I’m lying in bed, utterly and completely exhausted. My body aches everywhere, and my mind wants me to fall asleep and rest. I can’t, and I want to cry. I have to write, I tell myself. I made a promise to myself, and I have to follow through on my word. Today, if you can’t tell from the URL, is day 80. I’ve written 80 god damn entries, and I don’t feel like I’ve done anything in them.

My performance during today’s workout was pathetic. I had to do Gameday, which is 60 minutes of pure Insanity. I’m really not joking there. That was just the beginning. Right after, I had to do Overtime, which is 13 minutes of full body strength, cardio, and plyometric workouts, as well as some more Insanity. I had to do this one twice, which meant I had a total of 86 minutes of working out, but it took me much longer than that since I took 5-10 minute breaks in between. Usually I’m pretty good about keeping up with Shaun T, but today I couldn’t. Today I was not feeling anything. I wanted to quit after the first 20 minutes of Gameday. My mind was just not in it.

Discipline and focus are a pair of words I always tend to repeat to myself, ever since I was younger. It’s one of those things where I knew if I was better at either one of them, my life would improve to the level I thought I wanted for myself. I was not focused today, but I was disciplined. I worked out for 86 minutes, but I didn’t push myself the way I know I am capable of. A lot had been weighing on my mind during the workout, and every few minutes it would hit me hard and stop me from working. I tried to push through, and when I tried, I had to almost scream to get my body moving. I clenched my teeth so very tight, and I could feel my face shake with emotion. It took everything I had to finish, like it’s taking everything I have to write this instead of falling asleep.

I don’t know what I’m doing. Is this even worth it? What am I doing? I’m screaming that inside to myself, and I don’t know. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and all I’m thinking about is fitting in my workout beforehand, as well as more of my other tasks. Why can’t I slow down and have some fun? I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing.

My journey toward something is now on its 79th day, and I don’t know what to write. I last spoke to her 80 days ago, but I don’t want to write about her tonight. I’m on Day 25 of my Insanity/Insanity: the Asylum Volume 1 hybrid workout, leaving me with just 5 more before I start the Asylum Volume 2 on the 1st of December, but I have nothing to say about that yet. The workout today was fine. Work was okay, a little slow, but I got some work done. Tomorrow I’m playing dodgeball with other faculty members. We’ll be battling the students, and it should be a lot of fun. Tomorrow is also my last day at work this week, giving me a 4 day weekend, which is great. I can’t wait. I’m reading American Lion by Jon Meacham, and I’m really enjoying reading about America’s 7th President. He was a badass.

For the past few days, I’ve tried promoting my blog to a few people online. One was a writer I really respect, who wrote a book called Delight is in the Details, which I bought a few months and read in one sitting. I really, really enjoyed it, and maybe you guys will, too. Another one was to the makers of my favorite todo list application, OmniFocus. My traffic didn’t go up that much, and I’ve heard no response by anyone, so I’m shrugging it off and moving on.

It did make me start thinking more about my blog, though. What am I trying to do with it exactly? Am I trying to use it as a vehicle for some sort of gig as an online writer? Or am I really trying to focus on my day-to-day life, trying to improve myself as much as possible, document my journey, and see where I go? The former seems appealing, but the latter seems right.

I don’t know if anyone reads me who doesn’t know me, and if you do, hi. But this blog may not be for you. This blog may not even be for my friends. This blog is for me. It’s a place where I can publicly acknowledge my failures, my successes, and my perspectives on how to live a good life. I have no idea what a good life is, or how to actually go into finding out. All I know is that I’m trying to do something for me. If that means I only have 1 reader for the next 286 entries, then so be it. I’ll consider my future then. In the meantime?

Today I learned that the harder I push myself, the stronger I get. I learned that I need to get a rug or else I’ll keep slipping on my floor from all the sweat I expel during Insanity. I learned that cooking a big ass steak takes a long time to cook. Finally, I learned that I’m a better writer when I’m writing for myself and not for anyone else.

I still wish I gave myself more time to review and rewrite my entries, especially with tonight’s entry. C’est la vie, I guess.

I’m full of contradictions. That, of course, makes me human, flaws and all. Every now and then I entertain the idea of pursuing perfection, but perfection might be the wrong word. Obviously, perfection to me will most definitely be different than what anyone else might take it to mean. What I mean by perfection is essentially being the best I can be in any given skill I want to learn. I want to be the best writer I can be, the best athlete I can be, the best reader I can be, etc., and that to me epitomizes the perfect life. A life well lived; a life well earned. I’m never going to get there, though, and that’s okay. The journey is everything, and like any good journey, there will be obstacles along the way. And one of those for me are my contradictions.

Earlier today, in an effort to be a bit more proactive with my blog, I wrote down an idea for an entry in my notes app on my phone. Actually, I dictated it while I was driving, which I don’t recommend, but I didn’t want to forget it. The idea, in full, was “Due dates for routines.” What does that mean? I’ll get there. First, I want to write something I’ve noticed about myself. I like freedom. Hell, I love freedom. I love being able to do whatever the hell I want whenever the hell I want. I don’t like feeling constricted, and, for the most part, I really don’t like being told what to do. As a writer, I’m best when I’m writing to discover. This produces long-winded and meandering stories or entries or whatever format I’m writing, but that’s okay. There’s always rewriting. I don’t like outlines because I’m not really writing. It could be another one of my flaws, but why constrict myself when I know myself and I know I don’t like outlines?

“Due dates for routines.” I really didn’t want to forget this idea because I thought I had a lot to say about this. I’m a pretty recent OmniFocus convert, seeing as I purchased the iPhone and Mac apps around February of this year. I’ve been using todo list apps for years, and I’ve been following GTD since around 2009. I knew my way around these type of apps, and I’ve developed a system that remained fairly portable through the years. I didn’t have a complex system, except that I assigned many tasks with due dates that weren’t technically due ever. They were just personal things I wanted to get done and due dates reminded me to do them. OmniFocus is different, though. They have two date fields: a due date and a defer date. A defer date is a way for me to assign a date to any of my tasks and that task will disappear from my list until that day rolls around. This is a powerful idea. I have hundreds of tasks in my OmniFocus database and seeing them all the time is paralyzing. So for those tasks that aren’t technically due ever but are just those things I’d like to get done eventually, I assign defer dates. All fine and well, right?

Many well-known OmniFocus users prefer this workflow. I do, too, to a limit. They recommend OmniFocus users to use due dates sparingly because if we don’t complete these “due” items on the day they’re due, we’ll feel guilty and hate ourselves and fall off the OmniFocus/productivity bandwagon and cry ourselves to sleep every night. If I assigned a due date to something and didn’t do it, I postponed the task for the next day or rethought the task and assigned another due date far off in the future or even just removed the due date altogether. I didn’t feel guilty about doing that. On the other hand, if something was due on a certain day, and I didn’t do it, then yeah, I would feel guilty. I hate feeling guilty so I do the damn task when it’s due. It is with this mindset that I use when I assign tasks with due dates, and most of the tasks I assign due dates to are my routines.

I have two contexts: Morning routines and Nightly routines. Every morning, I have a set of routines I have to do to be better. That includes writing my novel, meditating, learning, etc. And every night, I have another set of routines I have to do to be better. That includes reading, writing this entry, clearing and evaluating my day, etc. I have each task due at a certain time throughout my day. My alarm is set for 5 AM every morning, and my writing task is due at 5 AM, so I wake up already behind! Not really. When my alarm goes off, I have to grab my phone to turn it off. After I do, I see that my “Write novel” task is due since OmniFocus on my iPhone notified me of it. So I write because I have to to be better. An hour later, I’m reminded to take my vitamins. And so on and so forth. Same thing every night. My phone buzzes like half a dozen times every morning and every night, and that’s okay because I’ve allowed that to happen. And I think I’m better for it.

On one hand, I love the freedom of writing without borders, of living my life however the hell I want, but on the other hand, I yield my mornings and nights to an app that tells me what to do. Granted, I’m the one that told the app to tell me what to do and when, but still. It’s a contradiction, but one I’m oddly okay with.

As long as I’m always improving and always getting better, right?

Every day matters, because if you think about it, that’s when life happens. We don’t always seize every day, though, do we? We sit in front of our TVs and binge watch some show on Netflix; or we go out and get drunk and wake up the next morning with no idea what happened the night before and consider that living; or we procrastinate by sitting in front of our computers all day surfing the net with the vague notion in our minds that we’re doing “research” but instead spend god knows how many hours watching vloggers on YouTube rant about their day. Ironic, right?

A few years ago I came across the Japanese word Kaizen. In short, kaizen means continuous improvement. Toyota made it popular last century with how they built their cars, and once people started associating Japanese cars with quality and dependability and American cars as the opposite of that, American companies began adopting this philosophy, which they continue to use to this day with how reliable its been for them.

We can’t expect to wake up one morning and expect to be the best at whatever it is we’re striving for. We’ll only be disappointing ourselves, and instead of doing something about it, we don’t. We drift. Continuous improvement means incremental changes we actively focus on every day. Every. Day.

We all have our goals. We all want to be somebody better than who we are today. We want to be fitter, smarter, famous, etc. Instead of getting up one morning and running a 5k when we’ve never run a 5k in our lives, we should instead focus on building the habit of running. That could mean running down the block and back and calling it good for the day. The next day, we run down the block plus a few feet around the corner and back again. The next month we could be running a few laps around the block. Eventually we’ll be able to run that 5k no problem. That’s not where we should stop, though. One day, maybe we start our day with a 5k run as just a warmup because we’re training to run a 25k. Or an Iron Man competition. Or maybe we just wanted to build up our cardio so we could swim across the Atlantic or something.

The point is: we should do something to advance ourselves every day in some way. We should ask ourselves every morning how we can make today better than yesterday. Benjamin Franklin created a daily schedule where every morning he would ask himself, “What good shall I do this day?” And every night, he asked himself, “What good have I done today?”

I want to finish my novel, so every day I write 300 words toward accomplishing that. I want to be healthy, fit, and be able to take off my shirt and show off my abs. I’m not there yet, so I work out every day. I’m on a path to do over 200 days of fucking Insanity. I’m not fucking around. And I want to know myself better, so I write these introspective blog entries for the entire internet *ahem* all 3 of you *ahem* to read. I spend more time every day simply thinking about what I want to write every night, and that makes me more receptive to the subtleties of my life. Every thought is precious. Every moment is fodder for an entry. Everything I do matters, and that has changed my whole perspective on my life.

Sometimes I dread spending the last hour or so of my day writing an entry because sometimes I would rather go to sleep or binge watch a TV show on Netflix or go out and meet some people or watch vloggers on YouTube ranting about their day. But I don’t. I don’t because I know I have to make today better than yesterday in some way, and yesterday I wrote 300 words in my novel and worked out and wrote another 500+ words on my blog. I’ve gotta keep pushing myself further and further until I’m dead.

Until I’m dead, you guys. Until I’m dead.

Ugh, I have to write another one of these entries…

What the fuck am I doing exactly? Like some dead philosopher said, living an examined life. What the shit does that mean?

I used to see a therapist. This was back in college. I tried cutting my palm for some idiotic reason, and one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life, and one I’m super proud to still call my friend, got me help. That’s how I started seeing a therapist. In the beginning of my sessions, I barely talked. I tried talking, but I felt like I had nothing to say. I knew I needed some help, but I didn’t know how to accept it, I guess. Eventually I started talking. And talking. And talking. And I saw my therapist for about two years, all the way until I graduated. I grew up so much with her, and I almost never think about her. That makes me kind of sad. Last May, when I went back to LA for a few days, I hung out with my friend — the one I mentioned earlier — and we went to the USC campus. I hadn’t been there since I graduated back in 2008. While walking around, I saw my therapist. I didn’t say hi, and at first I didn’t even recognize her. But she recognized me. And neither one of us said a word to each other. We walked by as if we were strangers. It’s kind of sad, but she helped me examine my life and confront my demons head on. That’s how I’ve been living ever since.

I committed myself to write 365 entries. I’m not sure why I did that. I guess I wanted to force myself to confront myself on a daily basis, to ensure I’m living a good life, a life I need to work toward instead of passively living it. Every night I have to sit down and stare at my blank word processor and force myself to think about my day, about having something to say, and I do it. I write it. Recently, though, I’ve been yearning for more time. There have been entries I’ve written I wish I had more time with. Everything you guys are reading are first drafts, and what do we call first drafts? Shitty. I’m not sure if I’ll force myself to satisfy this yearning any time soon, but I just thought I’d reveal that, being as I’m trying to live a more examined life.

Is that pretentious? Am I trying to be something more than I am? I don’t know. Like, honestly, who am I to even try, right? Right? Like, I’m just some guy living in Montana trying to live his life. I have very few friends, with not a one up here in Montana, except for family. I spend all of my time indoors, except for when I need to make money and go to work. Writing fell on my lap during high school because I liked writing action stories. Stories about smart guys doing crazy things to do crime-y things. Then I wanted to be “serious” during college, so I wrote about Buddhism and sci-fi and my family. Now I’ve written a novel and am in the middle of rewriting it. I started the damn thing three years ago, and I’m still working on it. I’m single, alone, and damn sexy. Like seriously guys, I’m super sexy. Insanity is the real deal.

I don’t know where I’m going with any of this. I wrote about frustration a few days ago. I write about designing my life a lot. I try to work hard every day even when it seems like I’m not. I write about my routines a lot because that’s where the work really is. I did over 90 minutes of Insanity today, and I loved every minute of it. My injury from a few days ago no longer exists. I wrote 300+ words in my novel, and now I’m over 23,000 words into it. I eat well every day. I’ve prepared all my own meals every day for months now. I still feel lost, though. I’m not sure what I’m doing, and I’m not sure how much longer I can last writing my shitty first drafts.

For the past few months, my thoughts have been consumed by the concept of design, mostly the concept of lifestyle design. To me, lifestyle design is the idea of creating a life one wants with the intention of living it beautifully. A beautifully designed life, like most designs, is subjective. I may find something beautiful that someone else finds atrocious. That’s normal, and I don’t want to say that my way is the right way even if it may come off that way. There are certain aspects of design that I find beautiful above anything else, the foremost of which is simplicity.

I’ve mentioned before¹ that I used to be a minimalist. Regardless of the reason why I don’t consider myself one anymore, I still do subscribe to many of the characteristics that make minimalism so attractive to me. To me, minimalism means simplicity. It means living with less and yet still living a fulfilled and happy life. Unfortunately, I took that to mean getting rid of most everything I own except for the bare essentials and forcing myself to find happiness this way. I didn’t buy a car for over a year and a half because I felt like I didn’t need one. I told myself I had legs I could use to walk everywhere. During those sub-zero days last winter, I pushed through the freezing cold by telling myself that this discomfort will only make me stronger. My thoughts have fortunately evolved, and now I have a car that has made going to my current job possible. There’s no way I’d walk the 10 miles to work and the 10 miles back home in this weather. Now I’m content with buying things that add value to my life, and I’m no longer worried about the number of possessions I have, as long as what I do have provide some sort of beauty, happiness, and utility to my life.

As my thoughts on minimalism have evolved, so have my thoughts on design. Something I learned recently is that design is about intent. My maturing thoughts on lifestyle design have made me think a bit more about its purpose. What am I trying to achieve by designing my life? What kind of life am I trying to lead? What type of person am I intending to become? Here are a few quick answers to these questions:

I intend to design my life by building routines that help me live the life I want. The life I want, the life I’m trying to lead, is one where I satisfy my desires. I’m a very impulsive person, and whenever I get a thought that excites me, I have to follow it through. That’s how I messed up the network this past week at work² and how I’m on this 200+ day Insanity workout regiment. My desires are far ranging and eclectic, and even if I satisfy only half of them during my life, I would consider that a well-lived life. Who am I trying to become? I’m not sure. There’s this image of a man I know I could be, but I don’t know why or what makes him so intriguing. The idea of a Renaissance man always intrigued me, so being well-rounded, a jack of all trades of sorts, always appealed to me. What does that mean exactly? I’m not sure. But here are a few things that have made it onto my todo list over the past few years:

• Write a novel³
• Learn Latin⁴
• Travel the world⁵
• Be fit and healthy
• Learn to juggle
• Draw every day
• Write every day
• Learn to play an instrument
• Learn a martial art
• Control my mind/meditating
• Read thousands of books
• Etc.

This list isn’t exhaustive, but that’s a good representation of the major desires I’ve had over the years. I’m currently going through many of the desires on this list and there are others I may never get to (I’m looking at you, Latin).

All I know is that if I wasn’t purposeful about my intention to live a life I wanted, I wouldn’t be the man I am today. And that’s something I don’t even want to think about.

Frustration is one of those emotions I feel incessantly. Part of it stems from my desire to be perfect, and the other part stems from my finite resource of willpower. I don’t have the time or the determination to do everything I want to do every day. Of course, I have to choose my priorities carefully, but I notice I tend to lack focus during any of my prioritized tasks. My mind is on those things I wish I could get done while I’m trying to do something else.

Following up on yesterday’s post, I took one step forward and two steps back today. I was able to figure out a solution to the problem of the teacher who couldn’t access her math program, but in doing so, I lost about a week’s worth of data somewhere else. Luckily, there was a backup on the main server machine, but to make things right, I have to spend a few hours transferring documents back and forth between different backups tomorrow. In the end, I’m going to lose most of the data for that program generated today since there wasn’t a backup for that, but everything else should be fixed.

I feel stupid. One of the main things I always preach to myself and to others when it comes to a healthy and productive computer life is to backup. Backup backup backup. I didn’t backup data I knew was important. I was too focused on solving this tiny little problem that I didn’t foresee the ripple effects my actions would have across the network. Being a solitary systems administrator is a tough job, especially when I have zero professional training and experience. These are all growing pains, though, and I’m glad I’m learning my lessons now.

I figured out the solution toward the end of my shift, so I was unable to put it into action. When I came home, my mind was focused on my failure and stupidity, and it clouded my mind when I began my Strength and Cardio Abs workout programs. My frustration helped me perform as well as I’ve ever performed during the Strength workout. It feels amazing to notice my strength and stamina improving week over week, and even more amazing when I know I’m pushing myself harder every day and actually seeing and feeling the results. I transferred this excitement — and frustration — into the Cardio Abs workout.

One of the warm-up exercises during this workout is something Shaun T calls tuck jumps: our knees are shoulder-width apart, we bend down, and then jump up into the air, making sure we jump from the bottom. We bend our knees upward, meeting them with our elbows. The time we spend in between jumps is miniscule. Once we land we jump again. I wanted to push myself during this routine. I’ve been feeling frustrated that there doesn’t seem to be any progress made with my lower abs. My body likes to store fat around my waist, so while I can see progress everywhere else in my body, I can’t around my waist. The tuck jumps work the lower abs really effectively, so I brought that frustration to mind when I jumped up into the air. That excitement from the Strength workout was still present while I did these tucks jumps, so I worked my ass off jumping up and down for about 45 seconds. During one of the jumps, I landed on my left leg first and my calf locked up. I fell to the floor, screaming in pain. I could see my calf twitch rapidly, and my calf muscle was the hardest I’d ever felt it when I touched it. It looked like it was dislocated.

I writhed on the floor for about five minutes, making sure to pause the video because I had it in my mind to finish the workout. I massaged my calf, jumped up onto my other leg and tried walking it off. The pain quickly faded away, and when I touched my calf again, it wasn’t as hard as before. It still hurt — and it still hurts now — but I was determined to finish. I played the video again. The exercise after the tuck jumps was wide tuck jumps. While the standard tuck jumps work the lower abs, the wide tuck jumps work the obliques. I was afraid to do it, so my first few jumps were half-hearted attempts not to hurt myself. Once I realized my calf didn’t hurt that much, though, I immediately pushed myself to go harder. I still landed on my right leg first a few times, just to relieve some pressure from my left leg, but by the end, I was working out as intensely as the people in the video. Fortunately, I finished the workout and went on with my day.

The lesson I learned today is close to this: don’t quit. Quitting will get me nowhere, even though I probably should’ve taken my injury as a sign to slow down and stop for today. I felt like quitting during work today. Not the job but the problems I was having with the server. I couldn’t figure out a solution until I realized there was a backup I could revert to. Instead of losing over a week’s worth of data and even more problems to deal with, I’m only going to lose one day and fewer problems. That’s a win. Last night I went to sleep with a cough, and I was worried I caught my first cold in over four years, but I woke up this morning perfectly fine. I’m not so sure what my calf will feel like tomorrow. Luckily, tomorrow is rest day.

All I’m hoping for is that I’ll be healthy enough to tackle Saturday with all the energy and focus I want to bring into the start of the last week of this hybrid workout. I want to finish strong. That means not quitting. I don’t plan to.

I’ve been having computer troubles at work recently. Something’s wrong with one of our servers, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve tried everything I know how to do, including searching on Google, but nothing seems to be working. The server is a Hyper-V server, which means it’s virtualized. It’s not a real computer but a operating system running inside another operating system. The host machine runs two virtualized servers, and the other server isn’t causing me any problems. In fact, I did some maintenance on this server recently and everything seems to run just a bit better than before. Except, for the other server. The main thing it’s doing is causing our time clock software to run super slowly. That was the symptom that pointed me down this rabbit hole of stress. People obviously hate when computers run slowly, so I’ve been tasked to fix this since I’m the only tech guy at this school, but I can’t seem to track down the main issue.

There was a bit a time a few weeks ago up to about a week ago where things at work were going super smoothly. It seemed like I was fixing every little problem that came up, and I grew confident. Everyone seemed to like me, and all I’ve been hearing about me were good things. I thought I had a handle on this job. Apparently not. I remember during the first few weeks at work I devoted a lot of my time to learning everything I could about the job. Recently, though, that desire to learn has waned and now I feel like I’m paying the price. After work, I received an email from a teacher who told me she can’t use a certain math program that her elementary school students use. I looked up the program, and lo and behold, it uses components that are installed on this problem server, so I’m seeing more problems trickle down across the school caused by this server. I’m unsure about what to do.

Part of me today wished I could just reinstall everything and start over. It seemed like everything the previous tech guys did to these servers were patches and band-aids and not long-lasting and well-configured systems, and now I’m paying the price for it. I mean, originally these servers ran Windows Server 2000. They were then upgraded to Windows Server 2003. Eventually, they went from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012. Upgrades are worse than clean installs, and I’m seeing why. Windows Server 2012 improved upon technologies that Windows Server 2000 used, but many of these systems weren’t configured correctly to take advantage of them. Files are still pointing to these old ways when the newer ways can improve the speed and efficiency of the network, except the work required to upgrade and fix all the computers and devices tied to the old ways is mind boggling. I can’t do much work now because school is still going and people depend on these devices to work now. Very frustrating.

Anyways, wow, I spent like three paragraphs bitching about work. I guess I should mention, before I go, that my copy of Insanity: the Asylum Volume 2 arrived today. I have 11 more days of this hybrid workout before I devote the following 30 to this new program. I’m excited. Also, I bought new headphones to replace my old ones. They arrived today, and they’re so much better than the old ones. I’m really happy with that purchase. And now I go to sleep. Night.

Something I didn’t realize until today was that 48 days ago, I committed myself to 150 days of Insanity. I began by doing the 30 day Insanity: the Asylum Volume 1 workout program. I followed it up with another 30 day program, but this time it was an Insanity/Insanity: the Asylum Volume 1 hybrid workout, which I’m currently going through. Then I’m doing the second volume of the Asylum program, which is an additional 30 days. After that, I’ll be doing the new Insanity: Max 30 program which is purported to be 60 days. That was the original plan. Before I bought the second volume of the Asylum, I read that it’ll include a 60 day Volume 1/Volume 2 hybrid workout, and I’m really tempted to do that after completing Max 30. That’ll mean a total of 210 days. Who knows, maybe there’s a Max 30/Insanity/Insanity: the Asylum hybrid workout in the new Insanity somewhere. That’ll be INSANE¹.

I really feel stronger. It’s really tough to explain. Think about how you walk right now, the whole process of standing up and moving each leg forward, one step at a time. Imagine that whole process improving: your posture improving because the muscles in your lower back are stronger, as are your butt and thighs, and because your upper back and shoulders just feel stronger, it’s easier to pull your shoulders back when you walk. There’s a springiness to your step because all your muscles are working better together. I’ve noticed that my reflexes are faster, and that my mood is so much more positive. I’m always smiling and things that use to get to me — remember her? — don’t get to me anymore. That’s another sense of how I feel stronger: my emotions and moods feel under control. Not only that, my motivation to keep going is stronger than ever. It’s easier to wake up every morning at 5, even after only 7 hours or less of sleep, to start writing my novel. Problems at work feel like opportunities to learn something new rather than burdens that irritate and slow down my day. I’m excited every time I start a new Shaun T workout video because I know I’m going to “make my body feel good.”² And I’m 72 days into this personal blog project, and I see no reason to slow down.

Everything begins with the body. I really believe that now. Taking care of yourself first helps with every other facet of your life. With these other facets strengthened, it’s easier to start doing the things that you love, especially those things that take a lot work and commitment. For me, that’s writing. I noticed before how I didn’t write when I didn’t take care of myself. It usually took a really low moment to happen in my life before I felt compelled to pick up that sometime metaphorical pen and start writing. This usually proceeded after I started working out. There’s something about sweating profusely that makes me happy and motivates me to start working.

I’m excited. What was once a promise to do 120 days of Insanity has turned into at least 180 days. If I add the first 30 days I did back in October, that’ll be over 200 days of Insanity. That’s a promise I’m making here, and that’s one I know will reward me later if I do the work. I know I can. Hell, I know I will.

I think we all have imaginary relationships with the people we encounter throughout our lives. While we’re walking down the street, minding our own business, we see someone across the street, someone that catches our attention. They’re wearing something attractive or are themselves simply attractive, and we imagine who this person might be. How do they live their lives?, we wonder. This beautiful person must have beautiful friends, a beautiful family, a beautiful life. We’re curious as to what kind of effect they might have on our lives, our empty and sad and lonely life. They can be that spark that can ignite that fire within ourselves, that can show us the true possibility and joy of life.

We imagine ourselves walking up to this person and talking to them¹. We don’t really think about how we start talking to them, but just that we do. We start telling them about ourselves, and they, to our surprise, love everything about us. They find our hobbies and interests and jokes so engrossing and funny. We imagine going on a date with them, a date that is full of laughter and attraction and joy. Everything’s perfect. We take them home, and they love everything about it. The way it’s decorated, the way it reflects our personality, and the way it feels. We turn off the lights, start playing some music, and things begin to get serious. We spend the rest of the night making love, and the whole experience is magical. We wake up the next morning, and they’re still lying next to us, asleep and beautiful. We grab their hand and simply caress it, feeling every cell of their skin. This is true pleasure, we think.

But then our life comes back to us, and we realize we’ve been staring at some stranger across the street for who knows how long. They turn the corner or they meet up with friends or they, tragically, meet up with someone else, someone they immediately kiss and walk off with. We continue on with our lives and simply wonder what if? What if we stopped imagining and started doing? What if we took control of our lives and started living it the way we wanted to? What if we became that person that’s better than even our imaginations could imagine?

Nothing’s impossible. We can be whoever we want to be, and that idea is powerful. We don’t have to coast through life and go through the motions, living each day of our lives mindlessly until one day we’re lying on our death beds wondering where our lives went. We can go talk to that person we think we might be interesting, we can hop on that airplane and go to that place we’ve always yearned to go, and we can start that project we know will make us happy when we finish it. All we have to do is to start.

Imagining what we want our lives to be is only the first step. Taking the next step defines who we choose to be. So take it.