Almost two years ago, Courtney and I began to employ a pretty radical idea in our lives: The world can be crazy but yours doesn't have to be. This philosophy stems from the idea that changing the world for the better begins from within our own individual lives. We realized that we were stressed to a point of paralysis. We decided to travel. We found a van, Bertha, and built her out to be our home on wheels! She brought us coast to coast, helped me continue to work with @avidtrails in Utah, showed us more than 25 states and eventually brought us to Memphis, where I would continue a climbing career helping create a youth climbing team at @memphisroxclimbing ... It was honestly a whirlwind of fun and excitement. Then we stopped. And our new city began to feel like the same cage we once escaped from. Our time here has helped us understand that cities are where we feel the unease of the world around us; in nature we feel at peace. Living in Memphis has been a beautiful experience in so many ways. It has also been challenging. Some of you may already know that Courtney and I will be back on the road on June 15 and I look forward to it, but I will miss my new family dearly. Sometimes you want to find exactly the right words. You want everyone to understand everything. But that's not realistic. Our lives are exactly our own and we find ourselves, lose ourselves and find ourselves again in our own time, in our own ways. And that's exactly as it needs to be. Don't settle for anything less than peace in your life, my friends. And don't ever feel for too long that you need to explain yourself to everyone to be held accountable for being who you are: free from a world of boxes we create for each other. Let yourself ooze out of those confines. Ooze out of that box, all that beautiful you. This brave new world is unknown and waiting for you to create it! Throw hurtful conventions and traditions away. Break barriers. Speak to people with truth, love and humor. Create your world with purpose and stop looking for perfect words. You'll waste the breath that you need to climb that mountain.
