A 4 Hour Work Week Style Comfort Challenge- Tell Me Where to Visit and Win a $25 Gift Card
Without Fear iPhone App
At the end of most chapters in the book, “The Four Hour Work Week” there is a section called “comfort challenge.” The idea is simple: do something out of your comfort zone as a means to emotionally prepare to enjoy your newly acquired lifestyle of simplistic freedom. I like this idea and as you’ve probably noticed in many of my posts, I love the book. It kick started my virtual lifestyle and I’m a believer.
You might also have noticed that I’m not much of an international traveler. As of yet, I’ve only been as far as the Bahamas. One embarrassing thing has always kept me virtually landlocked — my discomfort and often flat out refusal to fly. It has never been comfortable. I’ve had extreme panic attacks while flying. Because of this I’m the one who has driven from NC to Chicago, from San Diego to Seattle, and coast to coast three times. My daughter was born 3 months premature in Honolulu and I am convinced the emotional stress of flying over the ocean sent me into early labor. I could have stayed in Hawaii forever. I did not want to get back on that plane. Read more…
Essay- “Get Me Out of This Straight Jacket” Part 3: Sex, Love, and Marriage
Part Two of this essay (link)
I quickly proceeded to lose the dating game. I heard the questions asked of me, but I was focused on the woman I had just met in the dating line. Rochelle. I answered questions in ways that I hoped would make the woman in the audience show me the smile that I knew I had fallen for.
After the game ended, I was nervous but certain I would have to speak with her again. She had started to play pool with another woman. As I watched their interaction, I could tell that this woman was also interested in her. I sat on a couch a few feet away with my friend Mona, driving her crazy with questions about how I might get Rochelle’s attention. Read more…
Essay- “Get Me Out of This Straight Jacket” Part 2- Coming Out
Part One of This Essay (link)
It was not long after my breakup with Drew that I thoughtfully considered the path that I had chosen in our heterosexual relationship. My experience with him had to a point, opened me up in many ways. I had grown as a sexual being in our relationship. There was nothing he would not do if I asked him, so in this sense I had the chance to experience a varied and full sexual experience with a man. He was strong, good looking, sexually capable, my equal in intensity, and in the end loving. It seemed clear to me if there was a right guy to wash away my inner desire towards women it would be him. Yet, it did not. Second, because we had gone through so much together, parts of my emotional self opened up. I saw that I was capable of caring in ways that I had not known I could before. I began to want a good relationship in my life. I felt I was ready to take the steps to get there. For me, this meant that I would have to come out. Read more…
“Consider the Lobster”
Just a quick interlude to tell the story behind the video above.
My wife is half Bahamian and often speaks romantically about her childhood on the island and the roots of her love for seafood. I don’t share the intensity of that love. When she talks about conch fritters I have no connection to them other than wondering if that’s the thing that comes out of that big shell I have in the garage. You know, the thing I picked up and brought back from vacation? I’ve also never been into lobsters. I actually have no idea what they taste like. But they are clearly something she loves.
I remember being amazed years ago when we went to Orlando’s Boston Lobster Feast. I couldn’t understand why it was such a big deal to have all you can eat lobster. I was taken aback when my wife– who worries about phantom spinach in her teeth and at times obsessively wipes her mouth at dinner, allowed herself to don a bib and let butter drip down her cheeks while wolverine-ing down a plate full of lobsters. I feel the little guys. I’ve noticed too many times how in the supermarket when you walk by their tank, they’ll scurry to the back as quick as they can. Are they afraid of us? Read more…
Enjoy the Blog From Your Mobile Phone
The Observations from the Road Less Traveled (ORLT) blog is screen optimized for several popular touch screen based mobile phones. If you have an iPhone, iTouch, Droid, Blackberry Storm, or MyTouch smartphone, simply point your phone browser to the home page and you’ll be able to enjoy the site on the go. If it seems visually odd on your phone, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “standard” to change to the mobile view above. Read more…
Essay- “Get Me Out of This Straight Jacket” Part 1- Boys and Men
Understanding the contextual relationship between sex and love can be a complex, life long journey. I’ve struggled with the meaning of both. Sexuality has always been central. At five I was taken to see “A Clockwork Orange” on a family movie night. I clearly remember being confused by the graphic sexual images and leaning over and telling my mother, “my heart is beating down there.” A diet of pornography found in my fathers closet when I was 9 further skewered my views of sex. Detachment and isolation as a result of living in an “anti-Huxtable” household had created a cloudy film over my heart, and thus my own understanding of love. To add to my particular stew, from the beginning of my sexuality as a child I dreamed of having sex with women. What a wonderful additive to the flames. In my dreams, I was always on top, hovering over them. Kissing them. Loving them. I would awaken quite terrified after many dreams, yet I had no knowledge at the time of lesbians. Read more…
Twitter and Facebook
