Ride Of Your Life

This Year Touch The Rainbow

Last year I went on a coast-to-coast solo motorcycle trip. A project I call “Ride Of Your Life” – a journey to inner peace. I embarked on this 6,000 mile ride only a year after obtaining my motorcycle license and along the way interviewed scholars and scientists like Deepak Chopra, James Pennebaker, Sonja Lyubomirsky and [...]

Jan 11

Written by ran
Posted in The Journey
0 Comments

Is the Financial Crisis Bringing Us Together?

While running errands this morning, I stopped at a local bank to meet with the branch’s investment manager. The sun was shining bright in the sky, and since I had no work meetings scheduled I allowed myself to dress (very) casually. I walked into his office wearing short pants and a t-shirt and couldn’t help [...]

Sep 04

Written by ran
Posted in The Journey
0 Comments

Happiness, Technology, and the Joy of Positive Computing

I recently gave a talk at the Leading to Well-Being conference at George Mason University. The event included a great mixture of speakers, including Dr. Barbara Fredrickson who spoke about the emerging science of love (!). The topic of my talk was “Positive Computing” – new technologies that use research in psychology to drive and [...]

Aug 02

Written by ran
Posted in Events, The Journey, Videos
0 Comments

Do You Have To Break Your Back To Be Happy?

A few weeks ago a nagging pain at the side of my left leg appeared out of nowhere. At first, it was muffled and intermittent, then gradually turned sharper and more prominent, until eventually it was impossible to bear. It was time to see the doctor. My primary physician, who knows me for many years, [...]

May 31

Written by ran
Posted in The Journey
0 Comments

Comfort Kills

Take a look at your life today, if you are enjoying a shelter of comfort, break through it and go outside where life awaits.

Jan 27

Written by ran
Posted in The Journey
0 Comments

The New York Deli – a Positive Intervention

A “positive intervention” is a “happiness activity” – a term coined by positive psychologists to describe an action one can take to improve their psychological well-being. For example: maintaining a gratitude journal and writing at bedtime three good things you are grateful for, writing about your “best possible self” to cultivate optimism, conducting one random [...]

Dec 21

Written by ran
Posted in The Journey
0 Comments

Ride Of Your Life Interview with Dr. Byram Karasu – Psychology and God

Here is a little known fact: When he was teenager in Turkey, Byram Karasu received a package in the mail from Harley Davidson in the United States. His father had mail-ordered a bike for him. It was only when they opened up the boxes that they both realized they are dealing with a full size [...]

Dec 12

Written by ran
Posted in Interviews, The trip, Videos
0 Comments

Meet Matt Green who Walked(!) from Coast to Coast

Matt Green has a Masters degree in Civil Engineering. He graduated a few years ago and started working in New York City. Things were looking up: he was well-educated, making good money, enjoying the lifestyle of New York, and was well on his way to a safe and worry-free corporate career. But as a young man [...]

Dec 06

Written by ran
Posted in Interviews, The Journey, The trip
0 Comments

Did You Remember to Say Thank You?

We are all students of life, and like anyone who is learning we want to know how we are doing.

Nov 24

Written by ran
Posted in The Journey
0 Comments

Would Krishna Ride a Motorcycle?

Krishna is one of the most important deities in many Hindu traditions. He is the divine speaker of the Bhagavad Gita – a sacred Hindu script considered to be one of the most important texts in literature and philosophy. In the Gita, Krishna speaks with Arjuna, a warrior who is debating about going to war. Helping [...]

Nov 23

Written by ran
Posted in The Journey
0 Comments

Take The Long Way Home

Technology makes it easy on us to find the shortest, quickest route anywhere we go. We carry in our pockets little devices that receive signals from satellites in the sky, determine exactly where we are, and with the maps of the world loaded onto them tell us where we need to go. But navigation technology is [...]

Nov 17

Written by ran
Posted in The Journey
0 Comments

The Snow-Covered Hills of Yosemite

I finally got to editing the videos I took with the helmet-mounted camera while riding through Yosemite National Park. Three weeks went by since I got back, but the images on the screen feel like they were shot months ago if not years. I forgot how powerful the experience was on that day. The sights [...]

Nov 14

Written by ran
Posted in Live Cam, Motorcycle Stuff, The trip, The trip, Videos
0 Comments

What is America?

The results of the recent mid-term elections bring up again the old questions about the true nature of America. What is the fabric that holds all of us together? What is it that defines us? What is America? When I was on the road, I read John Steinbeck’s book Travels with Charley – in Search [...]

Nov 09

Written by ran
Posted in The Journey
0 Comments

Bike is Back (in Black)

It has been two weeks since I came back home from the Ride. The trip is over and it’s time to write. I am going over my notes, the raw video footage, and the pictures, and reliving the fabulous time on the road. Everything is back to its normal course apart from one thing: the [...]

Nov 06

Written by ran
Posted in Motorcycle Stuff, The trip, The trip, Videos
0 Comments

A story of a Rabbi, a Goat, Dogs, and Inner Peace

Long before Albert Einstein came up with the theory of relativity, the fact that “everything in life is relative” was well understood by former generations. Take for example the famous story about the Rabbi and the goat: A man goes to his Rabbi and complains about his house. “Dear Rabbi”, he says, “my house is [...]

Nov 03

Written by ran
Posted in The Journey
0 Comments

Video: Riding through Death Valley

Riding from Las Vegas to Lone Pine was possibly the best day of the cross-country trip. The sharp contrast between the the decadence of Vegas and the quiet hills of Lone Pine, where Roy Rogers and John Wayne shot some of their best films, is buffered by Death Valley National Park. Death Valley is a [...]

Oct 31

Written by ran
Posted in Live Cam, Motorcycle Stuff, Places Visited, The trip, The trip, Videos
0 Comments

Meeting with Deepak Chopra – Collective Consciousness, Ego, and Midlife

The day before boarding the plane and heading back home I had the privilege of meeting with Dr. Deepak Chopra at the Chopra Center in Carlsbad, California. We talked about going on the road, about ego and the value of humility, about the fascinating concept of collective consciousness, the importance of the present, and about subjectivity and [...]

Oct 29

Written by ran
Posted in Events, Interviews, Places Visited, The trip, The trip, Videos
0 Comments

Meeting with Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky – on Happiness, Ways to Achieve It, and Chasing Your Dreams

Last Thursday, a day before taking off and going back home, I went to UC Riverside to meet with Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky. The somewhat festive feeling of the last Ride interview was a little disturbed by pouring rain all the way from Carlsbad to Riverside and back. So, I arrived to the psychology building pretty [...]

Oct 28

Written by ran
Posted in Interviews, The trip
0 Comments

Coming Back Home

Friday, the last day of the cross country trip, was extremely strange. after being a “lone rider” for over a month, I dropped off the bike at a trucking warehouse in Poway, California, gave it a big kiss on the tank, and took off in a taxi. I kept thinking about the next morning when [...]

Oct 26

Written by ran
Posted in Places Visited, The trip, The trip
0 Comments

Meeting with Byron Katie: Who Would You Be without Your Story?

When I was in LA I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet with Byron Katie, while she was giving the School For The Work to some 300 students. Katie’s story is an amazing one both from a personal perspective and in terms of the impact it had on so many lives over the [...]

Oct 25