Month: August 2004

What I've learned in 27 years

Well, as I celebrate my twenty-seventh year on spaceship Earth, I thought I should acknowledge that milestone here. Last night a friend made me write down some of the lessons/rules of life that I've learned in that time, and they seem worth recording.

  1. Always tell the truth and always seek the truth, no matter what.
  2. Heart comes before mind.
  3. Don't sweat the big stuff or the small stuff. The best outcome will prevail.
  4. Assume that people are acting out of good intentions until they show otherwise.
  5. Make no small plans.
  6. Don't be reckless with other people's lives/hearts/minds/spirits.

There ya go. Words to live by. Well...they're working okay for me, anyway.

A Trip to Madison

Desperate for some sort of vacation and lacking anything formally planned (where has the year gone?) the stars aligned in such a way that I took a trip last week to Madison, Wisconsin. It ended up being quite a great place to visit on summer vacation - thanks to a little pre-visit Googling and my awesome tour guide, Dayna (thanks!). I experienced quite a range of destinations: ethnic food of all sorts, a vibrant and amazing farmer's market, touring the University campus and amazing capitol building, biking around downtown and along the Lakes, visiting progressive co-ops and bookstores, and visiting the pocket of friends living there who I never think to visit. And I still got a good amount of laying around done, too. It wasn't quite a beach vacation, but I do believe Madison is one of my new favorite places in the Midwest, and I'm grateful to have had such a great, restful time there.