
"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving."
—Lao Tzu
As many of you will already be aware, I recently had the experience of a lifetime organized for me by nature.
For three weeks, I traveled across the U.S. from Santa Monica to the Hamptons and then down to Florida in a 25-foot RV, mostly for free thanks to ChatGPT.
It was my first time traveling in an RV, and it was one of the best times I can remember.
Waking up somewhere new each day with the freedom to go wherever I wanted and also the structure of needing to arrive in certain places by certain times was the perfect balance of bliss and choicelessness.
From the moment the idea was conceived, I couldn’t help but marvel at all of the ways nature had organized everything so beautifully and the endless slew of small synchronicities along the way, like sneaky little smiles from nature saying “you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

At one point, I realized the routing, dictated entirely by nature via CruiseAmerica, would have me arriving in the Hamptons on the 4th of July.
I began to romanticize this glorious future moment in which I would arrive on the opposite coast, jump in its opposite ocean, and lay back under the stars with a hot dog to witness a spectacle of lights I would pretend was planned solely to celebrate my safe passage in the same way The Great Gatsby romanticized the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. A quintessential Hamptons fantasy.
But when the day rolled around, my dip in the sea was short-lived, ended prematurely by a friend eager to unload the many boxes I had transported for him.
I relished what I thought was the completion of my journey for about 30 minutes before it was time to make the next arrangements.
And then the death blow—fireworks in East Hampton had been canceled due to some sort of bird safety concern.
I considered becoming a MAGA in this moment. No fireworks? What kind of uber-woke liberalism was responsible for this?
All jokes aside, as the initial disappointment quickly wore off, I realized I had brought it on myself.
By expecting this particular outcome, I had made an appointment—and it’s failure to materialize brought ‘dis-appointment’.
After a few minutes processing the change of expectation, I was able to appreciate the beauty in this moment.
It was reminding me that life is not about the end goal—and that there is no end goal anyway.
The goalposts are always shifting, designed not to be reached but instead to move us across the field of life.
As soon as you think you’re arriving, and the hard work is behind you, the finish line gets moved, and there’s more to do.
“Beware of looking for goals; look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life.”
—Hunter S. Thompson
During the rare instances when a milestone is met, it’s never as good as we made it out to be in our minds, and the fleeting satisfaction seldom lasts more than a few minutes.
Predicating our livelihood on some future moment only undermines the present, which is the only moment that ever exists.
Forget the fireworks. The point is what we get to experience along the way, which is the ride of a lifetime.
So as we say in the Vedic tradition, just relax and enjoy.
And forsaking the poor birds in the name of a few moments of things-that-go-flash-boom in the sky is exactly what someone who’s prioritizing a fleeting moment over the perfect balance of the eternal present moment would do.
Touché, Town of East Hampton.
Let’s discuss these and other ideas during Collective Effervescence, our online group meditation series, this Sunday July 20 at 12PM ET. Drop in for meditation only (first 30 min) or stay for discussion + Q&A on this and other life topics from the Vedic perspective. Join the WhatsApp group to receive reminders 24 hours before each session, or click Subscribe on this page to have all upcoming dates automatically sync to your preferred calendar.