Just over a year ago I was in this same place. It’s a short and touristy row of shops leading up to a temple in Asakusa, Japan. Last time I was here it was my first time in Japan, which meant that I was so enthralled with being there that I didn’t realize what a tourist trap it was.

Now I’m here again and I see the place in a different light. I’ve lived in Japan for almost two months now as part of my year long trip around the world.

As I look up at the paper lanterns dangling above the street I have a thought.

“Last time I was here, I would have NEVER guessed that I would be here again under the circumstances I’m in.”

The first time I was here I took a semi-unauthorized vacation from my job in Austin, Texas. My friend Todd and I just randomly decided to go, and three weeks later we were here.

Now my job is ancient history, as is everything I owned back then, including my car and my house. I no longer speak with the girl I was seeing at the time. I’m a workaholic now and I’ve launched four new web sites since then.

In short, a good portion of my life is now totally different. Unrecognizable. What’s significant to me, though, is that I would have NEVER guessed that my life would be as it is today. Not in a million years.

If someone said, “Hey, what’s more likely: that in sixteen months you’ll be dead, or that you’ll have given up all your possessions, you’ll work out and work religiously, and that you will be a modern day nomad, moving to a new country every two months?”, I would definitely say that it’s more likely that I’d be dead.

I can think of paths that would lead to me dying, but I would find it impossible to see what would lead me to where I am today.

But this always happens. Every year I make mental notes and try to predict what my life will be like the following year, just as a form of idle daydreaming.

I’m always off. WAY off. Usually things have changed in ways I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years.

I wonder if this is a universal experience. I asked Todd, but he’s on the trip too, so his answer is predictable.

Massive constant change is fun for me. It’s part of what keeps me super excited about life - I literally never know what’s next. It’s also what drives me towards extreme self improvement. I know that the one absolute constant in my life is me. The only way I can reliably prepare for the future is to ready myself for any possible contingency.

That comes in the form of core skill development. I constantly try to become stronger, healthier, smarter, more open minded, more confident, and more friendly. These are all things that will help in any possible situation. I try to become more educated too, as a way of seeing how all of the world fits together. I just finished reading my first of 85 books in a series of introductions to different topics, published by Oxford. First was African history, next is American political parties.

At the same time, I wonder if my rapidly changing lifestyle is a symptom of a problem, namely that I’m totally unable to set long term goals and stick to them. I change my mind too much. I don’t have a clear perspective on what I want my life to look like in five years. As a matter of fact, I can’t even fathom what I’ll be like in five years. I’ll still be writing this blog, though, so we can check then.

Then again, maybe I’ll stop writing. I can’t imagine how that would happen, but isn’t that the point?

Something strange has been happening to me over the past year or so. I haven’t written much about it because I’m almost in denial that it’s happening.

I’m caring far less about money.

This is scary to admit. A lot of my identity, at least internally, is based around the desire and eventuality that I will become rich. Losing my motivation to be rich is like losing a part of myself. I feel like I’m right on the edge, as if I could just say, “forget it…” and never look back.

I’ve never been super rich, but I’ve owned cars I previously fantasized about, lived in places I dreamed about, and have literally been at the point where I bought everything I wanted and couldn’t think of anything else to buy.

At the other end of the spectrum, I lived in my RV for almost a year. I had only the water I could hold in my tanks and the electricity I could get from the sun. My backyard was the curb of a public street. The fridge broke, and I went through a Texas summer without air conditioning.

Total luxury versus the complete lack of luxury.

And you know what? Niether was more fun that the other. Niether made me happier. Money didn’t affect my life in any measurable way.

And believe me - if anyone wanted to believe that money means something, it was me. I remember talking about this with my friend Hayden.

He laughed and said, “What? You actually thought money mattered?”

I did. People who told me that it didn’t never seemed to believe it themselves, so I didn’t either.

I think some rich people miss out on authentic experiences by being rich. My friends and I rented the cheapest car we could in Panama, we drove through the countryside, and joined the locals in a tiny interior town and celebrated Carnival with them. It was perfect.

After the celebration we slept in the car for a few hours and drove back to the city. I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.

But would Donald Trump even be able to do that? Would he go to a town that doesn’t have a hotel rated more than one star?

That’s not to say that all great experiences have to be cheap. Another time I was in Vegas with a high roller friend. He won $40k and we celebrated by getting huge hot fudge sundaes sent to our 5000 square foot suite.

After thinking it all out, I guess that what really matters, to me at least, is having as full a range of experiences as possible. I want to hike through a forest and stay in a tent in the middle of nowhere. I want to have a private jet to fly around the world with my friends too, though.

So I want to get rich because doing so will give me a broader range of options, as long as I don’t become a snob and think I’m above any of them.

When I was ten I went to a Christian summer camp called Camp Calumet. We stayed in cabins with our counselors and a dozen other kids.

By a stroke of luck my best friend Ryan and I ended up in the cabin with the cool counselors. I don’t remember either of their names, or even what they looked like, but I remember that one of them had a sticker on his guitar case that asked, “Y B Normal?”

It was a cheesy sticker, of course, but as an impressionable kid it made me think. My counselor was probably the coolest guy I knew at the time, so I instantly equated being not normal with being cool.

So I decided to get my hair braided. This wasn’t necessarily the most original thing to do; Kriss Kross was popular at the time and at least one of its members had his hair braided. I was a huge fan. But amongst the kids at the camp, this was a very weird thing to do.

During our free time we all hung out at a set of boat docks sitting in the middle of the woods. They were there for storage, but were arranged in a square which made them a very convenient place to sit around and chat.

“Does anyone have elastics for their braces?”

A few of the girls did, and one of them offered me a few packs of fluorescent ones. I don’t have to tell you how cool fluorescent things were back in those days.

“Does anyone know how to braid?”

Before I knew it, I was sitting like the king of the docks with three girls crouched around me, braiding my hair. It took them four hours.

The braids were an instant hit. Everyone loved them. A friend of a friend pulled me aside and said very solemnly, “You are really cool. Would you mind if I got my hair braided too?”

Two of the three girls who braided my hair asked me out. I happily acquiesced to one, who is the girl I would consider my first girlfriend, although we never did so much as kiss. Now she’s on the Vermont house of representatives.

And so my first experience being weird wasn’t met with the ridicule most people experience. Instead, thanks to blind luck, I became the most popular kid at camp and was launched forward in life with the understanding that doing unusual things would make my life better.

Sixteen and a half years later I’m sitting on a train somewhere in Japan. It’s dead silent other than the clicks from my keyboard - we’re stopped at a station for some reason I might comprehend if my Japanese was better. Maybe we’re ahead of schedule.

The few other passengers on the train are sleeping. I’ve turned the seats in front of us around to use as a footrest so that I can be comfortable while I write a story about my life that random people around the world will later read.

Nine hours and five transfers later my friend Todd and I will be in a small town called Bando in the Japanese prefecture of Shikoku. We’ll arrive at the first of 88 temples in a historic 993 mile pilgrimage around Shikoku. I have no idea how far away the second one is, but we’re going to walk to it. If it’s close we’ll walk to the second one too. When it’s night time we’ll sleep on the ground next to the trail. Few people do that anymore, apparently, but it’s the traditional way to make the pilgrimage.

Once in a while, especially at times like these, I think about how incredibly fortunate I am to have this life. While most people are at work I get to be in the middle of nowhere in Japan, having a great adventure.

Some of it is luck. I’ve had the unmistakable good fortune of having an amazing family and group of friends. I was born and with good health and a high enough IQ.

Besides luck, though, a lot of what has lead me here is my near total lack of faith that most people are doing the best thing. When I see other people doing something I ask why, rather than assume that it’s the best way to do things.

As a result almost everything in my life is abnormal. I dress differently, I eat differently, I do different things for fun and for work, and I don’t even live anywhere anymore. At the risk of sounding like an Apple ad, I think differently.

There are massive benefits to living differently. It makes you think about things rather than going through life like a sheep. You feel proud about your life because it’s something you have built, rather than something that you were shoehorned into. You can’t help but be constantly happy because you are doing what you want to be doing, not what you’re told you want to be doing.

People sometimes tell me that they’d like to break free of the mold a little more, but are scared or have some weird excuse why it wouldn’t work for them.

To me it’s the opposite - the prospect of living a normal life is the most terrifying thing in the world to me. It’s a paradox because I feel like I can do anything, but I honestly don’t think I could live a normal life. I can’t even imagine what I would do if I was faced with the challenge.

At the same time, there are some downsides to being unusual. The main one is that the world isn’t built for you. In Tokyo, the largest metropolitan area in the world, there are no restaurants where I can eat everything on the menu. The huge entertainment districts of every city have nothing that interests me. I’m not complaining, I mention it because I think it’s interesting.

Why be normal? I have no idea. I guess because it’s easy and convenient. The world is an amazing place, though. It’s spectacular. As I see more of it (I’ve covered .01% of it so far), learn about it, and think more about it, I become happier and happier and more and more honored to be a part of it.

But here’s the thing - 99% of the world and the experiences available in it are off the beaten path. To get to them you have to get off the path too.

I was reading a self improvement site a month ago and while reading it I had a thought.

“Is this actually going to make ANY difference in my life?”

Nope. Then I started thinking about what WOULD make a difference, and for reference I thought about things that had changed my life.

What they all had in common, above all, is that they were habits that could be applied on a regular basis. Most had measurable results. So I sat down and came up with a site that ANYONE can use to make their life better in a lot of ways.

I modeled it after Crossfit. They post a workout every day, you do the workout, and then you post your results. Easy, quick, measurable, and fun.

Daily 15 is a site where I post a challenge every day that will take fifteen minutes or less. The challenges cover a lot of different areas ranging from social skills to physical fitness. Most are based on habits that I have formed and found valuable.

I chose 15 minutes because it’s enough time to make a difference, but short enough that anyone can fit it into their schedule. I have already planned a number of the daily challenges. I think you’ll find them interesting, fun, and very beneficial.

The first challenge has just been posted. Go check it out and please post your results to help me get things rolling!

Go to Daily 15!

I’m on day four of this magical adventure and I’m slowly becoming more capable.

I’m averaging around thirty words per minute now in the little typing program, but probably a bit less in real life. At least I don’t want to kill myself when I type anymore. It’s the little things in life, you know?

It has been really fascinating to learn a new skill, start from scratch, and watch my progress daily. One really interesting thing I’ve noticed is that my words per minute don’t really go up during the day, even though it feels easier as I practice more throughout the day. However, when I wake up the next morning I am much faster.

Maybe my brain commits the new information as I sleep or something.

There are a few misconceptions from the comments to clear up too…

Is Dvorak faster? Almost certainly, but not necessarily much faster. Twenty words per minute is about the fastest boost that people seem to get, although there are a few extreme cases of big gains as well as people who get no gains.

Put it this way - no studies say that qwerty is faster. And how could it be? It wasn’t designed to be fast.

More importantly, Dvorak DEFINITELY requires less finger movement. Ninety percent less. That is huge, especially for avoiding carpal tunnel syndrome. I also wonder if it makes using small subnotebook keyboards easier.

Using other computers isn’t a big deal either. Any computer can be switched temporarily in a matter of seconds or you can just go back to qwerty temporarily. Most people don’t forget it.

For me it comes down to this: I can invest time now that will pay some sort of dividend for the rest of my life. Easy choice - I feel like there’s no choice really. Maybe I would have gotten carpal tunnel before and now I won’t. I type thousands of words every week, so it seems likely. Or maybe it will take me a few less minutes to write posts every day. That will add up.

I love stuff like this. I get excited about anything that makes me better or more efficient.

I’m a fast typist. Ninety words per minute. Take it.

That last line, however, took three minutes to type. It’s excruciating. Why?

I’m switching to the Dvorak keyboard layout. For those who don’t know, typewriters started out with their keys arranged in an “ABCD” configuration this caused the hammers to bind, so the standard “QWERTY” keyboard was invented.

This layout turns out to be very inefficient for us humans, so a guy named Dvorak came up with a better one. His arrangement requires 90% less finger movement which is better for speed as well as accuracy and not getting carpal tunnel syndrome.

There is a good program I am using called Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor that teaches you how to do it. I will not use the old layout for anything anymore. Burning bridges, baby!

This took 32 minutes to type. Posts may be on the short side for a while.