When I was 10, my mom took my sisters and I to a hotel for a staycation. I have 3 sisters, and growing up, we were pretty poor. Even on the rare chance that we did get to go on an actual vacation to Florida, we’d usually stay in the cheapest motel we could find. This often meant that it didn’t have a pool, so when my mom surprised us by telling us we were going to stay the night at a hotel with an indoor pool, we were pretty psyched. The hotel was the Hilton down the street, and it had a lagoon style pool with rooms towering above it on all sides. Our room even had a view of the glass elevator delivering guests into the luxury that was the Hilton. It was pretty swanky, at least for a 10 year old in Louisville at the time.  To this day, I can remember the excitement of swimming in the pool, feeling like a million dollars, and pretending I had the sort of life that made it possible to live in hotels full time.

Ah how times have changed, and while I no longer hold swimming in a hotel pool as the ultimate luxury, I do still experience a childish rush of excitement every time I check in to a nice hotel. Yet given the chance, I would still exchange 1000 thread count sheets and down comforters for a bunk bed in a hostel. It all comes down to the experience. How many people have you met at a hotel? Did you decide at the spur of the moment to follow them to their next destination? Are you friends still today? These sorts of things never happen in the sterile environment of hotel corridors and deadlocked doors. Even the hotel bars are filled with martinis and other socially secluding drinks. Never has a seasoned traveler shouted, “Martinis all around!” I’d rather the excitement of a community six-pack a bunkmate bought at the corner store. I’d much prefer the siren’s song of a bottle of wine shared among strangers, all while comparing travel scars and bathroom scares.

Hotels are for being alone. Hostels are for being among friends.

I have often been accused of collecting jobs. My friends sometimes tease me for being the single biggest reason for unemployment in the US. It’s true, I do have a job or two....(or six), and may in fact have a job addiction. Malakai says he would send me through a 12-step program if he wasn’t completely convinced that I’d come home with another job as a therapist. (Total sidenote: I actually applied for a job at an addiction clinic once, and the idea still intrigues me.)  In my defense, what self-respecting traveler can honestly say they haven’t been excited about a new experience? I simply take things to the next level. Instead of getting excited solely over new destinations, I get excited about new experiences, new skills, and new perks.  

After all, who wants to die having never worked the graveyard shift at WalMart as a creepily enthusiastic cashier?  It’s 3a.m. and they are creating bizarre stories about what your shopping list says about you:


2 bottles of wine; sparkling, white, cheap.

1 hatchet; sharp as the devil himself

1 box of strawberries


Freaks.


Serial killer much?  No. It was an actual purchase though, made on our first anniversary no less, but that story gets its own blog entry.  Truly, fact is stranger than fiction.


Recently, Malakai and I were discussing where my impulsive habit of collecting of jobs, titles, and certifications comes from. We’ve decided we blame the parents. Not just my parents or his specifically, but parents in general--the collective OUR parents.  We blame the habits of generations of adults who told their children daily that they could be anything they wanted to be when they grew up.


I imagine the phrase, “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up,” started with the advent of the New World. Early America was a symbol of new beginnings and endless opportunity. The phrase would have been meant to inspire and encourage--within reason of course. A woman in blossoming America could aspire to be a nurse, but the phrase was probably not meant to suggest that she should become president someday.


Somehow, over the years, the phrase evolved and developed a more literal meaning. Today, girls aspire not only to be nurses, but also presidents, astronauts or CEOs. Whereas past generations were raised to aspire to the phrase, to use it as motivation and encouragement, my generation is the first to state it as fact. You truly can be anything you want to be. Period. There are no qualifiers, assumed or implied.


My generation may be the first to take the phrase even further.  Not only do we state that we can be anything we want, but we also don’t limit ourselves to only one decision. You can be anything and everything you want to be when you grow up. Don’t like your profession? Change it. Want to be a doctor AND a lawyer? Go for it. Maybe you feel like being a circus performing backpacker while moonlighting as a wine Sommelier. The more the merrier.


Thus, my resume is completely filled with current jobs and it reads like the end credits from the Lord of the Rings.


So let me ask you again…


What do you want to be when you grow up?

Today is my mother’s first trip by herself. Armed with a plane ticket and hotel name, she will be heading to lovely Boston to (hopefully) explore the city by her lonesome. Her first choice was any destination with a beach. She settled with my recommendation. I can’t help but think she’s less than thrilled.

This trip has been a long time coming.  For the past 5 years, I have nearly begged her to travel. I want her to experience the inner peace that comes from seeing the world.  I want her to know how surprising and wonderful Earth truly is. I don’t think this starts with a beach.  Beaches are for people who don’t want to be alone, and you can never adequately experience and appreciate the world if you’re solely focused on not being alone.

I have this theory that people create activities to mask their awkwardness of not having family and friends by their side. They gravitate toward socially acceptable aloneness. A man standing alone in a field is suspicious. If he’s smoking a cigarette or walking a dog, suddenly he has a purpose.  Sitting on a sidewalk for hours is business of the homeless, so people go to beaches to sunbathe and loiter. Suddenly, the same activity is an American pastime. If you truly want to feel freedom, learn to be happy alone anywhere in the world.

I once met a girl that traveled to Ireland by herself. She told me that she waited for her friends to save money to go with her, but after realizing they weren’t really serious about it, she decided to go by herself.  She had broken up with her boyfriend and had found some inner motivation fight back against a world that made her feel awkward for not having a date to go see a movie. She had a self-date planned. She was going to take herself out to a dinner and a movie. Even when we offered to go with her, she refused. Going with other people would mean she chickened out.  

Dear Mom:

Don’t be a chicken. Feel empowered and make the world your home. The world is filled with insanely random happenings and truly heartwarming encounters. You’ll never experience them from inside a hotel room. If it rains, make it the most epic rainstorm ever.

Melissa

Instead of making New Year’s Resolutions, I’ve decided to share with you our life resolution.  It’s nothing new. In fact the ancient Greek philosophers wrote extensively on it. This noble life goal is Eudemonia, or the Good Life.  It’s not the rich life, nor the popular. You won’t find it in a steak dinner and certainly not in those freshly manicured nails.  It’s the sort of happiness that creeps in over time and defines your life as a whole.  It is the complete life.

I say this, because I’m currently at home with a fever, feeling absolutely miserable. Yet I’m still overwhelmingly happy, and not in the ‘I’ve won the lottery’ kind of way. I feel just as happy snorkeling in Aruba as I do shoveling snow in Indiana.  Every morning I wake up thinking that Malakai and I have to be the happiest couple in the world. How else can planning how we will spend our last 10 dollars be so much fun? How else can taking turns sitting on our only chair in our apartment be so delightful? Five years in, we still hold hands as we fall asleep. We still describe our midnight trips to the grocery store as epic. And I’d still rather be poor with him than rich with anyone else.

If this isn’t the Eudemonic Life, I don’t know what is.

May your coming year be filled with the same kind of happiness that we enjoy now.

Malakai and I have developed many strategies to life hack our way into getting what we want over the years. We have stumbled upon some very important cheat codes to this game we call life. Even though we insist anyone and everyone can do it, we are often met with skeptics. We have decided to share one of our best strategies today. We call it the Good, Better, Best Model.

It is not a get rich quick scheme. It will not make you any money (We tell you how to do that in our upcoming book). What it will do is train you to be aware of the information that you receive in advertisements, common conversations, and FAQs. It will teach you to constantly look for better ways of doing things, and it works. We mostly apply it to travel, which is our passion, but it works for almost everything.

How it works
The Good, Better, Best Model works like this..
Name something that you need to do and find the average price to do it.

Step 1: Find a cheaper way to do it. (Good)
Step 2: Find an even cheaper way to do it. (Better)
Step 3: Find a free way to do it.  (Best)

****Step 4: There is another level in the model that we call the "Beyond." It is reserved for elite zen masters who have found cheat codes to every aspect of life and have taken them to the next level. Not only do they get things for free, they get paid to do them, having little or no skills or qualifications to begin with! We'll cover this rare breed of life hacker in our upcoming book, but for now, know that this is the ultimate goal. This is the reason you use the model in the first place. It trains your brain to actively think about getting the most for the least. Now back to the model...

Sounds simple, right? Most people only think on the first level. They know they can call around for prices, and then choose the least expensive. The hard part is training your mind to look beyond the advertising that is constantly bombarding your mind to find the truly inexpensive, or free way to do things they want to do.

Example:
I need to print something. Let's pretend I don't own a personal printer, although I'm convinced prices are similar. Fedex charges $0.14/page for standard sized black and white prints.

Step 1: By calling three different places, I found UPS charges the same, but offers a discount of $0.03/page if I physically operate the machine myself. Staples charged a flat $0.11/page.

Step 2: By doing a quick Google search of the internet, I found a website (BestValueCopy.com) that offered black and white prints for $0.025/page. The downside of this is that I would have to wait for the prints to be mailed to me, and pay for shipping. If I needed the prints today, I could go to the local library where they offer printing for only $0.07 a page.

Step 3: Free printing? Impossible, you say!?!? Most hotels offer free printing in their lobbies. Yes, it is implied that it is for hotel guests, but really hotels don't dare ask questions. The reason for this is that someone may get away with the occasional free print job, but if they confront someone that happens to be a real guest, they'd lose that guest for a lifetime. They would risk the poor online review and potentially lose thousands of dollars over saving $1 worth of ink. Plus, they view it as free advertising. You're in the door. You're looking at how nice the lobby is, or how friendly the staff is, and you'll remember it when you do want to spend a night in a hotel. Obviously, don't print more than 10 pages here or run them out of paper and ink. You want to life hack, not be a douche. Clear your conscience by recommending  the hotel to a friend, or writing a glowing review as if you stayed there.

Don't want to risk it? Try this instead. Most students in college get an allotment of free printing as part of the mandatory administrative fees they pay in the beginning of the semester. Most of the time its like 500-1000 pages a semester. Unless they are printing every reading assignment (let's not kid ourselves here, college undergrads barely go to class let alone print the assignment to read), they have most of that left over at the end of the semester. Go to a college campus, find someone who looks like they are accommodating and ask if they can print something for you with their account.

These are the basics of the the Good, Better, Best Model. Try to think about things using it. Accommodation? Food? Housing?  It takes some time to get used to, but it will prove worthwhile over time. Even if you don't need to get things for free, it's important to know how you can.

I think it's finally setting in...
In just three (3) very short days we have to be out of our apartment.  In a last-ditch effort to depart from our remaining worldly possessions before we finish the semester and leave for the summer, yesterday we had one last 'indoor garage sale', and the prices couldn't be beat:  anything you want, absolutely free of charge.  Just come pick it up.

It went very well, and now two of our three main rooms are completely empty, right down to the bare carpet.  The only things that remain are our backpacks and the handful of things we'll need on a daily basis for the next two days, and the school supplies needed to finish our homework this semester.

            Our apartment now looks very similar to what it did when we first moved in here - a couple blankets and two small pillows piled in a small twisted wad near the center of the floor, a computer in the corner with internet cables running bare along the floor until they stick in the exposed wall.  After a year of being here, we're right back where we started.

            Our first night here was 18 April 2008.  We were so happy to have secured a place to build a life together that we couldn't wait until the furniture or the bed arrived.  We had to sleep in "our new apartment" the very first night.  Our plans for the evening were set.  We would have a floor picnic and a living room camp out.  Everything was perfect.  There was no real furniture to speak of, but we couldn't let that deter us from enjoying our patio the very first night.  With our two folding chairs and a bottle of cheap champagne in hand, we sat out on our patio and ate strawberries, sipped champagne from two coffee mugs (the only glasses we had) and watched the sunset over the Walgreens on the corner of 75th and Shadeland.  Everything was perfect.  It was exactly fitting for us and our strange little way of finding the beauty in the world, of finding peace and perfection in the most unlikely times, places and scenarios...

            That was one year ago.  It doesn't feel like home anymore.  Everything that really made these stark and empty walls 'home' is no longer here, in much the same way that it didn't feel like 'home' when we first got here...  small amounts of stuff scattered along the perimeter of the room.  Nothing to really make it 'ours'.  Just a couple signatures on a lease.  In a couple days that will expire too, and everything that proves we just spent our first year living together will be gone.  We're casting off now for different shores and new sights and sounds, hopefully some new friends and some otherwise unattainable adventure.

            Our last night here will bring this past year--the happiest year of my life--to a close.  And it will end as strangely as it began:  two strangers who became best friends, sitting together on their patio sipping champagne from coffee mugs and watching together as the sun sets over Walgreens... over the end of the beginning of our perfect life together.