By the time today is over, I will have walked just about 25k steps (according to the iPhone health app). That’s roughly 12.5 miles, which is just about as many miles I walk in Eugene in a whole week. While I appreciate the subway, and the 18 billion yellow cabs, I implore you all to challenge yourselves to walk more. In an hour long walk with Tyler, in the early hours of this beautiful New York morning, I saw more beauty, humanity and craft than I do in a month back home. This city is so beautiful, and the beauty lies in the cracks and crevices you can only find if you explore. On foot. Challenge yourself to push onwards, and to walk the twenty blocks instead of Lyfting your way through life. You’ll see more, you’ll experience more and I genuinely believe you’ll be happier. 

Secondly, holy shit, talk to people! There’s a reason you’re on this trip. It’s because you’re smart, talented, worldly and almost certainly weird as all hell. That’s awesome, embrace that. Meet people who you don’t know. Grab coffee with a stranger. You can make the best of friends, and hold the deepest of conversations in the situations when you’re least comfortable, because at that moment you have nothing to lose. Be yourself, be genuine. I’ll like you, I promise. We all will. Just take a chance, you owe it to yourself to hangout with more than just the same eight people. 

Caleb Couturie. 5.8.17