Riding Around and Living (for what seems like) Forever

Getting ready to represent CO down south!

Don`t forget the helmet!

All set!  Colorado jersey, Purdue socks - I am REPRESENTING!

A few weeks ago I decided to take my bike out for the first time in far to long to ride around Campinas.  Every Sunday they close a lane of some of the major streets in the city to traffic for bike riders to use.  I wanted to see what it was all about and I also wanted to rock my awesome Colorado jersey!  Thanks for the great gift Daddyman!  It was a nice ride, but sometimes frustrating because you did have to stop to let cross traffic pass, and there are actually quite a few semi-decent climbs around here which took me by surprise. 

Funniest part was at the first stop like I hear a guy shout "Why Colorado?"  I turn around and reply "I grew up there." 

"Nice, I used to live there!  Did my MBA at DU."  

"Oh how fun! DU is a great school."
So on my first ride in my jersey it already makes me a riding friend.  It was awesome, we rode and chatted a bit but I could tell that I was slowing him down so after about 30 minutes together he took off to ride home.  How fun though to meet someone just because of the riding jersey you are wearing!

So that is the "Riding Around" bit... what about this Living (for what seems like) Forever part?

Well I read this book called "Moonwalking with Einstein" which is all about improving your memory and learning tricks to hold onto important information for a long time.  The book itself is just okay, it is a light read and doesn't really give you can help on how to improve your memory.  It is more of a journalist's attempt at improving his own memory and the story of how he ends up being the American Memory Champion.  However, there was one part which struck me as rather interesting.  The author was interviewing a fellow Mental Athlete (people who participate in Memory competitions such as memorizing a 52 deck of cards in under 30 seconds) from Europe who made a comment about how instead of trying to live a long life, you should try to live a memorable one.  His argument was that if your life is very memorable, it will feel longer which is basically the same thing as actually living longer. 

Why this struck me so strongly is that I 100% agree with him!  I regularly have to stop and pinch myself and say - HEY, you are only 24 (almost 25), you have SO much life left!  I routinely feel much older - at least late 20s simply because I have done so much living.  This Britsh guy goes on to say that the more memory anchors we have to divide up the time, the longer it feels.  The problem is when the weeks, months, and years start to blend and we have no mental signposts or memories to separate one year from another that times starts to feel as if it is passing us by.  The truth is we all live roughly the same number of moments (with in reason) but we do not live equally full lives.  

So the proposition of this Brit is to have a long life - you need to live a memorable one.  You need to take more vacations, change jobs, change houses, switch things around in your life to keep things memorable and provide yourself with these mental sign posts to break up the past into chunks of memories.  

For example in the last 4 years I have:

Moved to India - 2007

Moved back to the US - 2007

Graduated from College - 2008

Traveled to 6 different countries on three continents - 2008

Moved to Chicago - 2008

Traveled to Las Vegas - 2008

Moved to NYC - 2009

Traveled to Peru - 2010

Moved to Brazil - 2010

Traveled to Ecuador - 2010

Spent New Years on a Brazilian Island - 2010-11

Celebrated Carnaval in Rio de Janiero - 2011

and I will be moving back to the US in about 3 months... exact destination TBD.

So when I think back on just the last 4 years... I am SO blessed to have so many anchors, so many mental breaks in my past that I feel as though I have lived so much more than just 4 years.  If I keep it up... I should easily live to be a hundred mentally, even if my body doesn't keep up.

How many memory posts do you have??