About Jason
So who am I?
Basically, I’m just a normal, average dude. I’m in my mid-forties, I’ve been married for almost twenty years, and have three children. I used to be a high school teacher and now work in law enforcement. I live in a smallish town in Western Colorado, and I own a few cats and dogs. I’m not special.
But damn, I’m happy. I’m living the exact life I want to be living, right now. I love spending time with my wife and kids, I love going to work every day, I love my hobbies, and I love working on this project. I love my circle of in-person friends, and I love my extended collection of Internet friends. Yes, I still have struggles and disappointment and suffering. Those parts of life are unavoidable. But I feel fulfilled. I feel a deep sense of meaningful purpose. I feel like I make a difference. I feel like I matter.
This wasn’t always the case, though. Until my late twenties, I was deeply (and secretly) unhappy for a whole host of reasons. I wore a mask of happiness, but it hid a dark reality. I felt little control over my life. I felt empty and lonely. I had no idea how to get what I needed out of life; instead, I tried pleasing others and hoping they would provide the true happiness that evaded me. It sucked. But I really thought that was just how life was supposed to work. Whenever I encountered people who appeared to be genuinely happy, I assumed they were secretly miserable. Just like me. I didn’t know any better.
One day, I had an epiphany of sorts. How exactly it happened is still a mystery; it was like something in my mind snapped. I suddenly realized just how unhappy I was, and decided I could no longer tolerate the life I had. So I decided to make changes.
Unfortunately, I had no idea what I was doing, what I wanted to become, or how to go about accomplishing that. I just knew I needed to do something. So I bumbled through years of experimenting with ideas. Most were never framed as “self-improvement”, but I later came to realize that’s exactly what they were. Some of these ideas worked. Most didn’t. Slowly, I started discovering the things that really mattered. Slowly, I started living the life I knew I wanted to live.
Thanks to some opportunities that sprung up as byproducts of those self-improvement efforts, I had the opportunity to start sharing my ideas with other people. For those who have known me for a long time, you’re familiar with that weird collection of opportunities, hobbies, and jobs:
Teaching high school psychology. Barefoot running. Ultrarunning. Crossfit. Blogging about sex and gender. Nutrition. RV travel. Real estate marketing. Brazilian jiu jitsu. Mixed martial arts. Leading a Men’s group. MMA gym ownership. School security. Building tribes. Animal control. Teaching self-defense. And so on.
Yeah, it’s a weird collection. But it connected me with a lot of interesting people interested in becoming a better version of themselves, which allowed me to do a lot of learning, teaching, and experimenting. There were lots of successes. And also failures. But slowly, I started helping others live the life they wanted to live.
That brought me to The Curvy Road Project. This Project represents the synthesis of all kinds of smaller, related projects into one comprehensive Project. My goal is simple. I want to make the world a better place. And I’m going to do that by bringing the right people together and sharing the right ideas within a forum where all of us can discuss, collaborate, explore, and support each other in a supportive community.
So that’s the short version of my story. If you’ve read this far, you’re probably one of those people who can make your life better by implementing the ideas I’ve learned on my Journey. That means you’re also the kind of person who has life experiences to contribute to The Project. And, selfishly, the kind of person who can teach me new stuff I haven’t learned before.
We need people like you. We need YOU. Join our Village below; I look forward to meeting you!
~Jason
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