Finally!

Greetings supporters and followers of the YMAA program! I can't believe two months have passed since I accepted the commitment of becoming Dr. Yang's disciple. I intended to be more diligent about documenting my experience with my blog here, but life over the past two months has been very demanding, and I had other priorities.

Before I came here, I lived in San Francisco and worked full time as an accountant for a large social services nonprofit. When I made the decision to enter the 10 year program, I was able to work out an arrangement where I continue fulfilling all of my previous job responsibilities by working remotely from the YMAA Retreat Center and by spending two weekends a month in the office in San Francisco. Needless to say, on top of the incredibly rigorous training schedule, this has been a challenge. We train perhaps around 50 hours a week. On top of that, I work between 15 and 30 hours a week, sometimes more. It hasn't been easy, but it's worth it. It's important to me to contribute financially to the center if I am able. I have deep appreciation for vast personal, emotional, time, and financial resources Dr. Yang has gathered and invested to make this project a reality, and I'm not about to be a free rider here if I'm a position to pull my weight, no matter how challenging it is.

So, I apologize for the lack of blog posts for the last two months. I was focused on training as hard as I could and on managing my workload, but every month I'm getting better at finding balance and working efficiently, so I will commit time to this blog now!

Peace,

Zach