The importance of staying mobile.

If the Tim Ferriss-inspired lifestyle design effort on which I'm embarking has taught me anything, it's that mobility is essential to happiness. I mean mobility on two levels.

The first is the ability to move from location to location. As I write this -- with my heels propped on a railing, sipping a brew, overlooking the Savannah River -- I ask myself, why can't this be my every day? Why can't I do the work I need to do to live wherever I want, whenever I want? Ferriss postulates in the 4-Hour Workweek that lifestyle design is the answer. You create automatic income that grants you the mobility to do your thing anywhere in the world. Results in this grand experiment -- which has been completed successfully by many before me -- to be determined.

The second form of mobility -- the one that I prefer to emphasize -- is physiological mobility. I define that as, I'm going to put this limb in this position without having to foam roll, stretch or otherwise warm up beforehand. Working to establish and maintain a baseline of mobility is one of the best things a body can do to combat aging. Stagnation -- physical and mental -- is antithetical to the growth of life. And that's why I've got to keep moving.

That said, here's a workout I put together this morning that emphasizes mobility. Four-point base is an excellent jiu jitsu training drill easily found on YouTube. And if you've never attempted a pistol squat before, for the love of God, have somebody show you the right way to do it because you can really mess up your knees.

Keep on grinding and stay mobile.

Tipping the cap.

Over time, I've developed the same healthy respect for a well-honed sentence as I do a loaded gun. Ideas articulated with precision are equally dangerous. Expressing yourself in writing is perilous business. While it's not likely to get you killed, you are putting yourself at risk.

For me, good writing is about exposing personal vulnerabilities. Willingly offering that kind of insight takes guts. I don't get stage fright, but the prospect of anyone reading anything with my name on it is terrifying.

This is why I have the utmost respect for anyone who writes from this place of vulnerability and does it well. Someone doing that right now is a former classmate of mine, Mike. You can and should read his blog here, where he recounts his struggle during the war in Afghanistan and on the home front. 

Mike's story is of courage, and the telling of the story is itself a courageous act. We should all read it closely.

Do you remember waiting?

We don't really have to wait for much anymore. Some of us are old enough to remember the squawks, chirps and hisses of a 56K modem as it strained to convert data into sound; never-ending load times on web pages; galling lag in our first-person shooters. And before that, there were the hours waiting for a friend to call back, days for the check to clear, weeks for that package or letter to arrive.

We're no longer any good at waiting. Our minds don't know how to handle the dead space, the quiet time between stimuli. We counteract the social anxiety of a long wait by swiping mindlessly across smartphone screens, searching for the next dopamine fix before the waiting sinks its teeth into us.

I enjoy waiting. It's the most effective silencer of the ego. A good wait, savored from start to finish, reminds us that regardless of the technology we use to thwart our senses, life's timeline will not unfold on our schedule. Waiting done right is a small death of selfishness. You are at the mercy of time, and in its own way, that is freeing.

An ode to Hometown, New Jersey.

When people ask me where I'm from, I tell them New Jersey, but not the New Jersey you're thinking of. "It's like someone took a piece of West Virginia and stuck it into the northeast," I say. They have a hard time understanding that there are still places in the state where black bears and coyotes roam. 

Growing up in a place like this, where it's still a little rough around the edges yet only an hour away from New York City, helps a person figure out what they're after in life. Some of us left and never looked back. I guess nature never got under their skin like it did mine. There are others, like me, who left only to return. The harshness of the city was for some reason less palatable than nature's indifference. And there are others still who never left. Maybe they were wiser than me and realized that everything they would ever need in life was right here.

Out on the trails that flank this town, you can tell who's a local and who isn't. Last weekend, my friends and I hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail that spans the New Jersey/New York border. It's easy to spot the locals on the trail. They hike in sneakers and blue jeans, carrying backpacks laden with beer. The through-hikers struggle by under the weight of internal-frame packs, burdened with necessities to get them from Georgia to Maine. And then there are the college kids from the city, who come out for day hikes in their Patagonia jackets, yoga pants and ironic t-shirts. The latter two groups usually scoff at us as we down our beer and cause a scene that would seem incongruous with the place they're viewing as outsiders.

But we understand. We know this place and it knows us, too. And no matter where we go in the world, this place will be here for us, ready to welcome us back with a beer and a beautiful view.

The power of Why.

I had a favorite question when I was a kid: Why? It's still one of my favorites. What, more often than not, is self-evident. Or it is so subjective that it's less significant than Why.

For example, as a young reporter, when sent to cover a board of education or town council meeting, I'd compare my story to those of other news organizations that were there. Theoretically, we both saw the same What, but more often than not, there were divergences in the storytelling that highlighted the subjectivity of What.

The subjectivity comes across -- despite the good-natured journalistic intent of objectivity -- in intriguing ways: what each reporter chooses to omit, what they choose to focus on, what quotes they incorporate, what they choose to emphasize with the mechanics of punctuation. Just as the camera does not lie, it does omit what falls outside the scope of the lens. Explaining What works in a similar manner.

Why, on the other hand, is less subjective. Why gives What significance and context. Why is the engine that powers What. It is the very essence of human intellect. 

Most important, Why also has the power to inspire. What, stated alone, reads like an order. It leaves no room for the reader or listener by means of intellectual engagement. It leaves no opportunity for buy in.

Why has the power to motivate, to inspire. Never lose sight of Why.