4/21/2016: 5 Days before the road trip: Mental Preparation

The upcoming cross-country road trip is both traveling and vacation.  What are the purposes of the cross-country road trip? Are all of these reasons beneficial/valid?

• 1.  Business/work
     • Experiencing the culture of the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder Meeting. I enjoyed reading the yearly shareholder letters and reading several articles and books written by and about Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.  Attending the shareholder meeting will be an enjoyable, curiosity-provoking and hopefully educational event
     • Visiting many different areas and cities across the country will also help me understand certain MSA’s which may be good areas to consider searching for investment opportunities.
     • Or for most cities/areas, traveling will likely instill a sense of confusion/lack of understanding which will strengthen my belief of not straying outside my real estate acquisition area or areas of understanding.
  2. See/Experience things/cultures/events/perspectives/foods that you haven’t seen/experienced before
     • Increase my bank account of experiences/cultures/experiences/physical sensations
     • Learn about myself through what I see and experience
  3. Self-discovery/Self-Improvement
     • Exposed to a new environment without the security of my day-to-day life (friends, family, car, work, streets of LA, etc), I’ll hopefully be able to question a lot more about myself, make resolutions, learn more about my strengths, weaknesses, passions, insecurities, etc.
     • I’ll also be able to use the change of environment to help in implementing new habits and removing existing habits.  What are some habits I’d like to change:
       • Impulsive/unnecessary smartphone use
         • http://gizmodo.com/5991495/why-my-iphone-is-better-as-a-dumbphone
       • Constant movement because of the inability to sit with one’s own thoughts
       • Living in my mind when I should be living in the present
  4. Solitude/Powerful feeling of smallness/Powerful feeling of awe in nature
     • Enjoy the unique perspective of being an entire world/life while being so insignificant to the seemingly unending number of people/places/ways of life I come across.  
     • Become awe-stricken at different landscapes/physical formations throughout the country.  
       • Is looking at landscapes enough? Probably not.  I’d want to focus intently on describing/capturing the beauty.Besides photographing what I see, maybe I should spend five minutes sketching what I see (there’s no way I have patience for that…) or I can practice sitting down and focusing on the view and coming up with (and writing down) descriptive adjectives/phrases that would describe the view/landscape to a blind person.
  5. Relationships (Visit family/friends and make friends) /To learn, and occasionally to teach
     • Live by the motto of Sean/Jason:  “Approach each conversation with the mentality of wanting to learn something new (lesson, perspective, idea, etc.) from each person you meet.”
     • Start conversations with people, attend Meetup events, social experimentation, get out of my comfort zone
  6. Separation from responsibilities at home / Distraction/escape (Negative)
     • Responsibilities are not meant to be forgotten or delayed.  They are meant to be addressed and taken care of.  If delayed, they will only eat at your subconscious and come back to be even more stressful/troublesome at a later date.
     • Determine a way to limit distractions/escape urges (cell phone, internet browsing)
       • What will I do when the urge to check my cell phone comes up?
         • Read a pre-written paragraph
         • Take out a word document and start writing (physical journal)
         • Notice my thoughts… and then question them