Unless you’ve been hiding away in a basement bar…

…or maybe just not opening our emails – *flares nostrils* – you know that tomorrow is a very big day for me. For us. For HUMANITY. <–Okay, so that part’s probably an exaggeration. 

Because tomorrow’s the day that I open the doors to a brand new division of our company—but a very old dream—Life Hooky Worldwide: Cross-cultural travel experiences that take perfectly nice people and turn them into braggy assholes with all the good stories.

KIDDING. That’s not the tagline! (But don’t tempt me.)

Life Hooky Worldwide facilitates international group travel & original cross-cultural experiences for small business owners & every single one of us who, at some point, got bored with what we were doing. Bored with living. And bored with feeling that way.

It’s for those business owners who can’t put their finger on what’s making them feel so blah, but know they need a change. Stat.

It’s for the people who would have done something exciting, but didn’t.
The people who wanted to, but couldn’t.
The people who thought about it, but stopped.
The people who (stomach) ache to feel like themselves again, but don’t.
And the people who have secretly wondered if, while they were so busy living, they missed out on life.

Why?

Because it matters. That’s why.

It matters to the future of your past, the future of your present, and the future love story of you. It matters to the way you feel, the way you are, and, most importantly, the way you aren’t. It matters to your identity. Your humanity. Your humility. How you define everything. And, above all, it matters to the love affair you have with father time.

And, it matters to me.

So much so, I’m implementing a non-profit component of the company that eventually will organize Life Hooky tours for young people who can’t afford to go abroad—but for whom it would be a game changer. Do you know that’s how I went abroad for the first time? Andy McKelvey, founder of Monster.com, plucked me out of small town, rural Pennsylvania and gave me $160,000 to go to college & spend a semester abroad because he “saw entrepreneurial potential.” (Glad I lived up to his expectations–I used to worry I’d end up serving popcorn at the bowling alley and then have to give it all back.)

Nobody knows how this whole life thing is supposed to shake down.

But I think we’re all slowly discovering that it isn’t supposed to be one big correctional facility. It isn’t supposed to be punishment. It isn’t supposed to be penance. You are not a martyr. And the only crime you’re committing is one against yourself.

You hear people all the time say, “Live out loud.”

But what they really mean to say?

Is stop quietly dying.