In Bruce Lee: Artist of Life, Bruce Lee wrote:

…if you are cursed with perfectionism, then you’re absolutely sunk. This ideal is a yardstick which always gives you the opportunity to browbeat yourself, to berate yourself and others. Since this ideal is an impossibility, you can never live up to it. You are merely in love with this ideal, and there is no end to the self-torture, to the self-nagging, self-castrating. It hides under the mask of “self-improvement.” It never works.

[…]

Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves. This difference between self-actualizing and self-image actualizing is very important. Most people only live for their image.

After reading this today, I felt like I was slapped in the face by one of my mentors. I’ve been focusing too much on the image of who I could be rather than who I am. I loved the idea of going on a journey toward becoming someone else. I would imagine what this person would be like, what this person would feel like, and it excited me. I never really considered who I am right now at this moment. I never once considered that maybe the man I am right now is the man I’ve always wanted to become. I’m forcing myself to keep moving my feet, to keep pushing myself, all in an effort to change myself because there’s this feeling at the back of my chest that I have to change who I am to become who I want to be. But during these past few weeks, where I’ve described (for the most part) my consistent happiness, I’ve been living a life as someone I’m happy to have become.

Would I have gotten here without this journey? I don’t think so, but I do think I was too hard on myself before. I wasn’t happy in the beginning. I hated who I was, and I wanted to run away from that as fast as possible. Once I owned my actions, though, I started feeling better. Once I owned who I am, I became happier. Bruce Lee talks a lot about finding the essence of who you are, and that’s something I’m having a tough time understanding. I mean, I understand what he’s saying, but I’m having difficulty figuring out how to find my essence. I think that’s the point, right?

Nothing worth doing is easy. Changing my perspective from who I want to be towards who I am is hard. It’s easy to imagine this perfect image of this person — this stranger — in my head and feel envious and motivated enough to try to become him. It’s hard to accept who I am, to own all that I’ve done, and remove these concepts of someone else and focus on the facts of who I am, on unleashing the full essence of my being. But the thought of doing so is exciting. For as long as I can remember, I was driven by how other people saw me. I wanted to be liked, I wanted to be seen as smart, I wanted to be seen as strong and confident and honorable. A lot of my actions were driven by these thoughts of strangers, and I never gave myself the opportunity to express who I really am.

I’m imperfect. I can be selfish. I can be narrow-minded and forget that the world does not revolve around me. But I’m also kind and loving. I’m creative and dedicated and ambitious. Of course I’m other things, too, both good and bad. The journey is to reveal and own all of these different aspects of myself. To be confident in who I am and to be as in touch with my soul as I possibly can.

And all that, to me, sounds like fun.

I spent time with my family today, and I had a lot of fun. I played with my nieces, fed some cows and horses, and played games with the whole family. I was gifted meat — meat! — for Christmas and an Amazon.com gift card, and I was truly touched by these gifts. My friends and family get me. You want to make this man happy, you get him some meat. That’s all I gotta say about that.

I broke my diet today, too, and I don’t know how to feel about that. I made it up by kicking my ass during Insanity, but I don’t know if that truly makes up for it. I ate some enchiladas, which have cheese, and I ate like three cookies. I know that may not sound that bad, but when my body started rejecting the food minutes after having my first cookie, I knew I wasn’t doing something right. But I guess I gave myself a pass today, and I’ll just have to work that much harder to get where I want to be. And to be honest, every time I take off my shirt and put on my workout clothes and I just see myself, I’m really happy with what I see. I am genuinely afraid that I won’t be able to control my impulses when I break my diet like I did today, but I don’t know, I feel like I can this time around.

I have two more days of Insanity: the Asylum Volume 2 before I’m done with the program, and my weight barely changed, but I think my body composition changed a bit. My arms look a tad bit bigger and more defined, and I can see a bit more of my abs, especially my lower abs. Volume 2 really targeted the obliques, and I can see the progress on my body, which is amazing. I’m taking all of next week off during my trip to California, so I’ll be eating more calories (and possibly lower quality calories, too, unfortunately) than I’m used to, and I most likely won’t do anything to burn them off. I think the trade-off will be worth it, though. The trade-off, of course, being my books and other stuff, as well as furniture and spending time with my family and friends.

I know it’s strange that I spend so much time writing about my health and fitness, especially on a day where I shouldn’t care so much about it. I guess a lot of it is driven by fear, and, again, I’m afraid that if I give in then everything I worked so hard for these past few months will be for naught. It’s irrational, but I have to live with it, and by writing about it, I force myself to try not to feel so bad about it.

It was a great day today, and I should focus more time and energy to that than to my diet. But only for today. I have two more days of Insanity, which means two more days of intense focus and ruthless control. If I can do that, then I’m good to go.

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone else’s holiday was amazing and joyous. Mine was.

One thing I used to do was repress any and all emotions that I didn’t like. By ignoring them, I believed that they didn’t exist and that I was just as happy as I wanted to be. Over time, I started feeling numb because I was never truly feeling what my body and mind was telling me I needed to feel. I would punch walls, hurt people, lash out, all because I couldn’t contain all those repressed emotions forever. Writing helped. Writing helps. But there was something I wasn’t doing, and I didn’t know what that was. I was always an emotional person, but I don’t think they were for the right reasons. During therapy, I learned to let go and feel everything. Every lingering emotion spilled out and I felt everything, and it felt good.

I think I need regular people in my life. By that I mean people — friends — I see on a semi-regular basis. Maybe not daily, but at least a few times a week. Sports, maybe. Today I went to work, and I was the only person there, and everything was turned off, locked down, and lonely. I needed to do some things because today was my last day until the 5th of January, but nobody was there, and that made me feel sad. The silence and solitude helped me get more done than I planned for, and besides a brief stop at the grocery store, I spent today with practically no human contact. But don’t feel sorry for me since this was by choice. I was invited to my sister’s place to have Christmas dinner with her and her family, but I had to work out and eat well and read and write. I had to do what I need to do every day, so I turned them down for tonight, Christmas Eve. I’m coming tomorrow to their house to see them, but that’s tomorrow and tonight’s right now.

Even though most everything went well today, I feel low, and since I’ve been thinking about people all day, I believe it’s because I’m lonely. I’m alone and lonely, and that’s been true for too long. I keep saying I have to do something about it, but I don’t. I’m not. I’m not doing anything about it and I keep telling myself I need to do something about it but I don’t and it’s hilariously frustrating. I can tell my body to do so much, but when I just need to go somewhere and just talk to people, I can’t. I won’t. I don’t know. Social anxiety, maybe? I love people, though. I’m good with people. I like people and (some) people like me. I wish this was easier, but it’s not, and it’s something I have to keep working on.

I keep thinking about my past and all my missed opportunities, opportunities that could have made my life so different today. And when I dwell on the past, I get sad. It just comes with the territory now, and I hate feeling complacent about it, but I am. And I hate that this is the entry I’m writing for Christmas Eve. This is supposed to be a happy day. Happy happy joy joy.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I never thought I’d like working at a school, but I really do. I’ve gotten to know all the teachers and staff, and I’ve been getting to know many of the students, and now that everyone’s getting to know me, we’re all teasing each other and having loads of fun. Also, since today was the last day of school until next year, everyone was spreading Christmas cheer, and it all felt fun and welcoming and joyous. I received more treats today than I did during all of Halloween, which is funny to me. Tomorrow will be my last day there before I take my first ever road trip to San Diego, and I’m excited. Everything about life right now is exciting, from the good, to the bad, to the god damn ugly.

If we look back to the last 7 days, we can see the progression of happiness that has followed me from one day to the next. My days haven’t changed at all from what they’ve been and what they were a few months ago, and I think what’s changed is my perspective on things. I caught a glimpse of that with yesterday’s entry, and I think it’s been glimmering on the surface for a while and I just barely saw it yesterday. Life is simple right now. There’s no drama in my life. I’m not letting things get to me anymore. I’m working out. I’m writing a lot. I’m reading and learning and growing. I’m setting plans into motion, and I’ve talked about how bright my future looks, and that’s something I really believe right now. Everything can and will change in the future, but, I don’t know, I feel stronger this time around.

One of my bigger weaknesses throughout my whole life has been my inability to say no to other people.¹ I think part of that has been my desire to just be liked. I like being liked, and I like the idea of other people liking me. Maybe that stems from how I was raised or from some event from my childhood that I’ve been repressing my whole life and can’t remember now, I don’t know. But it’s there. It’s present, and it makes it hard for me to say no. Today, a guy from work asked me if he could buy me a drink. Yesterday he invited me for some food at a local bar, and I said sure, but today I said no. One of my big things this time around is to never drink again. I almost said yes because it was just a long day and a drink sounded amazing, but I said no. And I’m glad I said no. I gotta protect my interests, regardless if other people understand or not. And if that means saying no, so what. I’m on a different path than them, and that’s what makes the world so damn interesting.

Next week I’m going to be bombarded with food. Lots of food. And I think I’m going to eat as much as I can physically and mentally take. I think I’ve earned at least that. Besides, I have 4 months of Insanity planned. And I still plan to keep as many of my habits intact. That means writing my novel, writing my blog, reading, and not drinking, eating relatively well, and moving the fuck on. One week from today I’ll be with family. Two weeks from today I’ll be back home with more stuff and a new year to live and experiment. Isn’t that all so damn exciting?

Today brought lots of laughter, and all that laughter, along with some news I received today, lifted some sort of veil I didn’t know was covering my eyes and now everything looks brighter and better. I’m not sure what I mean by better; some things that have bothered me no longer seem to, and I realized that they shouldn’t have bothered me to begin with. My perspective feels like it has changed, and I don’t feel so bad anymore. The future looks brilliant, and I’m super excited for it. I wish I could explain it all with clarity and vividness, but I don’t think I have it in me right now.

But I’ll try it anyway.

As I’m thinking about it, the ending of my thought process makes me feel petty, but I’ll make you, dear reader, be the judge of that. There’s somebody I used to know. A girld. A friend of her, so not her. We had a thing — a fling — over a year ago. It was fun, we got to know each other, and it looked like we were going to become good friends. Things slowed down, though, until one day she disappeared from my life earlier this year. Over the following months, I tried talking to her, invited her to hang out, have food and whatnot, but either she didn’t reply or refused. It didn’t feel like I was pushing her, but that’s what she would later tell me. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. Point is, we never developed the friendship I thought we were capable of, and because of the drama with her spilled over into this other girl’s life, she blocked me from her life. It was actually my anger toward her that I brought over to her that started this whole mess.

Today I found out she — not her¹ — was pregnant. At first, I was hurt. Maybe hurt’s the wrong word. More like disappointed. The father’s somebody she’s only known for a few months, and I don’t know anything about their relationship so I won’t get into that here. I know of the guy, too, and he seems like a good guy. As the day’s progressed and this news has sunk in some more, I was to surprised to feel happy for her. I’m never going to get back in touch with her, and I’ve known this for a while now, so this feeling is surprising me. I’ve thought about her on and off now for a while, but this news made me evaluate those thoughts from the past, and all I did was know I’m probably never going to think about her again, and that’s totally fine. It feels good, actually. Again, that veil. So then I thought about her, looked at a picture of her, and knew that I was done with her, too. I actually laughed aloud when I saw her picture. Like, this person made me feel this way? For this long? Why? This person? This Person?

That space between this paragraph and the last one is filled with me laughing. Is that petty? I’ve been dealing with children, and I’m just now realizing that. People have told me I have been, but I guess it never registered until now. I really, really, wanted to avoid personal gossipy type of entries for this blog because of how petty it makes me feel while writing them. But when there’s no bigger thought on my mind but this, I had to write about it. And this one’s a good, necessary, entry because of what it means for me and my future.

I feel free. It’s Christmas week, which means it’s a short work week. I leave for San Diego this Sunday. I’m going to let loose for one week, spend the transition from this year to the next one in California, and I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I feel free. I can do anything, and I think I will. God, this feels amazing.

There are areas of my life I’ve always struggled to respond to appropriately and instead have been constant disappointments throughout my entire life. As I’m thinking back, I’m worried that maybe I’m just being too hard on myself. I can’t be perfect. At the same time, though, I don’t know why I keep falling back to old habits when I know full well the effects they’ll have on my mood and my health. It’s this constant struggle between mind over matter, and sometimes my mind wins. It’s those times when it loses that gets to me.

I’m impulsive. I know this about myself. I do things without thinking through them first. Scratch that, I do think about them but the thought mostly consists of me convincing myself that that specific impulse is okay to follow through on. I should do this because I should. That’s it. That’s my thought process. I should do it because I should, because I thought of it, and that thought pleased me. Like really, man? If I thought about punching someone, would I be able to stop myself from actually doing it? Sometimes I don’t know. I need to find a way to control my impulses. Mind over matter.

I’m being intentionally vague because the specific act that drove me down this road is insignificant in the grander scale of things. This is just who I am and what I have to deal with with everything, not just this one specific thing that happened today. There’s something to be said about following my gut, and there have been times where following my gut has resulted in great things. It’s having the knowledge and intelligence to differentiate between the two, and that’s something I’m struggling with. I’m afraid I’m going to do something (else) that I’ll regret for a long time.

There’s something I’m doing right now that has helped me through my journey these past 105 days, and it’s something I’ve employed on and off for the past 5 years. That’s keeping track of my habits or things I want to keep track of on a calendar. It comes from Jerry Seinfeld and it’s called Don’t Break the Chain. The principle is simple: for every day you accomplish whatever habit or task you wanted to do, mark it on the calendar. As the days go by, the chain will hopefully grow longer, and the longer it goes, the more you don’t want to break the chain. I’ve been doing this for 7 habits. They range from writing, reading, eating right, and working out. But I also have a streak going for the last time I spoke to her and the last time I had a drink. These streaks are both thrilling and terrifying. The longer the streaks go, the more I want to see that chain grow. But the longer I go, the harder it is to sustain the length of these chains without breaking myself.

I’m haunted sometimes by my past disappointments. I want to live better, but I have no guideposts to guide me toward whatever that means. Should I be so hard on myself? Judging by my past, the answer is yes. I should be because my journey is fragile, and one false turn can be disastrous. I’ve been there; I’ve seen it happen. I’m scared it’ll happen again, and I don’t know what to do about it. The enormity of what I’m trying to do is weighing on my shoulders, and I want to keep going, to keep moving my feet, but the farther I go, the heavier that weight gets. And when I do something stupid, that weight seems to double, and I’m burdened even more.

I don’t know what to do, and it sucks, and it scares me, and I don’t know if I can do it.

I finished Week 3 of Insanity: the Asylum Volume 2 today, and I believe I’ve never been in better shape in my life. Unlike other versions of Insanity, there’s no dedicated Fit Test workout in Volume 2. Instead, at the end of every week (today), we do a workout called Championship. It’s about an hour long, and for the first 50 minutes, we’re doing intense sports-specific exercises. If we’re not tired after these first 50 minutes, then we will be when we do the last 10. This section of the workout is called Sudden Death/Overtime, and this is Volume 2’s version of the Fit Test. I can’t explain the workout because it’s literally insane. It involves the Agility Ladder, lots of jumps, more jumps, some fast feet, and even more sweat. For the past 2 weeks, all I’ve been able to accomplish is about 6 reps. Today, I did 8, and I could’ve gone longer. This next week will be my last week, and I’m going to try to go over 100% each and every day until one week from today, when I hope to beat today’s record of 8 reps.

Once I come back from California, I’ll have the next 120 days of the year booked with Insanity workouts. I haven’t thought beyond that, though, and I’m not sure what I want to do after those four months are gone. I was thinking of getting P90X, doing that workout, then doing a Hybrid workout with that and volume 1 of the Insanity since it’s on that workout calendar. I was also thinking of finally getting out there and learning some form of martial art. I’ve been interested in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and there is a gym that teaches it in Missoula, but that’s a 45 minute drive back and forth, and I don’t know if I’ll have the money, time, and energy to do that trek on a regular basis. Another thought I had was either repeating my Insanity workouts again, giving me another 200+ days of Insanity, or looking to see if I can enter some competitions. I know there are marathons I can enter, or even things like the Iron Man competition or something like that. I can’t go back to “slow” workouts after spending the past three months doing nothing but Insanity. Everything else makes me feel lazy. One idea I had with her before shit went to hell was getting certified as personal trainers and starting our own classes. I haven’t given this that much thought since, but maybe I should look into it some more. It’ll force me to think through my fitness goals and ideas, making me focus on what I think I need to do to keep in shape, and figure out a way to teach that to other people. That’s actually something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, the thinking through my processes.

In the future, I was planning to write entries that went through all my different workflows, like what tools I use and how I use them. I was really interested in doing this because it’ll, again, force me to think through what I do and how I do it, and during the process, I could possibly see ways I can improve and become more efficient and better. For example, I’ve been really wishing I used my iPad in a more productive way other than the strictly consumptive way I use it now. I don’t create anything with it, not like my iPhone and especially not like my Mac, and it feels like I can. My OmniFocus posts are a good example of what I’m talking about here. What do you guys think?

That’s where my thoughts are right now. I’m not sure what else to write about since things are just going well right now. I leave for California soon, and I’m excited. I’ll see some of you guys soon! Good night, everyone.

A few days ago, I woke up to three e-mails from iTunes. My bestest of best friends sent me three iTunes gift cards, and with each one, she sent me a great congratulatory message. One for the raise I earned earlier this week, another for committing myself to blogging my ass off on a daily basis, and the last for spending over 100 days without speaking to her. She told me to buy some tunes for when I blog, and I did just that. So far, I’ve bought only two albums, but they’re great ones. I’m listening to the 10th anniversary edition of Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism, and the other album was Modest Mouse’s This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About. Both are great albums, and I have enough money for another one. Not sure what that’ll be, but I’m excited. I’m so grateful for having her in my life, and she knows I love her, but none of you guys do, so: I love her. She’s awesome.

I mention this because this act of great kindness made me feel real good, and that blended into my current streak of feeling good, which resulted in today, where I felt great. Part of it was the fact Insanity is beginning to show its results, and I’m looking good. I could definitely notice some extra attention from people of the opposite sex, and I know that I may have been projecting or something, but that whole thought made me feel confident. I didn’t change my walk or my aura or whatever, but it did make my smile come easier, and I could definitely notice how much a smile can change the whole tone to my day. It was a great day, and I smiled a lot, and because of all this, I accomplished a lot. I finally — finally — fixed an issue with one of our servers that was causing some terrible lag to some computers on our network. It’s now faster than ever, and that makes me feel amazing. It’s also almost Christmas time, so any potentially important projects have been pushed to next year, giving me time to focus on some of the little things.

I leave for San Diego in a little over a week. I’ll be driving there with my SUV, and the more I look at the route — Salt Lake City! Las Vegas! San Diego! — the more excited I’m getting. I have many worries, though. Can my car handle it? I worry I may have car trouble somewhere, and that’s something I don’t want. What will I eat? I don’t want to eat junk food on this trip, so I’ve been thinking about preparing and packing my own meals, but I feel like I should let loose and give in to some fast food. I’m debating whether to get energy drinks or try to stick to coffee as much as possible. Where will I sleep? I was thinking of stopping at a motel or something on the way, but the trip, at least according to Google Maps, will take between 18-19 hours. I think I can drive straight through. Obviously I won’t know until I’m actually out there, but that’s something I’ll try to do. Other than all that? Did I mention I was excited?

And that’s kind of my entry today. It was just a good day, and I want to leave it at that. Good night, everyone.

A few days ago, I came home from work feeling good. I had a productive day, and things just seemed to be going well, so when I saw my notecards on my desk, I decided to write a note to my neighbor. I didn’t think about it; I just did it. I apologized to her for being loud during my workouts, and I wrote to her that I usually workout between 5-7 PM. I stuck it in her door and went about my business. Today, I thought about that note and felt a little embarrassed. I’m not sure why I did it. It was just something I’ve been conscious about for months now. Insanity is no joke, and if I’m not making noise, I’m not working out. I’m pretending to work out. So I thought I’d apologize for all the noise.

This made me start thinking about all the actions from my past that I’ve felt and still feel embarrassed about. I know that I just have to own my actions and embrace them because they make up who I am. There were a few things I did in the days leading up to the creation of this blog that I’m super embarrassed and ashamed about, but I did them and I have to own them. Maybe not to you guys, but to myself. I have to be honest with myself. Will I ever do something like that again? I don’t know since I wrote my neighbor that weird note.

I can be very impulsive, and I think the reason I am is because I’m fueled by my emotions. I’m a very emotional person. It’s how I write, and it’s how I live. From the outside I may seem the opposite of this, but trust me, I’m not. Usually when I’m quiet I’m feeling fear or anxiety or something like that. It could be that I’m completely uninterested and don’t want to be mean about it. At least I think that’s what I’m feeling. If I’m having a good time, then I’m joking and laughing and saying stupid things because who cares, I’m having fun. And when I’m feeling good, I may start singing and dancing because why not? It feels good, so I do what feels good. And when I feel bad, I sometimes tend to do things that make me feel even more bad. It’s strange. Like how we sometimes listen to sad music when we’re sad. It’s therapeutic, I think. I can definitely see that since when I’m sad, I try to feel as sad as possible and write about that because that makes me feel better. Are we all like this?

The thought of owning my actions hit me hard today because I keep imagining scenarios when I run into her or to other people I may have hurt in the past. I want to apologize to everyone I’ve ever hurt, including her, but I know for some people, any attempt at an apology will feel empty and not genuine. I don’t hate anybody, and I don’t like the idea of others hating me. Is that petty? I want to take all the good parts of my lost relationships and ignore the bad parts because the good parts gave me emotions I always love to remember and feel again. And the bad parts make me feel bad, and I think that’s why I want to apologize, so I don’t have to feel like that anymore. Now I do think that’s petty because life doesn’t work that way. I gotta live with my actions and own them, and that’s just a part of life I have to live with and accept.

And that sucks.

This week has been pretty great. I broke a couple of 100 day milestones, which I’m very happy and grateful for, and today I found out that the school I work for chose to hire me full-time. This comes with an extra $3/hr raise, which amounts to about an extra $500 a month. I really had no doubt that this was coming since I’ve been working really hard the past three months to get to this place, but it’s always nice to know that my job is secure and that I’ll be earning more money. As long as I keep my habits going, especially my waking up at 5 AM every morning to write my novel habit, then this next year looks to be pretty great.

I used to love New Year’s because I loved writing my resolutions for the upcoming year. I really wanted to start fresh on January 1st and wipe away the dirt from the previous year and become someone better. I always had goals to be more fit, to be smarter, to be and do more, but I always seemed to crash really early. January had always been my most productive month because that’s when all my enthusiasm was at its highest. It quickly ebbed, though, and by February, I was back on my old habits, and by March, I looked at my list of resolutions with guilt and regret. So by April I would start trying them again, but the cycle repeated again, so by June, I just gave up and forgot about the list. Then December would roll around, and I would get excited again. This happened for years, and I never seemed to learn, until just one day it all clicked.

I stopped writing New Years Resolutions a few years ago. I purposefully tried starting new habits a few months before January because I wanted to enter the new year with momentum. Many of my current habits started that way. When I was 70 pounds heavier than I am now, I decided to start working out with more purpose during December. I was at 216 lbs on December of 2011. I’m now at 173 lbs as of Monday. At my highest, I was over 230 lbs in early 2011, and under 160 lbs earlier this year. I started this blog in September, and I plan to continue with it throughout all of 2015. And I’ll be coming into January with three full months of Insanity workouts and over 100 days straight of writing 300+ words in my novel.

One thing I love to do is keep track of what I’m doing. I like logging my weight every Monday, writing about my life in this blog, and simply just writing down ideas, notes, anything, and dating them. I like to look back and see what kind, if any, progress I’ve made. It’s always encouraging when I look back at old journal entries where I bemoan the fact that I’m not where I want to be and realize that I did get there. I did lose that weight, I did finish my first novel, I did get a great job.

For 2015, I don’t plan to write any resolutions. I plan to continue living life the way I’m living it now but hopefully better. I’m not sure what that means, but I’m confident I’ll figure it out. And I’ll hopefully have furniture and the rest of my stuff¹ from California. One thing I do plan to do with every new year, though, is trying to make it the best year I can possibly make it. But nowadays, that just means making today better than yesterday, and that’s something I always try to attempt.

As long as I’m trying, right?