Author: Karol

I’m 35 years old and I’m still making lists like this? Yes, yes I am.

The reason why is simple: I like reading about other people’s favorites — books, travel destinations, movies, music, apps, whatever — and these types of posts generally have high interest and engagement. Although I’m breaking the mold. No photos. Just text (3,000+ words). For the hardcore among us.

Note: All links below open in a new window so fill up those tabs! And Amazon links are referral links.

Books

Favorite non-fiction book I read in 2015:

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

If I could give one book to every human on Earth and I had to choose it today this would be it.

With a caveat.

There were a couple glaring logical fallacies towards the end of the book that I’m surprised the author made considering what the book is about. The common Ad Hominem fallacy known as Guilt by Association along with a bit of a straw man were particularly grating. Goldacre says he is wary of GM (genetically modified) crops because, among other things, “If you really want to dig deeper, Monsanto is also very simply an unpleasant company (it made Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, for example).”

This book is nearly 10 years old so maybe Goldacre has updated his stance based on the evidence. You don’t decide to stop sleeping because at some point in time you had a nightmare. And you don’t disregard GM crops because of one company’s past. Additionally, Monsanto isn’t the only company doing GM work so using them as a straw man for GM is disingenuous. It’s also an old, tired, and incorrect argument constantly used by people on the left. If you think Monsanto is inherently evil you’ve spent too much time watching one-sided, misinformed, documentaries that agree with your regressive worldview.

Save for that misstep Bad Science is great. Read it if you care about anything at all.

Buy it here.

Favorite fiction:

The Martian by Andy Weir

I know, I know. I know. Really. I know. I’m rarely a fan of science fiction, but The Martian is as good as the hype. I haven’t seen the film yet, but I hear it’s also great and I’ll see it eventually.

Buy it here.

Wait, wait, wait, stop the presses! I just finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak on Dec 31 and it is my new favorite fiction of the year. It made me cry too much. Get it here.

A few other books (of the 50+ I read this year) you might like:

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

I read most of this in a hotel room while waiting for my clothes to dry in Bologna, Italy. It’s too long for my regular taste (nearly 800 pages), but even so, it kept my attention. (Every time I left my hotel I’d get soaked with snowmelt and I only have one pair of shoes. So I spent a lot of time inside reading.)

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I’m surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed science fiction this year. This one will be particularly fun for you if you’re a child of the 80s.

Dreams From Bunker Hill by John Fante

The fourth (and last) in the Arturo Bandini series. If I were you I’d start with Ask The Dust, though. If you’re a Bukowski fan then this series is a must read since Fante heavily influenced Bukowski. “Fante was my god.” – Charles Bukowski

An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi

Give this book to everybody along with the previously mentioned Bad Science. It’s free to read online, but I supported the cause and bought a copy.

Creating Change Through Humanism by Roy Speckhardt

Although I’ve been following the American Humanist Association (of which Mr Speckhardt is the Director) for years I’ve never considered myself a humanist. I always felt like it was a bit of a cop out. Or a cloak. Hiding behind the term atheism, which I prefer not to hide. But after reading this book (which I purchased after participating in this Reddit AMA with Mr Speckhardt) I guess I am a humanist atheist.

Creating Change Through Humanism is an account of the challenges that face non-believers in a world of believers, along with a historical breakdown of where humanism began and how it’s growing. More importantly it’s an account of how to create change through positive action. It’s not about proselytizing or deconverting, but about being out in the open and doing good things for the sake of doing good things. For humans, animals, the Earth and the universe alike. Hopefully all can appreciate that message whether they think atheists like me are amoral creatures who will burn in a fictional hell or not.

Music

Metric – Pagans In Vegas (spotify, amazon)

I briefly dated a girl about 10 years ago whose favorite band was Metric. And because of that I never listened to them. “Metric? Sounds like pretentious indie rock. No thanks.” Come to find out I love pretentious indie rock. Ha.

In September this album came up on Spotify’s new releases list, I hit play, and I’ve been obsessed with the band ever since. Emily Haines writes what I describe as perfectly relatable lyrics and the music is the type I wish I had the talent to compose. Next month when Spotify sends me my most listened to tracks of 2015 I’m going to guess the top 20 will be dominated by Metric.

Must listen track: Celebrate

Coheed and Cambria – The Color Before The Sun (spotify, amazon)

I saw Coheed live back in 2006 at UCF Arena in Orlando, FL. Although they were good live performers I was not a fan back then and only went because I got free tickets. It wasn’t until a couple years ago and I found their album Afterman (thanks, again, Spotify!) that I actually listened to their work. If you like stories — concept albums — with your music then this is a band you might like. The new album doesn’t follow the storyline of their other albums (it’s difficult to follow the whole story anyway since it encompasses other mediums than just music), but it’s still outstanding.

Must listen track: You Got Spirit, Kid

The White Buffalo – Love and the Death of Damnation (spotify, amazon)

Possibly my favorite musician of the past few years. Every album is listenable through and through. This new one continued that trend. I’m such a fanboy I’ve done a couple bad covers of The White Buffalo songs on youtube (1, 2). Sorry you had to hear that. (Note to self: Add voice lessons to the bucket list.)

Must listen track: Modern Times

Film

Montage of Heck

I wouldn’t recommend this for anybody except Nirvana fans. It’s well done and surprisingly — considering Kurt Cobain killed himself over 20 years ago — reveals new insights into the man.

That’s the only film I watched in theatres, and I don’t recall any new standouts that I watched elsewhere. I’ve seen a bunch of movies via Amazon Prime, but there’s no watch history that I can look back on. So I’ll share one of my favorite movies that I didn’t see in 2015: Once. (Related to Once: We’re going to see Glen Hansard live in February! The last time I saw him was in the top 5 live shows I’ve been to in my life. He is outstanding.)

Apps

I use the following almost daily.

Player.fm

This is the type of app that I wish I could pay for because I want it to prosper. Just let us all send you $10 or something, man!

It is the best Android podcast listening app. Bonus: you can also listen to your subscriptions through a web browser on other devices.

Here is my public Player.fm profile.

TunnelBear (referral link)

If you’re looking for an easy to use and effective VPN then TunnelBear is it. Particularly useful if you travel. I pay for the Grizzly (yearly) plan.

Bonus: if you’re from the US, travel internationally, and want to still use Amazon Prime Video then this is your ticket since Prime Video won’t work without a US-based IP address.

Spotify

I’ve been a paying member since they launched a few years ago. On the one hand Spotify is great because it has saved me a lot of money since I’m grandfathered into the old $5/month plan and I rarely buy music anymore. (I used to spend a few hundred dollars per year on music.) On the other hand, Spotify is probably hurting independent artists whose fans don’t buy albums anymore and that’s not good. So I still buy music that friends release and I’ll buy something if it’s unpopular and amazing, just to support art. (Alan Gogoll comes to mind.)

That said, Amazon Prime Music has stepped up its game and I’m about ready to quit Spotify altogether. I find more value in the $99/year I spend on Amazon Prime (12 book borrows per year, 12 indie book downloads per year, large selection of music/movies) than the $60/year I spend on Spotify and I can only see Amazon doing better in the coming years. (Do I have to disclose that I own AMZN here? OK, disclosed.) When their apps first came out they weren’t very good. It was difficult to find newly added albums, for example. But recently they’ve gotten much better. And I can download songs to my phone for listening offline, which I can’t do with my particular Spotify plan. If you’re worried that Amazon Prime Music “only” has 1 million+ songs and Spotify (and its ilk) allegedly has 30 million+ don’t be. Most of what you listen to is probably on Amazon Prime (they even have T.Swift!) and Spotify (they don’t have T.Swift!) has even stated that many of their tracks have never been listened to. If you need a new release that Amazon Prime doesn’t have — they can be slower with new releases — you can just spend the $10, own it, and still save in the long run.

A note on these music apps: I realize there are free ways to download music and also free apps (like Spotify free). But I don’t want to steal from artists and I don’t want to listen to advertising if I can help it.

Update a few days after posting this: I canceled Spotify!

Cinch

Simple window resizing. It’s more useful than it seems.

Telegram

I like this much better than Whatsapp. Too bad almost everybody I know is on Whatsapp and almost nobody I know uses Telegram except my wife. I much prefer chatting via computer than phone and Telegram lets you send/receive messages across all devices. e.g. My wife can message me from her phone to my computer, and vice versa.

Telegram has recently gotten a bad rep because of their amazing encryption and use amongst Islamists to organize terrorist attacks. I don’t think that should scare you off, but do what you will.

YouTubers

Not surprisingly, they’re mostly woodworkers or makers.

• Make Something – David is a rocker / web designer turned woodworker. Great stuff. Watch: DIY Stereo Speaker Build
• Jimmy Diresta – Jimmy can make anything. It’s wild what he’s able to do. Most of his videos have no talking, which is unique in the maker realm. Watch: Dracula’s Coffin Jimmy also reminds me a lot of my Dad. My Dad has always been able to build or fix anything, often without using plans or instructions. And I did not inherit that talent.
• Darbin Orvar – Beyond being a good maker, Linn is a great storyteller. Watch: DIY Overhead Camera Rig
• April Wilkerson – April makes a lot of practical and useful things. But mostly I like that she makes me feel like I can make stuff too if I just take it slow and work things out. Watch: DIY Fold down work bench
• I Like To Make Stuff – Bob likes to make stuff and it varies from woodworking to electronics to other. Lots of cool projects. Watch: How To Make A Simple Work Table From 2x4s
• Steve Carmichael – Steve is really creative and, as a musician, has done a few fun musical instrument builds. Watch: Make a 2×4 Acoustic Telecaster Guitar
• Steve Ramsey – I think Steve Ramsey is the first woodworker I found on youtube. He focuses mostly on projects for beginners, which is nice for people like me. Watch: Step Stool From A Single 2×4

Bonus non-woodworker: Thunderf00t, even though he spends too much time talking about modern western feminism and how detrimental, misguided, and misinformed it is. His science experiments and pseudoscience debunking videos are great, but if I never see anything anywhere about professional video game complainers again it will be too soon. He does a lot of fun experiments, but I particularly like when he dissects the science or lack thereof in popular culture. Such as this: The stupidity that just won’t die! Super Cycleways and other snake oil.

Update (March 13, 2016): I’ve unsubscribed from Thunderf00t. There have been far too many non-science videos and it’s annoying to consistently see negative videos in my feed.

Podcasts

• StarTalk Radio – Still my favorite. If you’re not a fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson yet let’s never hang out. Just kidding. We can still hang out. If by hang out you mean listen to StarTalk Radio and not speak to each other.
• The Skeptics’ Guide To The Universe – Steven Novella is one of my favorite bloggers and I’m not sure how he also has time to do this podcast and work as a clinical neurologist. For some reason I didn’t start listening to the Skeptics’ Guide regularly until this year even though it is precisely the kind of echo chamber I sometimes need in a world full of pseudoscience and in-your-face religiosity.

Blogs

Science:

• Neurologica – Dr. Novella is a masterful communicator, but he writes so often that it’s difficult to choose a favorite. So I’m going to go with a recent essay: We Need Both Science and Critical Thinking. Related: I’ve listened to Your Deceptive Mind about 5 times now.
• Sam Harris – He gets too involved with defending himself against people who hate him (thereby promoting them since he usually has the bigger platform), but he’s a great writer and orator when he’s on the offensive. The Fireplace Delusion is one of my favorite pieces. Update (March 13, 2016): I’ve unsubscribed from Sam’s podcast and newsletter. The pettiness and sarcasm has become unbearable. Case in point: The Best Podcast Ever. The title of a podcast he didn’t want to post because he didn’t like the interviewee. It’s something I would expect from a 15 year old. Anyway, I’ll still read his books (and maybe some articles if they happen to make their way to me somehow) because he is a great writer, but I’ve unsubscribed from his stuff.

Finance:

The blogs below are all what I would call intelligent-aggressive personal finance for the layman. Meaning, you don’t need to be special or hold a high paying job, but you have to be intelligent enough to understand basic economic principles and get aggressive about your finances.

• Afford Anything – What a great name for a project: afford anything. I used to always say if you want something don’t say you can’t afford it, but figure out how to afford it. Paula Pant took it to a level I didn’t and I wish I had friends or acquaintances like her when I was younger. Thankfully, the internet has allowed me to pretend I do. Must read: Renting Is Throwing Money Away … Right?
• Root of Good – If you’re of the mind that you can’t build wealth while working at a regular job then Root of Good will flip that script for you. Must read: Climbing the Roth IRA Conversion Ladder To Fund Early Retirement

Thanks to these blogs (along with Mr Money Mustache, Go Curry Cracker, Financial Samurai, and Mad Fiendist) for teaching me I did nearly everything wrong in my 20s. I now feel both better and worse about wasting hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars as an adult. This includes a massive chunk given to charities and people, which I would’ve been better off saving/investing and giving away in 30-40 years when it’d be really significant. Building wealth first and then giving it all away when it can make an impact is much more exciting to me now. (In my defense, I’ve already given away more than most people probably will in their lifetimes so I don’t feel bad about holding back on charitable giving nowadays. FFRF and Wikipedia will likely continue to get my cash, though.)

Miscellaneous

• Jesus & Mo – This cartoon is spot on week after week. I support it with a small monthly donation on Patreon.
• Life of Norman – My wife and I are big fans of Norman and his cat Norman. He’s a nice guy who’s maybe a little too proper and sometimes things don’t work out for him. But sometimes they do. Anybody can write a Norman story and the community will let you know if it’s good.
• French press – We bought a cheap french press at Tesco and I’m surprised at how often we use it. Once per day, maybe more. And we now rarely waste time or money on coffee outside of the home. Of course, now I leave home even less than before. Win some lose some. (Also, I’m usually more a tea drinker than a coffee drinker, but I’ve grown to enjoy coffee over the past few years.)
• Vegetable bouillon – Making vegetable broth is time consuming and I don’t like making it. But I love soup. These things are difficult to reconcile. Vegetable bouillon is the solution that I refused for years because of a misinformed opinion that it’s “unhealthy.” You know what’s actually unhealthy? Almost anything else in comparison to a cube of bouillon. A couple bags of various frozen veggies, a can or two of beans or a chunk of tofu (diced), water, cayenne pepper and a bouillon. Bring to a boil and eat. Tasty, simple, healthy. Difficult to top that.

And that does it for 2015. Thanks for reading. If you’ve made your own favorites of 2015 list share it in the comments.

“The thing about the absolute truth is, it’s not pretty, and not everyone is interested in it. But it’s still the truth.” – Mike Skinner

Afternoon, everybody!

On Saturday I finished up a streak of 100 days of mindfulness meditation. Thank you, I’m impressed too. It’s rare I do anything for 100 days straight, except maybe eat. But even that I forget about some days. As it is, my history with meditation has been long and full of failure.

I bought my first book on meditation when I was 18 and attempted to get into the habit for the next 16 years. It never lasted more than about a month.

Until now.

After reading 10% Happier and listening to Waking Up I decided to challenge myself to meditate for 100 days for an average of 10 minutes per day. I started with just 5 minutes per day to make it easier.

I wanted to do it consistently to the best of my abilities, but I had no expectations. Although I guess I probably did hope it would help with all the general things it has been reported to help with or I’d not have bothered. I mean 1,000 minutes is nearly 17 hours. That’s 2 seasons of Cheers!

The (Incomplete, Flawed) Research On The Benefits of Meditation

There is a lot of research regarding the supposed benefits of meditation, but if you learn even just the basics of how to read a scientific paper you quickly learn which research to pay attention to (not a whole lot really) and which research needs more research (most of it).

I’m not going to dissect every research paper on meditation because I have important things to do like catch up on all that Cheers I missed out on, but let’s dissect just one, for education’s sake.

I’ve often heard that regular meditation creates actual physical changes in the brain’s gray matter, making it more dense. That would be incredible! (Although I’m already pretty dense as it is so maybe I shouldn’t get so excited.)

But let’s hold on a second and take a look at the study in question.

According to the abstract — red flag! most bloggers and journalists only read and report on abstracts and that’s no good — what they did was take 16 healthy individuals who wanted to take an 8 week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course. They measured these individuals before and after the program using voxel-based morphometry. (I don’t know what that is either, but that’s actually not important in determining if the study is done well.) They also measured a control group of 17 individuals.

Hopefully you see another red flag.

A total sample size of 33 individuals is, for statistical intents and purposes, nothing. You’ll be happy to know the researchers were up front about this if you read the full paper instead of just the abstract. See, most scientists mostly have an interest in truth. Journalists and bloggers (and podcasters and authors and TV presenters) have an interest in increasing their audiences and bank accounts, even if it means lying. Intentional or not. Ignorance is not a good excuse.

Beyond sample size, if you read the paper you also learn that two people dropped out of the study after one week.

“Due to discomforts during the first MRI scanning session, two participants did not return for the second session.”

That’s not a big deal in this particular case, because they’re not trying to hide the drop out rate, but drop out rates can matter a lot. It’s an easy way for a researcher to massage the results and make them more positive, but that’s a whole other essay. (Google “p hacking” if you’re interested.)

Additionally, this group of subjects was self-selected. And they got a discount on the MBSR course to participate in the study. A group of subjects that is self-selected is usually not as good as a group of randomly selected individuals although for a study using MRI I don’t think it’s as big a problem. Somebody who understands and works with MRI would be better equipped to speak to this.

If this is confusing or convoluted you now see why if you care about your health it’s your duty to go beyond the headlines when you hear news that says anything to the effect of “Science confirms …” or “Science says …” or “backed by science!” It’s usually not an absolute even if it’s reported as such by your favorite A-list bloggers, journalists, or authors.

Happily, and I think you’ll find this often, in the Discussion section of the paper the researchers here are up front about the faults of their study:

“It should be noted also that MBSR is a multifaceted group program and some positive effects may result from components not specific to meditation or mindfulness, such as group social interaction, stress education, or gentle stretching exercises.”

“Also, the current study investigated physician- and self-referred individuals seeking stress reduction and generalizations should therefore be limited to this population of stress individuals. Future studies will be required to test whether findings extend to non-stressed individuals as well as individuals suffering from mental disorders. Finally, the current study employed a rather small sample size and replication is necessary.”

Emphasis mine.

This is why I love science.

These researchers are so honest THEY DON’T EVEN TRUST THEIR OWN STUDY!

That doesn’t make for a good headline on Buzzfeed or HuffPo or [insert most bloggers who report on science] so it’s up to you to read the often confusing research papers before making a decision based on a well written or well marketed article.

You might be thinking, “OK, Karol, so maybe meditation increasing gray matter density is inconclusive, but I’ve heard it works for depression and other psychological issues. What about that?”

There is no doubt lots of research to this effect. One of the best ways to look at it is through a meta-analysis, which is an analysis of the analysis. In other words, researchers don’t take just one study, but they take all the studies that fit their criteria and come to a conclusion based on a bigger sample size.

Anything like this with regards to meditation? Glad you asked. Yes, yes there is: Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health benefits. A meta-analysis

I do have the full paper, but it’s not necessary in this case because fortunately, the abstract is telling (emphasis mine): “Although derived from a relatively small number of studies, these results suggest that MBSR may help a broad range of individuals to cope with their clinical and nonclinical problems.”

Although not ideal you can sometimes use an abstract to dismiss a paper. You can almost never use the same abstract to determine if the paper should be accepted as fact.

Relatively small? Suggest? May help? Pardon me if I say that’s not convincing. It’s like the first time Sam tells Diane, “I love you,” because Diane bought him tickets to the big fight. You think maybe it is true and it does seem true, but even Sam’s not convinced. But hey, now we’re going a little off the rails, aren’t we?

“It’s good to stay true to your own vision. Even, or maybe especially, when that vision is that you know your life is going substantially off the rails, and you’re determined to try to present that situation in an honest way.” – Mike Skinner

That quote has absolutely nothing to do with meditation, Cheers, or scientific research, but it sure does have the phrase “off the rails” in it and that’s good enough for me.

Have I lost you yet? No? Ehh, win some lose some.

So … what happened after my own stint of 100 days and 1,000 minutes of meditation?

Well, before we get to that, lately:

• I haven’t been sleeping well. As a result I’m tired most days and …
• I’m more stressed than before. As a result I’m frazzled and …
• I’m less focused than before. As a result …
• I haven’t been getting any good work or reading done. (Didn’t finish a single book in June, which is not normal.) As a result …
• I’m less happy than before. As a result …
• I sleep worse than before, I’m more stressed than before, I’m less focused than before, and I’m less happy than before. And so on.

Now, insomnia is nothing new for me and I’m not blaming meditation for any of this. It very well could be due to life changes. I got married — my wife actually joined me in meditation for most of my last 50 days — and our future is held up in annoying bureaucracy. That hasn’t been easy for me to deal with because although I’m okay dealing with change I’m not good at dealing with being forced into things. Top that off with all of the uncertainty (6 more months until we can move? 12 months? Longer? I don’t care how long it takes anymore, but I’d like to know.) and I’m enjoying Poland less as I feel more trapped here.

Again, I am not blaming meditation for these issues.

But meditation has not helped. I don’t feel less stressed after a meditation session. I don’t feel more calm after a meditation session. I don’t feel more focused after a meditation session. I don’t feel much of anything after a meditation session except, “Oh, cool, well, I meditated.” So what’s the point? If it’s not making my life better then it’s making my life worse if for no other reason than by wasting my time.

Yesterday, the first full day after my meditation streak ended, was one of my most relaxed feeling days in weeks. I actually think I may have been starting to get a sort of meditation anxiety and it was a relief to know I wouldn’t be meditating at any point in the day.

Before you think I’m being unreasonable, much like the research dissected above cannot be taken as a definitive positive statement on the benefits of meditation, you also cannot take my anecdotes as a blanket statement that meditation is useless. It has been useless for me. Sample size of Karol Gajda.

If it comes out that there is definitive research that meditation is beneficial even when it doesn’t seem like it then I will consider doing it again. Until that time, well, after 16 years of fits and starts I can finally say I gave it a good shot and it’s time to move on to not giving meditation much thought. (Is that a pun? I can’t tell. My sleep deprived brain is broken.) It also leaves more time for Cheers. I’m happier already.

If you are interested in meditation there are a few things I learned about it during my 1,000 minutes sitting in silence.

Contrary to what it might seem I didn’t hate meditating and I didn’t decide I was going to stop until last week when I looked more closely at the research. Even though I wasn’t getting anything out of meditating I was committed to keep doing it if the science was in its favor. Alas, that’s not the case.

If nothing else, it was interesting to learn …

1. It’s incredibly difficult — nay, impossible — to shut off your thoughts.
2. You will not be able to focus on your breath for more than a few seconds at a time.
3. Some days your time spent in silence will go by quickly. This is enjoyable.
4. Some days it will feel like you are at war with your thoughts and 10 minutes will seem like 30. This is exhausting.
5. Don’t scratch the itch. Focus on it. It will go away. (I quite liked this.)

An aside: Think god gave you free will? Sit in silence and don’t let your thoughts wander for 10 minutes. If you can’t control your own thoughts, what else can’t you control?

If after some time meditation isn’t doing anything for you then quit. No regrets. Maybe you, like me, are one of the many people meditation doesn’t help and that 10-20 minutes per day could be better used reading a book or engaging in myriad other activities. (*ahem* Cheers)

I would like to end on a positive note, because that feels nice, you know? So, on the positive side I’d always planned on doing a 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat at some point and this experience has saved 10 whole days of my life from that torture. Huzzah!

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Do you meditate? What has been your experience?

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Update: Lots of great comments (here and on Reddit) and e-mails about meditation and science journalism over the past 24 hours. I’ve run into some doxastic openness and, unfortunately, some intense doxastic closure as well. But that was to be expected. In general, I’ve been feeling great since stopping the meditation. But I’m also more open to trying it again at some point in the future. Longer sessions, but without the “must do it daily” requirement. And maybe with a teacher in the beginning. For now? I’ll stick to other activities.

This question was posed on Reddit recently and the responses are … interesting.

I wanted to go through the popular comments (those with 1,000+ upvotes) and offer up why or how some of these luxuries are obtainable without being rich.

But first, my answer.

I don’t fantasize about “obvious” luxuries anymore. Maybe that’s because there was a time when I did and when I finally got those luxuries it wasn’t luxurious. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t “rich.” I just had more money than I knew what to do with (the year I was 24 I earned ~$300k USD) and I didn’t have good examples of people doing smart things with money. That’s a lie since my Parents were a great example, but they were/are also more traditional than I am and I didn’t want to follow their lead. Although some of their advice was to buy a house, which was bad advice for me, and I listened to it. Basically, I was kind of your typical “young and dumb” guy who wanted to be rich and own stuff I didn’t really want. It wasn’t until I made friends with people who didn’t have a lot of money, but did a lot of traveling and other fun things, that I began learning how to live a better life. Luxurious in a different way. And not expensive by any stretch.

Also, for the record, I wasted nearly all the money I made in my 20s. Although I was smart enough to seed a 401k and other retirement accounts which will suit me well in 30 years.

OK, so that’s a bit of a cop out answer, isn’t it? So here’s my direct answer: if money was of absolutely no concern I wouldn’t spend any time figuring out how to pay for my sometimes wacky ideas (Roller Coaster Tour, for example). I would also buy a large piece of land and build a camp for friends/family to use. I’m actively trying to make this happen right now, and there are many hurdles. Mostly the cost of nice land and getting other people on board since I can’t bankroll it all myself. (Also, I’m currently not in the US which throws another kink in the situation.) This is still kind of a non-answer because I still do the things I want to do: travel, read, think, build things when I can, take lots of time for myself. All being rich does is solve the money problem. But solving the money problem is part of the journey of doing fun things and I don’t know that I’d appreciate life if that problem wasn’t there. (I readily admit this may just be a rationalization.)

So, onto Reddit. There were lots of answers to this question as it was quite a popular thread. Let’s get to it.

The luxury of time

This one is pretty simple. Not easy, but simple.

• Get out of debt.
• Stop spending time and money on wants.
• Save more.
• Earn more.

These can be done concurrently.

Why does this give you the luxury of time?

Because when you’re not in debt you’re not forced to work more than you want to. When you stop spending time and money on wants (as opposed to needs) you have more time and money for yourself. And when you save money you can pay people to take care of the needs (cleaning your home and cooking, for example) that you don’t enjoy doing or you feel are a waste of your time.

Earning more is actually optional at this point. Though if you earn more it can obviously expedite your buying of time.

Traveling where I want when I want. Being able to just jump on a plane go somewhere without plans and just get a hotel without reservations.

I get this. This is almost my idea of absolute freedom. Except that I’ve travelled like this and wouldn’t like it full time. I suspect you wouldn’t either. I do like this style of travel every once in a while because it’s incredibly fun. So, again, I get this. (Actually, our honeymoon was, “Let’s go to the train station and take the next train leaving to somewhere we’ve never been.” I live in Poland right now and we have an extensive rail network.)

Here is how you can make this happen, although it has limits and I admit that. By doing it this way you will be able to test it out and see if you even enjoy traveling in this manner. Maybe you’re more of a planner than you thought.

Sign up for airline and hotel credit cards that have signup bonuses.

Gather enough bonus points from them to take you anywhere you want for a week. I think 100k (OneWorld or Star Alliance) airline miles should do it. Likely less, but I’ve never booked with points on a whim and am unsure if there are extra costs involved. I’m not sure exactly how many hotel points you’ll need, but it’s easy to figure out on the relevant hotel’s website.

That’s it. Only one real step and a bit of time.

To sustain this lifestyle will take a bit more work, but you could still do it with credit card points if you work hard at it. There are people who devote a lot more time to airline miles than me so just use Google and find them.

Not having a job.

OK, this one’s a bit more difficult. I could just say “quit, go on welfare” but I don’t think that’s practical.

That said, maybe it is. See, all you said was you didn’t want a job. So what do you have to take care of? Food, clothing, and shelter.

Shelter is possibly most difficult. While you still have a job, buy a bicycle and a tent. My friend Darren travels the world living like this, but you could do it by staying closer to home.

Next, food, clothing, and other things. Dumpster dive.

Yes, I’m serious.

Check out how much free food Rob Greenfield eats. It’s incredible.

Then check out Matt Malone who dumpster dives for electronics and sells what he finds, earning tens of thousands of dollars. That takes care of your clothing and other expenses. Possibly even enough for an apartment.

You could argue that this is a job. I would argue that I’m solving your problem and since you won’t be earning a paycheck it’s not a job. You could argue you don’t want to dumpster dive. I could argue, OK, that’s fine, me neither. But I don’t mind working.

Elaborate practical jokes. I’d hire 5,000 people, give them each $1000 to spend in a Walmart store and just buy everything on the shelves. A week later, after the store has replaced all their inventory with new merchandise, send all 5,000 people back to return everything they bought.

This isn’t nice. But let’s get my morality out of here!

If you really want to do this you only temporarily need $5,000,000 (5,000 x $1,000) since you’re returning all the merchandise. So the real problem is not that you’re not rich. The problem is you need to borrow $5MM.

To be honest, all my ideas for borrowing $5MM are only speculative and I don’t have a good answer. I just wanted to reframe your problem. This is a creativity problem, not a wealth problem.

Conducting large scale very expensive science and social experiments. Is it possible to cause rain by boiling massive amounts of water? What happens if every resident in the most crime ridden communities receives $1000 a week for 5 years?

You’re misunderstanding how and why it rains although I wouldn’t mind seeing you attempt to boil the water out of a lake (or even a pool) just for laughs. As for the other, fair enough you’ll need to be quite wealthy for that one. That’s $260,000 ($52k x 5) per resident. For a fairly small crime ridden community such as Flint, MI you will need $25,938,380,000 (99,763 residents x $260,000). There are only a few humans with that kind of wealth so you’ll have to consult with them as to how to make that much money.

Extensive travel and super high end dining.

See previous answer about travel and credit card points. The super high end dining isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but I can understand why you’d want to try it. If you can save $2,000 (5 meals x $400) for your next trip and use credit card points to pay for the trip you can use the $2k to experience the high end dining instead of what you’d normally spend on flights/hotels. Massage the number as you see fit. Not every high end dining experience is $400. Some are more, some are less. Do it how you want.

I don’t feel like doing (whatever). I’ll pay some chump to do it.

Not the best attitude, but let’s ignore that.

See previous answer about the luxury of time. It’s simpler than you think to “pay some chump to do it.”

Handmade clothes. All clothes I own are tailored especially to fit me out of my preferred fabrics. I can grab anything out of my drawers and it all looks good together.

Let’s tackle the latter part of this first. If you want all your clothes to mix and match it has nothing to do with if they’re handmade and tailored to your body. But let’s ignore that and get to the handmade tailored clothes situation.

Let’s go with 1 suit ($2k), a pair of dress shoes ($300-500), and 7 tailored shirts ($100-500 each). This can all be had for a few thousand dollars, depending on your preferences. So, save up $5,000 and you’re likely good. Especially if you fly to Thailand on your credit card points to do it.

I’m ignoring casual clothing, but it’s easier to find well fitting casual clothing than it is nice work/dress attire.

So from the time I was a wee lad I always wanted a blimp. My family has joked about this enough that being super rich in our house is referred to as “blimp money.”

Hehe. You can lease one for $2,000 – $10,000 per month, which includes 8-64 hours of flight time per month. So now your new problem is coming up with an extra $2k/month. This is doable in myriad ways. I don’t know what that looks like for you specifically but it can be done. And you don’t need to be wealthy, just willing to throw away $24k+ per year. At which point you’ll probably get bored of having a blimp because it’s not going to impress anybody as much as you seem to think so. (I didn’t include the commenter’s whole message about impressing a girl because it was too long so read it on Reddit.)

A home theater. Screw mansions, cars or any of that stuff. All I want is a really nice home theater to watch movies. If I was rich I wouldn’t even buy a house. I’d buy an old theater and convert an upstairs floor into living space.

This took a turn from “home theater” to “non-home theater.” Being rich won’t help you figure out what you want, but it will allow you to have both.

Home theater: this is open ended, but it can be nicely done for a few thousand dollars. I’m not going to break it all down because it is so open ended. But you can likely already afford this.

As for buying an old theater, this is more difficult. Because first you have to find an old theater for sale. You can find them for about a million dollars right here. That won’t be easy, but it is doable. Especially since you can take a business loan out for one of these if you’re going to run it as a working theater. Maybe don’t tell anybody you’re living there though.

Paying for my parents’ retirement

This is a simple math problem. Your parents are going to get social security benefits which will cover something. The rest depends on lifestyle (and whether your parents already own a home), but you won’t need to be rich to take care of this if you want to. The biggest expense will likely be medical, but it’s too variable to determine without any more information.

Not working. I couldn’t care less about the luxury shit, I just want to not work.

Answered above. You could get by without working if you really wanted to.

If I was SUPER rich I always loved the idea of just going to random houses/families and giving them X amount of money. Nothing huge but enough to make their year somewhat easier. $20,000? Would be worth it to see their reactions.

This is one of those things where, yes, if you want to give $20k to random people on a regular basis then you’re going to need to be rich. But! If you want to know how this might feel you can start with $100. I never mentioned this story before, but just before christmas some time ago (I was 25 or 26 at the time) I got a handful of $100 bills ($500 total), went to a Goodwill thrift store, and handed them out to people who were buying toys. My rationale was if someone is doing their holiday toy shopping at a thrift store then they’ll probably appreciate an extra hundred bucks. It was interesting. The smiles and thank yous were great, but it didn’t actually personally feel as good as I had imagined. It actually felt awkward for me, but that may be due to my social anxiety at the time.

Conclusion

I’m now down to Reddit comments with less than 1,000 upvotes so I’m going to stop here. A lot of these “I wish I was rich” fantasies are far more obtainable than you might’ve imagined. Hopefully this got you thinking about how to create the life you want to lead instead of continually fantasizing about the life you don’t have.

If you’ve known me for any length of time you know I have no tolerance for quackery and lies. But my biggest problem with homeopathy, astrology, reiki, psychics, “healers,” et al. is not the lies and thievery. My problem isn’t even that a lot of these beliefs can actively cause you and your loved ones harm.

My problem is that smart people waste their time debunking the quackery, thereby taking time away from doing work that could further society. We know data doesn’t often work to convince people of something they don’t already agree with — and may even make people dig their heels in further on false beliefs — so it’s mostly all for naught.

If, for example, you have the patently wrong belief that vaccines cause autism or other medical issues then the data isn’t going to change your mind. You already know the data. But you listen to Jenny McCarthy. Sadly, my pointing this out is likely causing you to stick to your beliefs more strongly.

And so it goes as more people waste time trying to save you from yourself.

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If you’re interested in inoculating yourself against irrational thinking I give my strongest recommendation to Your Deceptive Mind by Dr. Steven Novella: http://amzn.to/1EG5m7i

I have listened to this 24-part lecture nearly 5 times since late 2014. I thought I was a decent critical thinker, but I had and still have a lot to learn. Your Deceptive Mind has helped me become more empathetic towards, as well as more vigilant against, quacks of all types.

I mostly use my “before going to sleep” and “eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner” times to listen to podcasts. I think one of the good aspects of owning a car or having a commute to work is one has dead time that can be used productively. I don’t have that. And before I made this list I didn’t think I listened to a lot of podcasts. I was wrong. There are two handfuls that I find consistently interesting and then a bunch more that I listen to in varying degrees of regularity.

My podcast listening is mostly skewed towards comedy and science. As much as I enjoy business and marketing I process that kind of information better via books and blogs.

With that I bring you, in no particular order, several podcasts you should check out if you haven’t already. (All links open in a new window.)

StarTalk Radio

StarTalk Radio is by far, without a doubt, my favorite podcast. If I could only listen to one this would be it. The subtitle of this show should be, “educate yourself out of ignorance.” Which I guess is kind of redundant since education often leads to intelligence and, let’s say, anti-ignorance.

Even if you hate science Neil deGrasse Tyson’s voice is so amazing he will lull you into a trance like few people can. Then he’ll hit you with knowledge bombs left, right, and center and you’ll never be the same.

I’ve listened to every episode of this show. I think it’s the only podcast I can say that for.

I highly recommend this one if you believe in astrology or crystal healing or anything of its ilk. Mr. Tyson is an astronomer — let’s get technical, he’s an astrophysicist — and will quickly, kindly, and non-judgmentally steer your mind happily towards the truth.

Doug Stanhope’s Podcast

Mr. Stanhope is vulgar, politically incorrect, and funny. He’s also often drunk or at least pretending to be. I’m a Louis CK fan as much as the next person, but Stanhope takes “did he really just say that out loud?” to a new level. (So does Jim Jefferies, but Jefferies doesn’t have a podcast.)

Freakonomics Radio

I’ve not read the Freakonomics books yet, though I probably should if the podcast is any indication of the quality of the books. They take a rational, measured, approach to such diverse topics as, “Does religion make you happy?” and “The upside of quitting.”

Skeptoid

This one is tough to recommend. It’s a fantastic podcast. But the creator, Brian Dunning, recently started serving a 15 month prison sentence on federal charges related to illicitly making a few million dollars with the eBay affiliate program nearly 10 years ago. It now has a new host. And it’s still good.

Improv For Humans

This is a recent find and a fun listen. I’ve never done improv, but I love the idea of it. Creating funny on the spot isn’t easy, but Matt Besser and friends do it consistently.

Tiny House Chat

More on this topic in 2015. But if you’re interested in tiny houses and simplicity this is the podcast for you.

Probably Science

This is what I wish I had created with the now-in-limbo Effin’ With podcast. I like that the hosts don’t pretend to know what they don’t know. The tagline is, “Four professional comedians/incompetent scientists take you through this week in science. Incompetently.”

WTF with Marc Maron

I’ve been listening to this one since September of 2009. I had just arrived in Sydney, Australia on my first solo international trip and was looking for stuff to listen to while riding the metro. Back in those days Maron begged for money on every episode (I donated) and now he has a successful TV show and supposedly earns upwards of $20k per podcast episode via advertising. I stopped listening for a while a year or two ago, but started listening again this year. He’s a great interviewer and in 10 years will probably be Larry King level as far as respect goes. (Though Larry King is one of the worst interviewers I can name so not sure why he gets that respect.)

RadioLab

It seems everybody I know already knows RadioLab, but if you don’t well now you do. It’s probably the most interestingly edited podcast around and it will keep you thoroughly engaged.

Others

There are a bunch of other podcasts I listen to as well, though with more irregularity. Some of that may be due to the fact that they’re not regularly updated. Let’s call these honorable mentions.

– No Meat Athlete Radio (I listen to most of these. It’s definitely for you if you’re into plant-based fitness.)

– Tropical MBA (As I already mentioned, I don’t regularly listen to business or marketing podcasts, but I promise this one is worth your 30 minutes. I don’t quite listen to every episode, but I listen often.)

– Doug Loves Movies (I’m not a movie buff, but if the guests are good I’ll listen.)

– Brain Science Podcast (I love this, but I’ve only listened to about 5 episodes thus far.)

– Serial (This is a new one and an interesting form of journalism.)

– Wits (Mostly an improv comedy podcast. It’s good but I prefer the aforementioned Improv For Humans.)

– The Champs (White guys who only have black guests on the show. Often funny.)

– The James Altucher Show (I’ve only listened to a few, but they were good. Except the Biz Markie episode, oh goodness.)

When I look at it like this it seems like I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts, but it’s about 30 minutes per day plus a comedy podcast as I’m falling asleep. (I don’t often re-listen to the parts I missed after falling asleep.)

Based on what you’ve seen here if there’s a podcast you think I should listen to please share it in the comments.

My friend Neil and I just hosted the first 48 Hour eBook Challenge so, in this case, a better question is, “could you write an eBook in 48 hours?”

Sometime last year self-publishing superstar JA Konrath posted an 8 Hour eBook Challenge on his blog. While I knew it would be possible for me to write and publish something in 8 hours, I didn’t participate for a myriad reasons, but the idea stayed top of mind. Maybe because I love doing work sprints, which are incredibly taxing, but also incredibly rewarding.

You’ll recall I wrote and published an eBook/audiobook in 96 hours about 2 months ago. That was also inspired by JA Konrath. But I thought I could one-up my own challenge even if I couldn’t quite reach 8 hours.

48 hours sounded good to me. It’s just one weekend. There are a lot worse things I could do in a weekend. And most weekends I don’t accomplish anything of merit at all.

So Neil and I brainstormed how it would work, created a Facebook event a couple weeks in advance of our set date, and invited some folks.

As you can probably guess based on how humans are, although a handful were interested, nobody showed up. Oh well! Neil and I got to work anyway.

In case you want to do your own 48 hour eBook Challenge this is what I learned and what I suggest. Don’t use it as the only way, use it as a guideline.

Write about something you know.

In other words, something that won’t require much research time.

I had three ideas going into Friday night’s first work session. I wanted to write a new book on minimalism, because I’m not happy with The Luxury of Less. I also wanted to write a book on vegan/vegetarian-ism that’s not preachy and not based on pseudoscience. But upon reflection I knew it would take much more than 48 hours to do either of those books justice.

A few hours before we began I finally decided on a topic, how to get free press passes when traveling, which gives you free access to most tourist attractions. It’s something I’ve done only twice, but I’ve also only tried twice and I know it works. That makes me more of an expert than most people on this topic and it’s something that isn’t complex. I could write less than 10,000 words and it would be enough for someone to go out and do it themselves.

Press pass hint: keep your pitch short and to the point — what can you offer? — when e-mailing the tourist board you’re targeting.

Choose a comfortable place to work.

We could have done better on this point. We chose a great “art house” movie theatre that has WiFi, lots of decent food/coffee, and ample space to work. But there was a film festival going on so it was busy and noisy and the WiFi didn’t work most of the weekend (probably because of the thousands of festival-goers).

Get firm commitments from participants.

If I were to do it over I’d have only invited people who were willing to commit to renting a hotel room or office space and paid in advance.

Had we known it would be just Neil and I we might have done the challenge at one of our respective flats. As it was we were looking for a larger place to work and since nobody showed up we didn’t need it. We were thinking too much about their comfort assuming they were humans of their word. We decided to go through with the original plan and stick with the movie theatre anyway. We didn’t plan out anything else and time spent on searching at that point would have been time not spent writing. (We ran into this issue a bit on Saturday evening when we decided the theatre wasn’t working and spent the better part of an hour looking for an alternative.)

I know full well about the terrible human tendency to break commitments and yet it seems to surprise me every time. There’s a lesson in there about not holding other people to my standards, but I digress …

Plan out food and breaks in advance.

If I were to do this again I’d plan the specific foods/restaurants I would eat. Maybe even plan a food delivery schedule in advance. Mostly I ate at the theatre’s bistro, which has a few vegan & vegetarian choices, but one can only eat so many salads and sandwiches. Actually, I didn’t consume enough calories at all and should have eaten more salads and sandwiches. I was too busy writing a book to worry about silly foodstuffs!

I was also bad at taking short breaks. Neil had a 45 minute timer set. But I’d work through for 2-3 hours before standing up and taking a breather. That said, I think for a work sprint of this magnitude that might be a necessity. If I’m tearing through my writing it’s not helpful to stop, get off track, and then try to get back into the flow.

Get enough sleep.

Doing a project like this is exhausting and feeling rested helps. I got about 7 hours of sleep each night, which was OK. Preferably, I would have scheduled a couple 20 minute naps as well.

Focus on what matters.

What matters is your content. Is what you’re writing about good enough to get the point across? Good. You’re not looking to win awards here. This is not a literary competition. This is about writing about something you know and sharing it with the world. Don’t waste time fixing sentences that aren’t perfect. They won’t be perfect. Write!

Brainstorm / write on Friday night.

I spent the first hour or so with pen & paper writing out notes and key points I wanted to cover in the book. Then I fired up Scrivener and copied each main point into a new chapter along with its relevant notes. I’d barely written anything and already had the skeleton of a book!

Note: I highly recommend you use Scrivener for your challenge. If you don’t want to spend the $45 (it’s worth it) just use their 30 day trial. It’ll save you lots of headaches during formatting.

From there I simply started at the introduction and worked my way through each chapter. By the end of the night — 11pm in this case — I had 2,332 words written. My goal for the night had been 1,000 words, but I now realize that 2,000 is a much better goal for the short Friday night session so I’m glad it worked out like that.

Write, write, and write some more on Saturday.

That’s it. Finish all your main writing today. Don’t worry about editing. Write as clearly as you can, of course, but don’t try to be perfect.

You want to get about 5,000 words written during the extended Saturday session for a 2 day total of 7,000 or so. I didn’t hit my 5,000 word goal — more like 4,500 — because I felt I had written enough detail about everything I wanted to cover and I hate adding fluff. After edits my book ended up at about 6,500 words.

Edit / design / format on Sunday.

Besides editing you have to remember that you’ll need to design a cover (use Canva.com‘s Kindle cover template if you’re not a designer) and format for Kindle (Scrivener makes this easy). That’s why you want to finish writing on Saturday. Spend the first 4-5 hours of your Sunday editing/fixing and set a hard, “OK, I’m done” deadline. Then move on to designing the cover (it won’t be great, that’s OK) and formatting for Kindle.

If you’ve never done any graphic design spend an hour or two going through the Canva tutorials prior to your 48 hour challenge. I would also recommend you go through Scrivener tutorials prior to your 48 hour challenge as well.

Don’t get discouraged.

It’s difficult writing a short eBook in a weekend. Don’t think otherwise. But don’t get discouraged if it’s not coming along well. Take a break when you need to and get back to it. I find setting hard goals helps me, but you do whatever helps you.

Use bits of “non-thinking” time for other tasks.

If you’re having issues writing or if you’re feeling discouraged use that time for other tasks like the cover design and the Kindle formatting. I started my cover design on Saturday when I had a brief period of, “I think this is all I have to say on this topic, but it doesn’t feel quite done yet.” I didn’t get far into designing the cover before I had more thoughts to write.

The Goal Is To Ship

That’s it. The goal isn’t to make a lot of money. And the goal isn’t to write the end-all be-all book about your topic. The goal is to write and publish a short eBook. Maybe the goal is also to prove to yourself you can do something that you didn’t think you could do.

If you’re not happy with your book after publishing it you can make it better at a later date. Though I recommend taking some time off from the topic and letting your thoughts percolate before doing that.

Want To Write Your Own eBook In 48 Hours?

Good! Go, go, go!

When you’re done post in the comments about how it went and what you learned and I’ll send you a copy of my own 48 hour ebook.

Everybody who knows me knows I hate running long distances.

That’s not to say I don’t like being fit.

I grew up in a time, in a place, and with a group of peers, who played every sport. If you weren’t good at everything you were good for nothing because from day-to-day nobody knew what we’d decide to play.

As a youngster I played Little League baseball, basketball, track (100m, 200m, long jump), tennis, street hockey (have a half-fake front tooth to show for it), and ‘murican football. (I played organized futbol for 1 year, but didn’t like it. Too much running, probably.)

Until I was about 14 I probably didn’t go a day without picking up a basketball or doing some other physical activity.

But I hated running.

Short distances? I was one of the fastest.

Long distances? One time when our basketball coach told us we’d be running a mile to start practice I said, “Uhh, not me.” And I mostly walked it. When our track coach would ask us to run 400m or do anything I considered a “long” run, I’d coast, knowing that it wasn’t “my” run.

On the basketball court my lungs failed like clockwork. After a few minutes of sprints up and down the court I’d start breathing heavy and have to hang back on defense for a play. “There go his lungs!” The burning was endless.

I told myself I “just didn’t have the lungs” for distance running. I needed breaks.

Lungs weren’t the only problem. Sometime in high school I went to a podiatrist because of an ingrown toenail and he said I had hammer toes. But they weren’t bad enough for surgery yet so I began wearing orthotics.

By the time my 20s rolled around I’d almost entirely stopped playing sports, except pickup basketball here and there. I still worked out (like riding my bike or doing the Insanity program), but I refused to do things I didn’t enjoy.

When I’d see people running I’d think, “Why? What’s the point? You look bored out of your mind and you need that iPod to keep you going. Stop putting yourself through that torture.”

I had a short-lived change of heart in 2010 after I read the book Born To Run and I did a little beach running in Goa, India before hurting my knee. “I’ll rest and try again, maybe.”

A few months later I decided to run a 5k because it was held on a unique date. I’ll always know where I was on 10/10/10 at 10am. (They should’ve stayed on theme and made it 10k, huh?) I barely trained (because training involves running) and finished in 34 minutes, one of the slowest times of that race.

That 5k convinced me I was not a runner. You might be Born To Run, but I’m surely not.

The years passed and I saw friends do crazy stuff like run full marathons without training. Or run 100 miles straight. It was fun to see what people could do, but at the same time, “nope, not for me.”

Finally, back in November — after being inspired by Matt’s book — I started a little Facebook group called, “I hate running, let’s run!” to train for a 5k. With a little support group and the knowledge that I was doing it because I hated it, I went at it.

By the time training for the 5k ended I began to enjoy myself. And I was able to run 5k in around 30 minutes, 4 minutes faster than in 2010. Not great, but not bad.

“Wow, this running thing’s kind of fun!”

“Hmm, I wonder if I can run a bit further.”

I looked around for half or full marathons and found the Reykjavik night half and the Wrocław night half both in mid-June. Being a night person who doesn’t normally go to bed before 2 or 3 in the morning these night half marathons felt perfect.

I’ve always wanted to visit Iceland, but after a few weeks of indecision I registered for the local race.

I followed Matt’s training plan and — although I took 16 days off to travel around Japan in March — it went well. Every Saturday for my long run I’d think, “I can’t do this,” but then I’d do it and it would’t be so bad.

Until the 10 miler. It was pouring rain that night and it wasn’t a particularly fun run. Then during the 11 miler the week after I got the dreaded runner’s black toenail and my feet/legs never fully recovered. Every run after that, even the shorter runs, was painful.

But at that point, with just 2 weeks until the half, I knew I’d reach my goals when the time came to run nearly 21km (13.1 miles). Those goals were simple: 1) Don’t walk. 2) Finish.

And that was that. Race Saturday rolled in and I came in at a leisurely 2:16:01. The last couple kilometers were painful and I couldn’t walk well on Sunday, but I finished. (I drank too much pre-race and had to pee break at the 12km mark, but I never walked so I consider my goals completed.)

I’m thrilled I did it, but with that, my long distance running career is over.*

Even so, you know what?

I don’t hate running, after all.

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*Kind of. In a few weeks I’m doing a self-paced sprint distance triathlon. Because I hate swimming too.