Resolution 1 Part 2: More experiences.

And I’m back after almost a year hiatus to finish Part 2 of my first New Year’s Resolution - Fewer things, More experiences.

This is one resolution that I'm happy to say I was able to make some progress This last year I was able to go to Ireland on a rugby tour. In addition to playing some of the best rugby I've ever played; I met wonderful people. I watched the St Patrick's day parade in downtown Limerick. I drank with locals in a bar until 3 in the morning singing Johnny Cash songs. I learned to pour the perfect pint of Guinness, and I have the diploma to prove it. I broke almost every single rule my parents gave me as a kid about taking food or rides from strangers. Later in the year I got the opportunity to visit a friend in Anguilla. I was able to spend a few days sitting on deserted white sand beaches watching the surf crash. We drove ATVs from one end of the island to the other, and I’m pretty sure that I’m doomed to get skin cancer after the resulting sunburn.

Experiences are what make life great. When I look back and think about all the important, beautiful, and memorable moments I've lived through, they were almost never because of what I had acquired. I've never looked back and thought, "Man I remember the good old days when I had dishes and plates that matched and weren't hand-me-downs from my parents." They were moments. It was the music of a local band playing in someone’s living room. It was laughing until I cried at the dinner table. It was holding my nephew and niece for the first time.


It doesn't have to be big stuff. For me a lot of this has been tied to travel, but it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to fly off to Europe on a whim and live out the plot of Eat Pray Love. It can just be little things. Take time to catch up with an old friend. Learn a new skill. I learned to ride a longboard this year. For a month my elbows were nothing but scabs and I could have sworn I had fractured my collarbone. But now I can add “Proficient at Longboarding” to my resume and who doesn’t want that?


To go back to my original point of "Fewer things" I'm not saying having stuff is bad. I love stuff. I love my stuff. It's just that I'm going to remember and cherish the fact that every year my brothers and I go out and play paintball in the mud and snow the day after Christmas far more than I'm going to cherish the paintball gun that's in my closet and gathers dust the other 364 days out of the year.

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