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Ask That Question Now

Ask That Question Now

“We make the road by walking it.” —Rosa Parks What if you only had one more opportunity to take a long walk with your dad and ask him those ultimate questions, the ones you wish you had asked before it was no longer possible? Where a son takes his father for a precious ramble depends on his dad’s favored backdrop. Mine treasures sweeping fields and birdsong, and no haven for wide-open strolls matches England’s countryside. […]

GO WITH THE FLOW ~

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Why knot? (from: THE DIRECTIONS TO HAPPINESS: A 135-Country Quest for Life Lessons) Finding your way in Laos can be a challenge. Street addresses are rarely used. If they are, building numbers match the order of construction. Lao transit often means huddling in the back of a family-size tuk-tuk. These oblong, bald-tired trucks make room for three lucky ladies riding in front with the driver, while 20 others cram into and upon the dingy pickup’s tarp-roofed […]

DON’T RUN OUT OF IDEAS—RUN OUT FOR IDEAS ~

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(from: THE DIRECTIONS TO HAPPINESS: A 135-Country Quest for Life Lessons) “A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing.” —Thomas Jefferson Now that childhood seems to be officially over, only occasionally do I dare people to do things. Not the case with my eldest brother, Basil, who routinely challenges me to perform illegal tricks for his amusement. I routinely caved into his cons until I turned, well, about 35. Our family summered in New […]

How to Measure Your Wealth

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(from: THE DIRECTIONS TO HAPPINESS: A 135-Country Quest for Life Lessons) Put the currency blues on the run. Before email and cell phones, letter writing was still vital, as many long-term backpackers could rarely afford to call home. Such isolation made Australian hospitality even more welcome, especially after a year in Asia without a turkey hero. In the late 1980s, after a year-long Southeast Asian tour, a college friend and I hitchhiked 1,000 miles up Australia’s […]

DON’T PREDICT THE FUTURE, INVENT IT ~

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(from: THE DIRECTIONS TO HAPPINESS: A 135-Country Quest for Life Lessons) Why peer through the keyhole when your hand rests on the doorknob? I was backpacking in the newly “opened” China in 1987 when Chen, a multilingual restaurateur and the unofficial mayor of Yangzhou, entered my life. He had a kindly way with backpackers, and one afternoon he invited me to join him on a 70-mile journey in a rickety delivery truck across southeast China’s surreal […]

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN ~

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(from: THE DIRECTIONS TO HAPPINESS: A 135-Country Quest for Life Lessons) The detour is the journey. We all start somewhere—love it or leave it. If I could blitz the U.S. with air-dropped leaflets, they would urge: Pack a small bag, march outside, wander into a different neighborhood, ask strangers fun questions. Faithfully beholding this tactic—anywhere and everywhere—turned most of my life into a working vacation. First, I had to wrestle the establishment to learn a few […]

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