Chip Conley

So, this is how my mind works sometimes. This morning I walked into the elevator after my dawn walk, and like every morning, the voice in my condo elevator says, “going up,” which sounded an awful lot like “growing up.” This got me thinking. What if growing up was like ascending a very tall building?

Rumi said his life could be summed up in three phases, “I was raw. I became cooked. Then, I burned.” Learn, Earn, Burn. It’s the way many of us see the progression of life. But, what if, instead, it was, “Learn, Earn, Yearn, and then Learn again”?

This seems like an odd choice given how stationary we are these days. I’ve chosen this for Friday Book Club for three reasons: (1) “Travel porn” is big these days. We want what we can’t have; (2) While far-flung travel is in hibernation right now, the “digital nomad” trend is growing big as people decamp from their habitual world and seek refuge elsewhere for extended stays (this is part of the reason we created our MEA Sabbatical Sessions);

I recently did a podcast with RadSeason focusing on my fascination with festivals, which led me to create Fest300 in 2013. During the span of one year, I went to 36 festivals in 20 countries. I was curious that the more digital we became as a society, the more ritual we seemed to need.

When I was at Stanford Business School, unfortunately, I could not get off the waitlist for the most popular class, affectionately known as “Touchy-Feely.” Chronicled in this article, this class (formally known as “Interpersonal Dynamics”) created foundational skills in effective communication, leadership, teamwork, emotional intelligence, and creativity.

We don’t see advertisements in mainstream magazines for anti-women, anti-black, or anti-gay products, but beauty mags are full of anti-aging creams, serums, supplements, foods, and clothes.

“Wholly unprepared, they embark upon the second half of life. Or are there perhaps colleges for forty-year-olds which prepare them for their coming life and its demands as the ordinary colleges introduce our young generations to a knowledge of a world and of life? No, there are none. [...] that is not quite true. Our religions were always such schools in the past, but how many people regard them as such today? How many of us older persons have really been brought up in such a school and prepared for the second half of life, for old age, death, and eternity?”

The two most prominent pieces of advice Dad gave me in my teens were “marriage is a compromise” and “keep your options open.” For a young mind, this wisdom seemed to be at war with itself, but with a few years behind me now, I’ve come to realize that paradoxes and juxtapositions are the most interesting parts of life. Jung suggested maturity was about “holding the tensions of the opposites.”

When do you feel most untethered from what’s expected of you and most inspired by what’s inside of you? Why don’t we ask that question once a year as we approach midlife? Our habits can be like a drug, a distraction and anesthetic from what’s really going on in our lives.

If ever there was a time in our lives when we needed to shed our baggage, this is it. The mammoth changes we’ve had to make in every aspect of our lives has left most of us feeling like we’re running one long continuous, never-ending marathon. And it’s only been a few months.