Things are always in transition if we could only realize it
What's up, my dudes I wanted to catch you guys up on what's going on and what's coming up
I'm making this document what feels like a pivotal moment in my life
The first big announcement is that I got laser eye surgery. I'm just kidding
That's not true at all how just wearing contacts right now. My sight still sucks dumb joke. I got you. That didn't I I
So did okay
So for real now
the first massive change that's happening in my life is that I am going to be leaving the US where I have been for the
Last few months I have had the incredible good fortune of getting to visit a lot of very cool places over the last few years
But there's one place that I think about more than all the rest. It's a place
I haven't been able to stop thinking about since I left pretty much and I'd like to go for a longer period of time
Since one of my focuses this year is to have a little bit more stability in my life
So I applied for a visa and that just basically meant that I spent a few weeks gathering the right documents
I booked a flight down to LA from Portland the waited a few hours for the actual appointment itself, and then I submitted my application
About a month later after requesting additional documents. The application results came in the mail
All right mama touch it
This was everything that was in it I
Think this is I'm using a good sign
What oh
I don't think this
They get the category, huh? I think they just send it back
Didn't explain anything I
Got rejected. So I tried again. I booked a new appointment. I flew back down to LA and I submitted a new application
A few weeks later after requesting additional documents. The application results returned in the mail
Okay, I'm so nervous my heart is pumping out of my chest
Oh
My gosh, I'm going to France so I'm moving
I'm moving to Paris which is going to be new for me actually
Because the last time I was in France, it was for a high school exchange program
I was living in a small town and spent all my time in that small town
So yeah
This is new and exciting
Fritz is an incredible place full of the most wonderful people and it is so much more than the stereotypes people
Automatically think of and that's something that I really want to share with the world
I'm doing this because it occurred to me late last year that I need a home base
you know a place that I can keep coming back to I
Want to be able to see the same people each week and have that feeling of community
I keep ending up thousands of miles away from my friends. And unfortunately that place is not Portland, which is where I am right now
Where I grew up there is something to be said for
When you are in Central Europe a two-hour plane flight in any direction will take you to a different country
With a different language in a different history and a different culture and I just love that I live for that
I remember taking a train from northern Italy to
Switzerland so it was only like a few hours of travel but in that period I think I went through like three or four
different languages
People just suddenly speaking different languages at each station
And I don't know why that excites me so much
and also I'm finding that I feel like I click a little bit more with European values and
the way of life France was the first place that I lived outside of the US and
I've spoken about it in the past but it really is a
Country in a period of my life that completely changed things for me
so anyway
this is a bigger move than usual because it's going to shape the rest of this year and
Maybe more we'll see how things go. I'm making this video because I met a little bit of a fork in the road
I think there are a lot of people
That in my position where I'm at right now in this very moment in time would take this
Opportunity and grow it into a big business with lots of employees and I don't think there's anything wrong with that
It's just that that doesn't feel like it fits into my own personal vision of what success means for me
I don't think I want to be a CEO or this big like kind of managerial person
Success for me is about developing myself as an artist
I do know I have to build the team, but I just I want to do it the right way and
I want to be smart about this this project of pursuing clarity in my life
officially began I suppose on November 28th of 2018 when I began publishing videos again, that was after three and a half years of
Trying to sort of figure things out for myself and feeling like I wasn't really getting anywhere
It was just so unclear to me for a very long time
How I was going to share
The ideas and thoughts that I have and that I wanted to put out into the world
I have seen my life completely change over the last 15 months and
Everything has far surpassed all of my expectations in many ways
this is no longer the simple little personal project that it once was
This is really turning into a lot more and I'm sorry that this is getting a little bit sappy here
But I'm glad that I've been documenting and sharing the entire process
Because I know that I'm going to look back on this stage of life that I'm going through right now
And just have a lot of fun memories about everything. So no more than I in coastal menthol. Come on. I meet captain cheesy
That baby just totally really that I'm not saying it's been all like fun and games
there's spent a lot of stress and anxiety and kind of like
Fear of failure that's been mixed into things but it's been like a huge growing process
That being said I can feel I have so much more to offer and they can feel very frustrating sometimes
Extremely frustrating but I also know that that's the process
This is going to take many thousands of hours still for me to get where I want to go
So things are sort of evolving by themselves and they already have been for a while now
I feel like the direction for example of my work is shifting. I started out with my focus paying almost entirely on self-improvement
That's what I thought mental clarity meant but I no longer see things that way I feel like as I go along
my perspective is changing quite a bit and
Self-improvement still definitely excites me. I think it's it's amazing, but
Self-improvement just for self-improvement sake doesn't make a lot of sense to me anymore
I feel a need to tie everything to spiritual development or
Creative expression or learning about the world and other people or else it feels empty
those are the things that make me feel alive and
That is what I want right now. I want to feel alive as often and as intensely as possible
I feel like a lot of the last four years have been about trying to prove myself you
Know I would be a senior in college right now in my last semester if I went down that route
You know of going to college
And it's something that pretty much everybody. I went to high school with did and I went to two high schools
so I
felt a little bit like a loner and I think that's where all this is stemming from this kind of desire to prove to the
World that I made the right decision and I'm still like not fully there yet
But I'm realizing that it doesn't matter like you don't have to prove anything to anybody and so in that spirit
I'm creating space in my life. Now for other kinds of projects other artistic endeavors that really interest me, like writing
Making music because I am just not going to wait for some fictitious
Persons permission to do these things if I do that I'll be waiting my entire life
These are all things that don't make me any money right now, but that's not the point. That's not what motivates me
I strongly believe that cultivating different areas in your life that may seem completely separate
Actually end up like kind of influencing each other in weird ways, and that's where the magic happens
This is probably going to end up looking like is me
pulling things back just a little bit and posting maybe two or three times a month instead of my
traditional rhythm of once a week
Which is something I try to do all of last year doing that I think will give me the time and energy to focus on
Some of these other projects and also to like continue enjoying filmmaking one thing that I've realized about myself
Is that no matter how hard I tried to create the system and to be more efficient about the whole process?
the process itself continues to evolve and change when I place too much of a focus on trying to be like
More productive and more efficient. It kind of stresses me out. Like I just want to enjoy what I'm doing
I also just want to dig deeper into the work that I'm doing
I mean some
Projects are just not possible
if you don't stay put in one place for an extended period of time I want to create series I want to delve deeper into
Specific topics and that's why stability is so important to me right now for example last year
I tried doing a fitness related challenge that I'm still interested in doing but I realized that without stability I
Wasn't going to create long-term change and you know see a bigger impact in my life
And so it was kind of pointless like I want to do things, right?
There are many far more talented filmmakers out there than me. I make beginner mistakes all the time. Believe me
I don't even really consider myself a filmmaker to be honest. I think I mainly just focused on developing my ability to tell stories
That's that's the core of everything that I do
So I appreciate all of your patience
Energy and support and sticking with me as I figure all this out for myself over the next few weeks
there will be a few more videos coming out that I've been working on here in the Pacific Northwest and
And my videos in France will begin I cannot wait