Over the past year I’ve become a fan of the Mr. Money Mustache blog. Mr. Money Mustache (not his real name) is a former engineer who retired at age 30. He didn’t win the lottery or sell a company for billions of dollars. He simple lived far below his means, invested in index funds, and

[Note: My Epicurean experiment took place over the winter holiday season. I am just getting to posting it now.] I’m on vacation over the holiday season for a full two weeks. I told a few friends and co-workers this and they were impressed that I was able to take that much time off. I don’t

David Brooks [you may have noticed I have a man-crush on him] wrote an excellent piece titled The Subtle Sensations of Faith. One of his main points is that all humans experience a sense of wonder, awe, of being a part of something bigger and incomprehensible. Even people that claim they have no religious impulse

Since I started The Ancient Wisdom Project, I’ve become quite fond of religion. I’ve been impressed with the way religion tries to make sense of the world, and the ways it teaches you to live in the world. Epicurus, however, was not impressed with the popular religion of his time. He believed that religion caused

I’m currently back in my hometown for the holidays (this was written over the Christmas break period) and I admit I’ve fallen off the wagon a bit in terms of my Epicurean goals. I’ve cheated a little bit on my diet, I haven’t exercised for 3 or 4 days, and I watched TV with my

On my Facebook feed, I have a couple of friends that routinely post articles around the theme of women being empowered about sex. The general idea is that women should be able to enjoy sex and the pursuit of sex without being negatively judged. The argument is that because men can freely pursue sex and

For my first week of my Epicurean month, I successfully avoided watching TV (with the exception of Sunday, where I caught up on Homeland and Newsroom). Instead of watching hours of whatever is on, I’ve done the following: Read books, drank mint tea, and listened to Christmas music Caught up on a few work/project related

A few years ago, I was in the unfortunate position of having gained about 15 pounds of fat. I had been living in Portland for about 6 months and my workout program was…minimalist while my Portland food-cart indulging program was…maximalist? Not sure if that’s a word, but you get the point. Anyway, I moved back

The other evening I went to my girlfriend’s Toastmasters Club happy hour event at a downtown bar. Normally, I would have declined the invitation as making small talk with a bunch of strangers is usually pretty painful. However, in the spirit of Epicurean month, I decided to go and be social and maybe make a