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Gratitude. Oh how I loathed that word for so many years. Throughout the depths of my depression, gratitude taunted me like a schoolyard bully sniggering at the poor kid’s hand-me-downs. What was there to be grateful for when my world was nothing but darkness and pain? Why be grateful for the basics of life — food, water, shelter, breath — when I didn’t want to live in the first place? How could I create a practice around something I didn’t feel?

It’s not that I didn’t try. For a while, I scribbled in a gratitude journal. Or as I referred to it, a fucking gratitude journal. When that didn’t work, I tried a gratitude jar, but all I wanted to do was shatter the thing against the wall. Then I tried reading some Stoic philosophy. And listening to Oprah. Nothing stuck. Gratitude, I determined, was for suckers or the anointed. I was neither.

Color me surprised when, in January of 2017, I stood in front of a lopsided fir tree growing just off the highway in Prague and felt a surge of gratitude so great, it warmed me down to my frozen toes. It’s like its needles reached into my heart and jolted me awake with the force of a defibrillator. I stopped cold in the middle of the sidewalk, turned, and stared like it was the first tree I’d ever seen. They grey highway and the grey sidewalks and the grey sky melted away, leaving nothing but the deep green tree swaying in the breeze. A sort of tingle twitched between my shoulder blades that flooded through my body — gratitude for life itself.

I went back to the tree nearly every day during my four weeks in Prague, trying to encode the flush of gratitude into my cellular memory. I worried that the tree was a beacon I might never find again, like I would leave the city and lose the signal. If I could only hold onto it and recognize it, I figured, maybe it would find me again.

And it did. Slowly but surely, it did.

When it comes to living a happy life, gratitude sits at the center of almost every teaching, philosophy, and religion. The Bible says, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18.) The Buddha said, according to Kataññu Suttas scriptures, “A person of integrity is grateful and thankful. This gratitude, this thankfulness, is advocated by civil people. It is entirely on the level of people of integrity.” The Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius coined the phrase, “the attitude of gratitude” and the modern spiritual teacher, Ekhart Tolle, says that “It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.”

But for years, no matter what I tried, I couldn’t access it. Why?

Two things are at work here. First, gratitude is a feeling, not a reasoning. In my experience, it is impossible to access gratitude through the intellect alone, which is why my attempts at gratitude jars and journals failed. The practice was there but the embodiment was not, and without the physical and emotional connection, the reasoning was futile. This is the same reason why it’s useless to tell kids to clean their plates because there are starving children in Africa. Knowing that people are starving is at odds with the fact that the kid feels full, and the lesson does not sink in.

Second, gratitude is no match for grief, loss, or the untrodden path of phenomenal change. It is simply too delicate, too nuanced. The image of a flower tossed into the base of a waterfall comes to mind. Beauty and wonder crumble under thousands of pounds of force.

The waterfall could not thin and let gratitude shine through until I began to stabilize from antidepressant withdrawal and work through the grief — and subsequent depression — of losing my father. But once I finally felt gratitude, I learned to recognize it when it randomly showed up. After recognizing it a few dozen times, a practice allowed me to access gratitude on command. Only now does that gratitude journal serve its purpose.

Think of it as software. Until the software is downloaded onto the hard drive, the computer cannot access it. But you must format the hard drive to remove any corrupt data before the software can be downloaded, otherwise, the software will also corrupt. But once the hard drive is formatted and software is downloaded, the computer can run the program. It runs best when the hard drive is clear of viruses and clutter, but as long as you clean up the hard drive now and again and don’t let malware seep into the system, the software can run forever.

This is gratitude. It must first be felt before it can be regularly accessed, but it cannot be felt until the corrupt energy is cleared away.

Thus, the first step to healing and happiness is not “be grateful.” It’s to start clearing the corrupt files, one byte at a time.


From Productivity to Psychedelics: Tim Ferriss Has Changed His Mind About Success | GQ
From Productivity to Psychedelics: Tim Ferriss Has Changed His Mind About Success | GQwww.gq.com

I find few interviews to be truly worth reading, but this interview with Tim Ferriss is packed with useful nuggets about managing the mind and overcoming yourself. A quote: “The inescapable fact that if, at best, you tolerate yourself, and more often berate, hate, or criticize yourself, how can you possibly fully engage with others, accept and love them, and find peace of mind and life?”


The secret to happiness is simple: live like a Stoic for a week | The Independent
The secret to happiness is simple: live like a Stoic for a week | The Independentwww.independent.co.uk

What have the Romans ever done for us? Well, obviously the roads – the roads go without saying. How about guidance for how to live in the 21st century? That seems less likely, but in fact the last few years have seen a flurry of interest in the work of three Roman Stoic philosophers who offered just that.


Why you can smell rain
Why you can smell raintheconversation.com

The smell of rain, or petrichor, is one of the few sensory experiences that instantly transports me into a state of gratefulness. But why does that smell happen? This 2 minute read explains why.

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My mother always told me that I was born to do something big. This idea sprouted just a few months after I was born, when my parents took me to an astrologist my father had been working with for years. According to the planets and the stars, the astrologer said, it would never be enough for me to help just one person. I would want to help the whole lot of them.

While this prophecy motivated me to take risks and aim high, it also set me up to equate recognition with my own definition of success. And not just any recognition. The right recognition. It’s not enough for friends, family, or some no-name publication to tell me that I write pretty or cook well. If it’s not big and obvious, I see it as meaningless.

Obviously, this isn’t a great way to live. And like all stories we tell ourselves, life has a way of taking our bullshit narratives and making us repeat them over and over again until we learn. Case in point: my memoir about antidepressant withdrawal has now been rejected by 16 presses, most of whom work under the umbrella of major publishing houses like Penguin/Random House and Harper Collins. The rejections are fabulous. The editors that read my work are over the moon with the quality and power of my writing, but for whatever reason, they “have to pass but can’t wait to see where it ends up.” These are the gatekeepers with the money and status to take a book about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and turn it into the mega-bestseller and blockbuster movie, Wild. They are my definition of big. And they are falling out of my reach.

Watching the window close to the major publishers is devastating. I quite literally ripped the shirt off my own back and tore it into tatters after I received my last rejection. That’s how much this matters to me. But after weeks of mourning and an uncomfortable amount of anger, 16 repeats of the same pattern is enough to get me to start reevaluating. And so I’m asking myself, what does it really mean to be big?

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, for example, comes to mind. Semmelweis died in a Viennese insane asylum in 1865 after his life work, The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fevers, was rejected by a panel of German physicians and pathologists. Semmelweis’s thesis? Disease is caused by a lack of cleanliness, and that postpartum mortality decreases by tenfold if doctors wash their hands before delivering a baby.

It would be another 20 years after Semmelweis’s death before Louis Pasteur’s work on germ theory led to an acceptance of Semmelweis’s claims and practices. Today, of course, washing hands to prevent disease may as well be a global sport. But Semmelweis would never know about his big contribution to the world. His work, through the lens of his own existence, did not make a dent.

I wonder how Semmelweis felt about his work. During his early stages of madness, did he regret all the time spent on a life that amounted to ridicule? Was the fact that he saved a few hundred women from dying of infection enough to offset the knowledge that countless more would die because other doctors rejected his thesis? Or was it the weight of perceived failure that drove him to despair?

***

Do you know of any other ordinary figures whose little known work changed the world? Please send them my way!


Are You Downplaying Luck’s Role in Your Life? - Facts So Romantic - NautilusAre You Downplaying Luck’s Role in Your Life? – Facts So Romantic – Nautilusnautil.us

Think blood, sweat, and tears are the reason for your success? Think again, says Robert Frank, a professor of economics at Cornell University. Luck, he says, is the invisible hand.


Ridding Happiness Contaminants 1: Ego Anxiety | Psychology Today CanadaRidding Happiness Contaminants 1: Ego Anxiety | Psychology Today Canadawww.psychologytoday.com

Russell Grieger Ph.D., breaks down the concept of Ego Anxiety, a never ending cycle consisting of the desire to always do well and be approved, followed by the idea that failure = worthlessness, which in turn furthers the need to always do well and be approved.


Ignaz Semmelweis, "father of infection control," pioneered hand-washing but died before many took his advice - The Washington Post
Ignaz Semmelweis, “father of infection control,” pioneered hand-washing but died before many took his advice – The Washington Postwww.washingtonpost.com

If only Semmelweis could see how his contribution changed the world…

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After three months of closure, my gym in Vancouver re-opened on June 1st. Even though I’ve been a gym rat since 2013, the pandemic took a huge toll on my physical performance. Six weeks later, my workout capacity hovers around 40% of what it once was.

I see this deficit most clearly on an indoor rowing machine. The treadmill of canoes, rowing machines produce resistance thanks to air flowing through a flywheel. The wheel connects to a chain, and the combination of pushing with your legs and pulling the chain handle spins the flywheel. The faster you row, the faster the flywheel spins and the more resistance it creates. The amount of power you produce — measured in meters, calories, or watts — is displayed on a small screen, giving you instant feedback on each stroke.

Two ways to get the flywheel moving: brute strength or proper technique. In the past, I could muscle my way through at a reasonably respectable pace for someone built for ballet, not rowing. But thanks to a combination of three months off, nagging injuries, mid-thirties hormones, elevated base level stress, and extra glasses of pandemic wine, I have been forced to adjust my strategy. Pulling the handle like all hell just doesn’t work anymore.

Like most things that seem simple, rowing technique is complicated. Arms straight. Head neutral. Shins vertical. Heels lift. Push through the legs, then extend through the hips, then pull the chain. Legs, hips, pull, release, hips, legs. Don’t let the chain slack. Don’t hunch. Don’t lead with the back. Don’t bend the arms too early. Legs, hips, pull, release, hips, legs. Breathe. Legs, hips, pull, release, hips, legs. Repeat.

My goal is not to become a professional rower. It’s to get through the rowing portion of my afternoon workout so I can move onto the next movement. Focusing on every aspect of my rowing technique would be a waste of my time. Instead, I focus on one thing I can do to increase my efficiency: get the handle to the proper starting position, every stroke, every time. Focusing on the handle’s placement guarantees that 1) my stroke length will be as long as possible, which increases speed; 2) positions my back and legs to fire in the right order at the right time, which increases power; 3) keeps my mind zeroed in on one thing rather than 100 things, and 4) distracts me from how awful rowing is.

Why is this relevant to happiness? Because by focusing on one aspect of rowing technique, my power and speed are guaranteed to increase, thereby improving my overall performance. I don’t need to be great everywhere all the time. I just need to be a little bit better, repeatedly. Over time, this will translate into more strength and stamina…without breaking my spirit.

The same theory applies to happiness. It’s not about making sweeping changes and overwhelming the system with hundreds of new processes, only to beat ourselves up for failure. It’s about taking stock of your life and focusing on doing one thing right, every time that will set a stronger foundation for each process that follows.

For me, that one thing is staying off social media. Maintaining that boundary gives me greater emotional and psychological resilience, which means I am able to consume more meaningful information, brush off minor irritations, and more quickly bounce back from major roadblocks.

For my sleep-challenged partner, Justin, that one thing is making sure that he dims the lights in the apartment at least an hour before getting in bed. Keeping the lights down and the candles lit sets him up for a better night’s sleep, which means every aspect of the next day gets easier.

For my mother, that one thing is keeping the house clean. But instead of doing a big clean up once a week and then getting irritated as the week moves on and the mess piles up, she commits to tidying up two things every time she walks in a room. The result? The house is always well kept — in no time at all.

What is one thing in your life, when done right every time, that makes your day easier and lighter? Find it. Focus on it. Do it right. Every time.


How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatably
How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatablyblog.stephsmith.io

To create something great, we are told to take baby steps, put one foot in front of other, and take it one day at a time. We’ve heard these platitudes our entire life, but in the moment it can be hard to see how small changes add up to something bigger. We want to be great, now. In this piece, Steph Smith shows us that greatness is a myth. To be great, she argues, just be good enough…over and over and over again.


Jim Collins – Concepts – The Flywheel Effect

Jim Collins is a researcher focused on business management and sustainability. This excerpt, from his book Good to Great, highlights “the flywheel effect,” which states that in any great creation, there is no single defining action that leads to success. Instead, it is about making relentless, incremental progress until the flywheel gains enough momentum to turn on its own.


The secret to giving a compliment that makes people glow |
The secret to giving a compliment that makes people glow |ideas.ted.com

Struggling to find that one thing to do right each day? Try giving one person per day a heartfelt compliment. Educator and TEDx speaker, Cheryl Ferguson, shares how.

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Summer months in Vancouver mean endless hours of daylight. At its peak, light emerges around 4 am and does not wane until well past 10 pm. Earplugs, sleep masks, and blackout shades are the only defense against a bungled circadian rhythm, and some mornings—like this morning—it’s particularly hard to get moving.

I stumbled out of bed before 7am, a sliver of sunlight streaming through our northern facing apartment. I sat in silence for 11 minutes, my usual meditation, and found myself on the edge of dozing off. The gong signaling the end of my mediation sounded, and I wrapped myself in a blanket and took a morning snooze on the couch.

When I mustered the will to peel myself off the cushions, fuel myself with tea, and transform the bedroom from my sleeping place to my coronavirus office space, I opened up The Daily Stoic to read the day’s entry:

“On those mornings you struggle with getting up, keep this thought in mind—I am awakening to the work of a human being. Why then am I annoyed that I am going to do what I’m made for, the very things for which I was put into this world? Or was I made for this, to snuggle under the covers and keep warm? It’s so pleasurable. Where you then made for pleasure? In short, to be coddled or to exert yourself?”

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.1

I am awakening to the work of a human being. Aurelius seemed to interpret this awakening literally. He was a Roman emperor, and the demands of the job required the occasional morning pump up. I imagine that woven silk sheets of the imperial palace were significantly more pleasurable than managing 1st century Rome, but as Aurelius said, he was put on Earth to run Roman empire, not whittle the day away in bed. What choice did he have?

But in July of 2020, I am awakening to the work of a human being takes on a whole new meaning. To simply be human is the work. It is all there is and all there ever will be. Six months ago our work was our career, our success, our routine. But when it was all taken away, the real human work remained. The job, the schedule, the life—it’s nothing but a thin coat of paint.

What is the real human work that you were born to do? If you have trouble answering, look issues that have roared their ugly head over the past few months. What makes you angry? What are your patterns? What challenges has the pandemic revealed? And what gifts has it given you? What changes will you take with you?

Get clear on the work ahead, and know that it will not be easy. Deep work never is. But you will be doing the work you were made to for, the very thing for which you were put into this world. Are going to remain coddled? Or wake up, face the day, and get going?


If You Want to Change the World, Start Off by Making Your Bed - William McRaven, US Navy Admiral
If You Want to Change the World, Start Off by Making Your Bed – William McRaven, US Navy Admiralwww.youtube.com

I first watched this speech around 2010, after nearly 25 years of refusing to make a bed that I figured I was destined to mess up that night. Since I first watched it, not a day has passed where I haven’t made the bed. Why? Little things matter. And starting the day with one completed task, sets you up to complete the rest.


BBC - Travel - The unexpected philosophy Icelanders live by
BBC – Travel – The unexpected philosophy Icelanders live bywww.bbc.com

Icelandic people know they are not in control; their world is made up of volcanos, bitter cold, and endless nights. Living with the force of nature dwarfs wee human life, leading to the Icelandic phrase,‘þetta reddast’, which roughly translates to the idea that everything will work out all right in the end.


The Biggest Psychological Experiment in History Is Running Now - Scientific American
The Biggest Psychological Experiment in History Is Running Now – Scientific Americanwww.scientificamerican.com

DISCLAIMER: If you’re exhausted from covid content and/or someone who is easily riled up from covid content, skip this article. But if you’ve got the capacity, glaze over the usual covid terribleness and read this piece through the lens of ‘real human work.’ One line that stands out: “People who believe they can cope do, in fact, tend to cope better.”

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It’s hard to celebrate anything right now. Yesterday, after a much needed few days entirely off the grid, I came back to a digital shitstorm. The specifics are irrelevant, but what was important was that in the middle of getting real mad and doing a whole hell of a lot of ugly crying, I realized I was having a moment of clarity. After months of fighting to get my work heard, I’d finally hit the end of my rope. I was done.

The exact words out of my mouth were, “I don’t know what this means moving forward, but I refuse to keep doing this to myself.”

It took an accident of an event for me to surrender, but understanding what was happening took a boatload of self-awareness. In order to recognize that I needed to make a change, I had to trust in myself to:

  • Be in charge of my own life
  • Understand the concept of sunk costs
  • Know that the path I was on was not the only path
  • Take control of my own happiness

I didn’t develop any of these skills in the past 24 hours. They are all a result of hard, deep self-work I’ve put in over the past 4 years. Had I not spent those years actively cultivating these skills, I would have melted down yesterday without recognizing the value of the meltdown. Anger, tears, emotion—it’s all a bright flashing sign pointing to an issue that needs to be fixed. And yet we never teach people to recognize an emotion as such, and so we end up in a feedback loop of our own personal hell.

Happiness is not a given. Nor is it doled out to some but not others. It is something that must be cultivated and learned through trial and error. When you’re depressed or struggling though, it can be impossible to think you can help yourself. I know that during my 15 years of depression and year of antidepressant withdrawal, every time someone suggested a gratitude journal, I wanted to punch them in the face. Gratitude works when you want life. It mocks you when you want death.

My goal is to teach people the skills that I’ve learned so that they can take control of their own life. After yesterday’s moment of clarity, I’ve realized that I have to try a different strategy. What I was doing simply wasn’t working for me. It had me working against my own ethos, and that is a recipe for malcontent. The good of others is no good if it’s not good for me, too.

And so I move forward, my way, this time.

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Note from Brooke: This is an updated post originally written in November of 2016, when I was traveling around the world.  

Now that I’m four countries and nearly three months into my Remote Year experience, I’ve been doing this long enough to realize that everything I did to prepare for this trip was wrong. Everything I packed? Wrong. Everything I anticipated? Wrong. Everything I assumed? Wrong. It was all wrong, wrong, wrong.

Before I left, I spent a lot of time researching the packing lists and tips from other nomads and RY participants. Some of their tips were useful, but mostly I found that I ended up buying a whole bunch of stuff I didn’t really need. Now, twelve weeks in, I’m significantly poorer from spending money to fix my mistakes, and that’s on top of the nearly $3000 I spent just to get ready to leave. (This includes insurance and vaccines…I’m not a total lush.) I didn’t need to spend that much, and neither do you.

The problem with these lists is that they don’t really address basic philosophies and questions. For example, you’ll see someone who said they packed a truckload of DEET, and you ask yourself, “Does thatmean I can’t actually buy bug spray abroad? Do I need to be that paranoid?” And then you go to your local clinic to spend $1000 on shots because the nurse who has never left Cleveland tells you that you will die of some sort of mosquito-borne encephalitis while you’re gone unless you get all the vaccines. So now that’s stuck in your head, and you go onto Amazon and spend $200 a case of DEET because you MIGHT end up making out with a water buffalo in the middle of a rice paddy in Cambodiawhich is pretty much the only way you get Japanese Encephalitis. But you feel better, because you’ve got a year’s supply of DEET, which is great until you realize you can’t fit it in your bag. And then when you do win at packing Tetris and stuff it in your bag along with that hair dryer and third pair of leggings that you will never wear, you get to the airport and realize that your bag is 9 kilos over weight, so you’re forced to do math to figure out how many pounds 9 kilos is. Now you’re annoyed because life made you do math and made you pay for it. Then, once you finally get to Cambodia, you realize that you can buy DEET at the pharmacy. And that no one will let you touch the water buffaloes because Cambodian water buffaloes are racist and they will kick you.

So, instead of giving you a list of things to pack, I’m going to give you a list of philosophies to keep in mind along with some potential scenarios. That said, keep in mind that there’s no predicting this stuff.  Everything you figured out one month will go completely sideways the next month, so it’s best to work with as little as possible and adapt along the way.

1. Save weight wherever you can because you cannot hire a sherpa. 

Even if something isn’t heavy on its own, it will add up and you won’t realize it until you’re lugging it around during an inexplicable seven hour layover. And it’s not just one-a-month travel days you need to think about — you will be spending a frustrating amount of time carrying your stuff. In some places, you’ll bewalking in 95 degree weather all day, every day, with your daypack (filled with a camera, computer, all of your cords, water, etc.), and it’s going to make you irate every time you have to sling that bag over your shoulders.

It’s worth it to upgrade to a lighter computer, dump the heavy DSLR for a mirrorless camera (yes, even you photographers should do this. I leave my kit at home more often than not because it’s a giant pain in the ass…and then I regret not having my camera.)

2. You will be able to buy everything you need. You may not be able to buy everything you want. 

Anywhere you go, you will be able to purchase the basics (shampoo, toothbrush/toothpaste, deodorant, and yes, DEET) and you’ll probably be able to get some of the extras too, like face masks, nail polish remover, and whatever products men use to keep their manbuns in place. (Note that I’m only assuming on the manbuns, because I am neither a man nor do I sport a teeny, tiny, bun. However, there are so many backpackers with manbuns in this part of the world that I can only assume they stick around because they have access to products that support their particularly fussed over hairstyle.)

That said, brands may vary, so if your bun requires a particular kind of hair gel for that sweet, slick look, bring it with you. Otherwise, save the weight and buy it abroad.

Also, there’s a brand of “DEET” in Cambodia called Wild Lives. It’s fake DEET. I spent $20 on fake DEET to learn that lesson for you. You’re welcome.

3. Ask yourself three things when packing: Do I love it? Will I want to wear it in any environment?

If it doesn’t make you feel good, physically and emotionally, you won’t wear it or use it…no matter how practical it is. I’ve found that clothes are pretty much my last connection to the routine I once knew, so I’ve only been wearing the things that feel like home. Whatever little things irritated me about the things I wore in my previous life, like itchy fabrics or seams that dent your skin, irritate me 10x more abroad. All those clothes have been dumped.

Each country has a different energy, so things you’d feel comfortable with in one place, somehow don’t feel right in another. I wore a black romper consistently in Kuala Lumpur and Koh Phangan, because it was cool and worked with my flip flops. In Phnom Penh, the streets are so gross and filled with things that could kill you, so I wear closed toed shoes. I look like I got dressed in the dark when I wear this romper with sneakers, but more importantly, I feel like a total dork. So, I’m not wearing it…and that’s one less piece of clothing in already small my rotation.

4. Pack in small, organized containers because you’re going to organize everything, forget you packed the thing, buy a new thing, and then find the thing two months later when you’re busy searching for another thing. 

I spent about $30 on this toiletry bag with a million pockets and loops. It’s great because it fits all of my stuff, but it’s a giant pain in the ass because it’s too big to carry around in a carry on or for side trips. Had I been smarter, I would have invested in four or five smaller, see through bags and divided my stuff among them.

I also bought an over the shoulder purse with no less than eight pockets. I thought, “I will be able to carry so much stuff!” Well, as it turns out, carrying stuff is a pain in the ass and now I constantly lose my keys and wallet in the depths of this awful bag. And since everyone is getting mugged in Cambodia, I really don’t want to be carrying around a purse anyway, so I just stuff everything in my bra. I should have just bought bigger bras.

5. If you’re bringing something along because you “might need it,” it’s not worth the weight. 

You probably won’t need it. If you do, you’ll buy it. If you’re incapacitated and can’t buy it, someone else will buy it for you. A brief list of things I’ve brought that I haven’t used or have dumped along the way:

  • Hair dryer (I’m too sweaty to bother)
  • Travel clothing steamer (no one cares if my clothes are a little wrinkly)
  • Ballet flats (Too uncomfortable)
  • Clothesline (That’s what bed frames and chairs are for)
  • Extra clothes (two pairs of leggings, three pairs of workout tanks, random dresses)
  • A mug (Believe it or not, other countries have vessels from which drink)
  • Daily supplements (Activated charcoal and serotonin boosters just take up space)
  • Way too many zipties (In case of ziptie emergency)
  • Hiking boots (I hate hiking. I don’t know why I thought I “might” go hiking.)

I’ll be doing a series of posts on all the things I wish someone had told me before I left, so feel free to contact me if you have any questions, additions, or are about to commit to a RY program and you’re losing your damn mind.

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