t in doing everything yourself. It’s in letting people in, even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s in admitting that you can’t fix everything on willpower alone. It’s in asking for help, not because you’re weak, but because you finally understand you’re human.

I had to uncross those names. One by one.

Dad. Mom. Friends. The universe. Myself.

And start believing that maybe people aren’t meant to be self-contained systems. We’re meant to hold each other up. It always takes a village.

So yeah — I still catch myself slipping back into the cult from time to time. Old habits die hard. But now I know how to find the exit when I do. It always starts with three simple words that used to terrify me: I need help.

Self-reliance can be a survival skill, and it can serve us well — until it doesn’t. There’s nothing wrong with being strong, but real strength sometimes means letting others help carry the load.

If you see a bit of yourself in this old cult of mine, just know it’s never too late to uncross a few names and let a little trust in. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is admit you can’t do it all alone. And trust me — there’s a whole lot of strength in that surrender.

If you ever get really vulnerable with another person — if you ever just completely open up and say it, the last thing you’d ever want to say — the thing you’re secretly terrified everyone already knows — it usually comes down to one fear.

I’ve talked with scores of people in settings that were brutally honest and stripped of pretense. People who had nothing left to hide. And at the center of all those conversations, there’s one fear that rules them all — it’s woven right into the human experience, like it’s stamped into our DNA. Maybe we’re born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline.

Here it is: I’m not good enough.

Have you ever sat back and asked yourself, what would my life look like if I hadn’t talked myself out of that thing? Asking that girl to dance. Saying yes instead of playing it safe. Not taking that drink when everyone else did. What person would I have become if I didn’t listen to that voice in my head — the one that robs every precious moment where I could’ve stepped up, but was just too scared to do it?

Hear me out — I’ve lived most of my life in a state of missed opportunity.

I’ve told myself more times than I can count: You’re gonna fuck it up, so why even try?

They don’t want to talk to you.

You’ve got nothing to offer.

You’ll just screw this kid up anyway.

You’ve got nothing to bring to this relationship.

On the other hand, I’ve done some pretty miraculous things. I’ve suited up and shown up for people, even when it was hard. I’ve built businesses. I’ve transformed my body. I’ve transformed my entire life. I have actual historical data that I am good enough.

But still — that voice remains. It whispers, “Don’t go down there, man. You ain’t got what it takes.”

In fact, I’ve never talked myself out of something big and ever felt good about it.

So who is this voice?

It can’t be me. I like challenging myself. I like excitement. I want to live a big, full, meaningful life. I’d never let anyone talk to me the way the voice in my head talks to me. So who the hell is it?

My intention isn’t to play small or run from the big moments. My intention is to live big and be the fucking hero. To kick the goddamn winning field goal every time and stand in the middle of the field with my hands in the air.

So why would I ever talk myself out of that? Why does that voice permeate everything?

If it’s not me — then who the hell is it?

Who the hell did I let move in up there?

And why the hell am I still listening to them?

Maybe that voice showed up early on, back when I didn’t know any better.

It probably meant well. It told me to keep my head down, stay out of trouble, don’t risk being laughed at. And for a while, maybe that worked. But at some point, it stopped protecting me and started limiting me. It learned how to sound like reason when it’s really just fear.

It’s wild how something that old can still run the show. Every time I start to push forward—start something new, fall in love, speak up, take a swing—it’s right there telling me not to. And even with all the proof that I can handle hard things, I still catch myself listening.

If I didn’t have this fear of not being good enough, would the big things even feel big?

Would they still hit the same way when I pull them off? Probably not.

The fear makes the moment matter. It reminds me I’m alive, that something’s at stake.

Every so often, I catch that voice trying to talk me down, like an overprotective parent saying, “Don’t do it, you’ll get hurt.” And sometimes I actually pause, take a breath, and gently flick it off my shoulder. Not to fight it — just to let it know I heard it. Then I step forward anyway.

Have you ever been there? That second before you do the thing you’re terrified of — the proposal, the business, the apology, the meeting, the goodbye — and your heart’s pounding but you go anyway? That single moment where you whisper, fuck it, and take one foot off the cliff?

That’s the moment the fear of not being good enough turns into something else.

It turns into proof. Proof that you care enough to risk looking stupid. Proof that you still want to grow. Proof that the fear didn’t win this time.

And maybe that’s the point — maybe “good enough” isn’t something you arrive at.

Maybe it’s something you earn every time you do it scared.

Most of my life — up until I entered recovery — the fear of not being enough ruled every decision I made.

I was a full-blown member of the cult of self-reliance. And my reliance on myself was just another way to protect myself from that fear, no matter how self-destructive it was.

In recovery, I was told that my dilemma was a lack of power.

And that hit hard, because that’s exactly how I felt — powerless.

Now, I don’t want to scare anyone off here, because I know how touchy of a subject this can be. Believe me, everything in me wanted to run in the other direction. But the truth is, I was dying. I knew I was dying. My drinking had reached a point where there was a time limit on my life.

I was told that I needed power — something greater than any human power. I was told I needed a Higher Power. Dare I say… God.

Man, I wanted to bolt.

I remember thinking, I’m over here dying, and you’re talking to me about some hokey pokey witchcraft.

But when you know you’re dying, it’s nice to have an option when you feel like there’s no other option.

So begrudgingly, I did what I was told. I followed the process — a gateway, a direct path to the source of that power. All I had to do was be honest, thorough, and willing. I was promised that if I did that, I’d be introduced to that power.

With all the doubt in the world, I proceeded.

And to my surprise — it happened.

I was defiant. I was doubtful. I was reluctant. But it happened.

Those who knew me before, during, and after know something drastically different took place.

With this newfound power, I discovered that I was enough. Even when I didn’t feel like it.

I had a compass — a process — a path back to truth.

As long as I stayed connected to that power source, anything was possible.

And I know that now. Once you know, you can’t unknow.

I have historical data, undeniable evidence that left to my own devices, I can wreak havoc on myself and everyone around me. But when I stay plugged in, when I let go and surrender daily to that power, there are no limitations.

How could I not be enough?

How could we not be enough?

We’re made from the particles of an infinite universe.

That’s not just enough — that’s beautiful.

But without the fear of not being good enough, without the doubt, there’d be no realization of that truth.

There has to be the yin for the yang — the darkness that makes the light visible.

And maybe that’s the whole point.

I found this picture recently. A little kid with a guitar, face half-defiant, half-curious. Behind him, an adult watching on. Who is that? It’s strange to see myself this young, because for most of my life I’ve told people: I don’t remember my childhood.

I think I briefly touched on this in an earlier post, but a recent breakthrough in therapy gave me a completely new perspective on why that is. For years, I assumed the reason was simple: alcohol and drugs. Sixteen to thirty-eight was a long stretch of blur, and I thought the blackout had reached backward, smothering the early years too.

But the truth is different. My childhood wasn’t erased by addiction. It was erased by survival.

Much of my life as a kid was about adapting. Always being the new guy. New schools, new neighborhoods, new cliques that had already been formed before I showed up. And in that constant shifting, my brain didn’t hold onto the ordinary stuff. I wasn’t storing conversations with friends, or birthdays, or the kind of family moments people carry with them forever. Those didn’t register as important to survival.

What did register were the skills: how to read a room fast, how to figure out the rules without being told, how to slip into whatever version of myself would make me less of a target. My memory bank didn’t collect connection—it collected camouflage.

And survival mode doesn’t just retire when childhood ends. It stays wired in. It leaks into adulthood in ways you don’t always notice until the damage is done. That same energy that once helped me adapt as a kid became the thing fueling me as a teenager pounding alcohol, as a broke line cook hustling paycheck to paycheck, as an alcoholic father hanging on until everything finally snapped.

The problem is that survival energy is selfish energy. It doesn’t care about others. It doesn’t care about tomorrow. It only cares about relief right now. And when I act from that place, my reactions usually aren’t my best. They’re impulsive, defensive, sometimes destructive. They feel protective in the moment, but almost always lead to bigger consequences down the line.

What I’ve learned in recovery—and more recently in therapy—is that the work isn’t about erasing survival instinct. It’s wired in too deep. The work is about changing what I do when it shows up.

My old pattern was to react: control the situation, defend myself, numb out, lash out—whatever would take the discomfort away. That gave me a quick hit of relief, but at a cost.

The new pattern I’m practicing is surrender. That means when the wave of survival energy rises—tight chest, hot face, the old urge to run or fight—I don’t act. I let it burn through me. I sit in the discomfort until it passes.

It sounds small, but it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn. And every time I do it, I’m teaching my brain something new: this feeling isn’t going to kill me. I don’t have to protect myself the old way. I don’t have to reach for bad habits. The moment will pass.

Slowly, that’s how confidence grows. Not from controlling everything, but from trusting myself to withstand it.

Maybe that’s the real shift. To stop surviving and start remembering. To stop protecting myself so much that I miss the actual living. Because the truth is, the uncomfortable feelings always pass—and on the other side, life waits to be remembered.

I’ve written a lot about personal growth, resilience, and recovery — about the messy work of rebuilding a life from the inside out. But this week hits different. Amanda and I just celebrated our first wedding anniversary, and it’s hard not to look back on the year and see how much we’ve both grown.

A friend told me recently that the first anniversary is the “paper” one. I’d never heard that before. At first, it sounded kind of weak — like something that wouldn’t hold up under pressure. But the more I thought about it, the more it fit. Paper is where you start. It’s blank, it’s fragile, but it’s full of possibility. You sketch plans on it, scribble out mistakes, and write what matters most. And if handled with care, a book can last a lifetime.

That’s what this first year has felt like — the beginning of a story.

We’ve traveled far this year — hiking through Yosemite, walking through cobbled streets in Paris, eating cooked horse guts with noodles on a sidewalk in Hanoi, and sitting at the dining room table at Dr. Bob’s house in Akron, Ohio. Standing in that house was a reminder of how fragile and sacred second chances really are.

But the truth is, my favorite memories aren’t about travel or adventure. They’re the quiet ones. Curling up on the couch in the family , with the dogs, after a long day. Making her laugh, because I’m a child. Listening to her talk about her clients. She takes pride in their lives, and genuinely cares about the people who sit in her chair. She’s got a big heart with everything she does. It’s one of the things I love most about her.

This first year hasn’t been without challenges. Blending a family never is. It’s HARD and humbling work — full of trial and error, love and patience, grace and growth. We’ve had our moments, the ones that test everything you think you know. But recovery gave us the tools to get through them: honesty, humility, willingness. The ability to pause before reacting. The awareness to own our part, even if it takes a few days. The courage to start again.

Those aren’t just recovery principles — they’re relationship principles.

There have been days where my instinct was to protect or pull back — to react out of fear instead of faith. But every time I slow down long enough to breathe, I realize love asks for the opposite. It asks for surrender, not control. For trust, not defense. And every time I choose that, we grow a little closer.

Amanda leads with compassion and strength. She’s kind, but she doesn’t sugarcoat things. She shows up — even on the days that feel heavy. I’ve learned so much from watching her.

This year taught me that love isn’t a reward — it’s a practice. It’s daily maintenance. It’s learning how to meet life as it is, together. Some days it’s progress, some days it’s grace, and most days it’s both.

So yeah, maybe “paper” makes sense after all. It’s not weak. It’s the beginning — the blank page you fill with what matters most.

And if this is just page one, I can’t wait to see what the rest looks like.