I consider myself very lucky that the contemplative way of life has always come easy to me.

The rhythm of traditional career paths have just never seemed as appetizing as entrepreneurial or self-inventive pursuits. Anything other than the way of the heart really just didn’t make much intuitive sense to me. So much turbulence in my life has occurred through the imposition of mental models not rooted in compassion.

My father worked long stressful hours in asphalt for most of his life and that impacted me deeply, along with a mother who was absent through prescription rather than vocation. And even within that, there was still a lot of love for me, my younger brother and younger sister, even if it wasn’t the flavor of love I felt was most needed or nourishing. Although I can say after much contemplation it undoubtedly was that, and more. I have been able to find a deep appreciation and gratitude for my family as I’ve matured, much of which I attribute to my work with the Gene Keys and the genius that is acceptance.

I spent my summers through high school and early college working at the plant my father supervised near Chicago O’Hare and it taught me two very important things:

One, work ethic cannot be bought.

Two, **time—***not money—*is the most essential resource we are given access to as humans.

So as it goes, when I graduated from the University of Iowa in 2013, I was pretty clear that whatever I was going to do for money was likely not going to need a degree.

 dancing → romancing → financing

Probably too because I had gotten a degree in English, so my employment options seemed quite limited vs. what I felt I needed to thrive not just survive the machine. I didn’t dislike the game of money or work at all, on the contrary. It’s just the conventional ladder appeared rigged for sadness and addiction, which it is.

As a young college grad, I was wise enough to know that what I wanted from life was not external and that who I hung out with would shape me deeply as a person, but not mature enough to see that it was discipline rather than lifestyle that kept me from freedom.

I was seeking experience and a translation of this feeling that I had been born with that there just must be something more to life than what I saw around me; a lost magic or place forgotten. A seed implanted reading bohemian poets and fantasy in the electrical room those summers escaping the midday heat.

My natural sensitivity and empathy aided me well as a bartender, and thats what I did throughout most my 20’s, running bars, rubbing shoulders in the gutters, confusing drinking for celebrating, numbness for contentment, and appreciating the nocturnal pulse which allowed me the rare rhythm of not doing things while everyone else in the world was forced to do them.

When I was pressed against the glass of my own agenda those days, I would find all I ever really wanted was the flexibility to go about my day the way I wanted. And it seemed that was all anyone around me ever wished they could do too.

I guess what I’m really trying to meander up to here ****is that I don’t know how to put the acumen of my life experience into a format that establishes me as someone in your eyes that, “knows what he’s talking about.”

         my son Jameson and I being cute af