The best year of my life

This was the best year of my life. And man, that feels good to write. But so was last year, and the year before that, the year before that too. This isn’t some feel-good Instagram caption, just the simple truth of what happens when you stop running from yourself. Life gets progressively better, regardless of circumstance. That’s been my experience, at least.

I started at what they call a bottom, the kind where everything you think you know shatters at your feet. Back then, I whispered the Serenity Prayer like a gambler clutching his last chip, hundreds of times a day until the words became more breath than mantra. What began as pure survival opened into something more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, not even in those early moments of desperate hope.

I’m not naïve. I know hard times could be lurking around any corner. Nothing in this life can be taken for granted; everything we cherish is temporary. But right now, I’m hitting these keys, watching fog roll over the Oakland Hills through my office window. The heat purrs in our house. I’m wearing the kind of sweater that feels like a hug, sipping pu’er tea that tastes of earth and time. My chair holds me like it knows my shape. I can hear my baby boy giggling in the living room as Grace brings him in from a walk. And sitting here, typing this, trying to put into words that, finally, I understand that all we have are these moments, these bite-sized pieces of now. Sometimes they string together like polaroids in a shoebox—a day, a week, a month, another year—but really, it’s all just this one thing displayed in its infinite variety. Until, of course, it’s not. Until the lights go out on the greatest show in town.

And those lights keep getting brighter. My incredibly domestic and simple life somehow feels like Vegas. I became a dad this year, and while I’m not here to drop profound philosophical revelations about fatherhood, I will say this: watching my boy discover the world, his face lighting up at the smallest things—a napkin, a squirrel, a chapstick—has shifted something deep in my somatic psyche. The kind of shift that happens below thought, below words, where sensations light up the bodymind from within, uncorking places you didn't even know were sealed.

I’ve written about how something has settled. But it’s more than just enjoying fatherhood, or feeling like it’s a fit for a guy like me. I think it’s nature’s way of settling years of intense spiritual seeking, deepening what I thought I already understood, finally leading me to understand what I was chasing all along—through Hunter S. Thompson partying, yoga, psychedelic journeys, intensive meditation, all those attempts to find something extraordinary. Turns out it’s what’s right here, completely ordinary yet unbelievably radiant—you can’t gain what you’ve never lost. And so I no longer need to understand, which makes all the previous striving feel comical—like watching one of those hyper-energetic mixed breed dogs chase its tail with utmost seriousness, which I assure you is exactly what I looked like, taking the whole shebang way too seriously. It can be hard to laugh when you’re fighting to survive.

God damn, I am grateful to be alive today. I love the work I do: coaching, running groups, retreats, earning a living helping people wake and grow up. I love writing to you all. None of it feels like work, and while I’d now like to earn more for my family, I’d still do it all for free, as I did for years moonlighting before going pro.

This year brought major challenges, from parenting to my health. I had my first surgery (on my sinuses) where I got anesthesia, and no, despite my best spiritual athlete efforts to maintain awareness going under, it went completely black. I woke up in the OR, wondering where consciousness went and why my throat felt like I’d been sand-papered from the inside, properly humbled. Then, a few days later, I proceeded to blow out my back putting my boy in the car seat, which is embarrassing for a former D1 athlete (golf, but still, your boy can move his body).

Yet I’m not exaggerating when I say this year was the best yet. It seems possible that awareness keeps unfolding on itself, that life can keep getting richer even when things get hard—maybe that’s true for all of us.