All I want to do right now is sleep. I’m so tired, but I feel so good, too. I finished Day 29 of Insanity: the Asylum. Tomorrow will be my last day, then I’ll take Friday off, and on Saturday I’m going to start the thirty day hybrid workout. I feel good not having to think about what I’m going to do to keep healthy. Instead, all I have to concern myself with is just starting.

Daily routines keep me happy because a major part of what may hold me back is minimized tremendously, and that’s my own damn mind telling me not to do something. One thing I’ve noticed when I’m super focused on improving myself is how much easier it is to just start. Every morning I wake up at 5 AM, brush my teeth, shave, make coffee, sit down by my desk, open my laptop, hit play on iTunes, and start writing. Every morning is the same. The same steps in the same order. I could live without any sort of clock telling me the time, and I could tell you what time it is by just this routine alone. I don’t have to think about it ever. I did when I wanted to implement this change into my life, and trust me, those first few weeks were tough. Once I stopped thinking about it, though?

The hardest part about starting a new habit is sticking with it past the minimum thirty day threshold. I’ve started and stopped so many habits over the past five years that I’ve developed a rhythm of recognizing the patterns of habit creation. The first few days are always the funnest. We’re starting something new, something we know will be beneficial to us in the long-run, something that’ll make us better. But then our mind starts to revolt. This new habit requires effort, and our mind is not used to exerting any effort in this area. So it revolts. The mind tries to convince us that stopping is the best thing to do because it’ll just feel good. Our goal is to push through that. Every day we devote toward accomplishing these new habits is another day stacked on top of our mind until one day, the weight of our new habit becomes our new normal. And just like how we can shower without even thinking about it, we can do whatever new habit we want without thinking about it, too.

So I’m lying in bed, exhausted as all hell, and I feel good because I know I earned today. In one day, I will finish something I started a month ago. I’m 300 words closer toward finishing my novel. People like me at work, and I’ve been told repeatedly how good of a job I’m doing. I started a new book — the Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp — and I’m loving it. These are my defaults, my daily routines that I don’t have to think about but make me feel so good. And so tired. God I’m tired.

Montana has taught me one irrevocable fact, and that’s that no one day is predictable. The cold blanket of winter has enveloped my little corner of the world, and that means scraping frost from my windshield every morning, as well as sleeping with the tinny sounds of my heater humming in the background. No matter how hard I try to control my days, to follow a routine that I know is good, healthy, and highly beneficial to me, there will be times when the unpredictable mess things up.

Nothing unpredictable happened today, and that’s the problem, I think. I’m not growing the way I want to. Sure, I’m working out, writing, and making money, but those were the basic big rocks I wanted to develop in the first thirty days of this blog. It’s now been over fifty days and nothing much has changed. I’m not earning my days anymore.

I need to keep pushing myself in order to grow into the man I want to be. What does that mean? I really wish I knew. All I know to do is to listen to my body and to my emotions, and follow the path they’re trying to clear for me. I’m unsatisfied, and I don’t know what to do about it, exactly.

There’s so much more I want to do, and I think that’s where part of the problem lies. I’m paralyzed by choice. I’m not sure which thread to pull because I don’t know if that thread is the best choice for me at this time. All I know is that I have a very small piece of time available to me every day, and I don’t think I’m spending it wisely. Unfortunately, at least during November, that time will be cut even shorter since the hybrid workout from Insanity will take much longer than what I’m used to.¹

Insanity will take care of my desire to be more fit, healthy, and better looking. I need to work on my diet, though. I want to cook more and different meals. That requires research. I need to commit to making something different for dinner every day, maybe during November. Cooking blog?

I’m writing every morning, but I want to spend more time on it. I have notebooks specifically bought for this purpose, but I’m not using them. I’m not used to them, so I have to build them into a workflow somehow. I have to hate not having a notebook around instead of not knowing I need one around me at all times.

I’ve always had an insatiable desire to learn, but I’ve never focused my learning into some sort of system that demands more of me every day. What I mean by that is that no matter how much I read, I don’t apply that information in a useful way. I don’t ensure I know that information, but instead rely on my memory and forge on to the next subject. I’ve always wanted to implement the Feynman technique, but I’ve never found the motivation to implement that in my life. It’s time to change that.

Finally, even though I meditate every morning, I don’t feel like it satisfies my spirit. I think this is where my feelings of emptiness are stemming from. I’m unsatisfied with something, but I haven’t found why yet. This is one area of my life I need to focus on a lot more.

I have to earn every day. I have just one life, and I don’t want to waste it.

I feel like things are just getting started. Like I’m waking up from a nightmare, and I’m ready to start my day. 50 days ago I decided to stop going down a path I hated and down another one I knew held more promise. 50 days is a nice round number, but when I consider the fact that my sights are set on 365, 50 looks and seems small. Tiny, in fact. And that’s a good thing.

There’s still more work to be done, more things I want to do, and more problems to overcome. In a few days I’m going to complete the 30 day Insanity: the Asylum program. This will be the second time I’ve completed it, so I don’t consider this a great achievement. I do consider it a small stepping stone toward my real goal: 120 more days of Insanity, maybe more. The next 30 days will be the Insanity/Insanity: the Asylum hybrid workout. The 30 days after that will be the Insanity: the Asylum, Volume 2 workout program, and then after that, for 60 days, will be Shaun T’s new Insanity program, Insanity MAX 30. I still need to purchase the last two workouts, but if you’ve been reading my entries for the past week, then you know that purchasing these programs are a form of retail therapy. In fact, they’ll be more than that: they’ll contribute toward actual therapy, since working out is the best form of it.

50 days ago I also decided to start writing my novel again. I’ve written 300 words each day for the past 50, and I’m now at 15,159 words. I wish I could write more than 300 words, but I can’t devote more time than I already have to writing since I have work, and my evenings and nights are so packed already with activities that try to improve myself. And those 300 words every morning don’t come easy. But! I did receive my new Confidant notebook from Barong Fig today, and it’s really pretty. I can’t wait to use it.

On Day 30, I gave myself 3 goals to focus on for the following 30 days. What’s the status on those? Very minimal progress has been made since then. I have been reading every day, but I don’t think I’ve read more than I wanted to. My fat calipers still have not been shipped from Amazon, even though I purchased them a week ago. And for beginning the framework toward a personal philosophy? I haven’t the slightest idea where to start. I have a new blank notebook to regurgitate some ideas, but will I actually do that? I don’t know. I have 10 days to figure that out. The first two goals are “easier” to fix, in a way. Instead of focusing on one book every day until I finish it, I think I’m going to mix it up every day. If I feel like reading fiction one day, I will. If I feel like reading about computers and system administration, I will. No barriers. Once I get my fat calipers, I can really focus on my weight gain, and know how much of it is muscle and how much is fat. Last time I checked my body fat percentage I was at around 10.3%. I’ll see if I’m anywhere near that soon.

What will my next 50 days look like? I don’t know. But if they’re anything like my past 50, I’ll be happy. I know I can do better, though. For the past 50 days, I’ve written over 29,000 words toward wanting something changed in my life. Through those 29,000 words, I think I created a design to follow through to the next 315 days. That’s exciting. Finally, I can look up at the sky and see my lodestar, giving me a path to navigate toward. There will be a whole panoply of emotions waiting for me, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Part of me is afraid that I’m shopping to compensate for the void left when she left. Part of me expects to see her again, which explains why I want to crowd my little life with things. Nice things and very useful things, yet things nonetheless. It’s been 50 days since I’ve last communicated with her, and I never thought I’d make it this far. Here I am, though.

It’s not all about her, though. It never was, really. I’m happy with my purchases. I know they’ll be used on a daily basis, and that’s money well spent, I think. Most of the stuff I’ve bought won’t come for at least another week, maybe sooner, but that’s fine. My bag came yesterday, and that’s kept me super happy today. I took her with me when I did laundry, and she’s so damn awesome and convenient and drool-worthy. I’ve never had this sort of attraction for a bag before, but I guess there’s first times for everything.

One of my flaws here is that I hope to see her again. I feel there’s still hope with us, that we can still be friends somehow, and I’m clinging to that so strongly that it’s blinding me from the truth. The truth is that we’re over, have been over for a long time, and there’s no turning back. I don’t know how to make myself believe that, though. How can I make myself believe there’s no shred of hope left?

I want to find someone else, and that thought has stayed in my mind while I’ve been buying things for my home. I’m eventually going to bring a girl over, and I want my place to impress her. That’s perfectly human. I’ve been sweating as many of the details as possible, been making mental lists of all the little things I want to get or do to make my place really my own. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever had a place of my own, and I’ve been living here for 22 months with very little to show for it. It’s time to change that.

For the longest time I thought I wasn’t going to stay here in Montana for long. I embraced Minimalism because I didn’t want to weigh myself down with stuff just in case I needed to fly back to California. I wanted to know how to live with less, and I did. However, I have a great job, a great car, a great place, and a great summer gig fighting fires. I’ve settled down and grown roots here. It’s time to think about my long-term happiness, and that does involve stuff.

My first phase of purchases focused on my desk area and a few lifestyle things. I bought those posters from Ugmonk this morning I linked to yesterday. I will form a sort of tryptic with two of them and my Holstee manifesto poster. This will be my wall of inspiration I will always see first thing in the morning when I write, and later in the evening when I’m working out. My MacBook Air will be propped up with the mStand, promoting better posture and ergonomics. My new Apple keyboard and Magic Pad will complement and help. I bought my bag to contain everything I need when I need to go out, but I still needed a way to carry my credit cards and ID, so I bought a new wallet. It’s a slim wallet from Bellroy. It’ll come with the rest of my stuff. I bought a 32 GB USB flashdrive that fits great in my keychain, and that’ll help me troubleshoot computers at work since I’ll load it up with the Sysinternals suite. I can finally check my body fat percentage with my new pair of fat calipers, and once my new Cocoon GRID-IT! arrives, I’ll be able to organize my second Magsafe power adapter and lightning cable for when I need them at work. I can finally keep my current adapter off the floor and in my little Ikea basket nailed underneath my desk to keep my cords at bay. Lastly, my new FM tuner will treat me well during my commute to work because I can finally listen to more podcasts instead of the same five songs on the radio.

I’m not sure how many phases I’ll need to complete my home, but I have a few ideas for my second phase. I’m in no rush for that yet, especially since I want to wait and not make any rash decisions. Most of the stuff I bought in the first phase have been on my mind for months, maybe even years, so I knew what I was getting when I bought them. This whole project will take me a few months, even though I cringe at that thought since I want her to enter my life before then, and I want to be done with this.

I need to stop that. I need to slow down, forget about her, and focus on myself. I’m still unhappy sometimes and a big reason why is her. If my happiness toward a single bag is any indication, retail therapy is maybe what I needed.

My new messenger bag from Ugmonk came today, and it’s beautiful.

I’ve never owned anything like this before. The quality is just higher than I’m used to. The leather, although super beautiful, is tough. Like, tougher than I imagined it’ll be. I knew that the description said the leather will take a while to conform to how I use it, but I didn’t realize what that meant until I felt it. This is some tough material. Even the straps are tough, and I had trouble pushing the straps into the little nibs to hold everything closed. I even broke off one of the nibs, but I quickly fixed it with some super glue.

I eventually figured out how to unclasp the straps when I needed it to, and I can only imagine the whole process getting easier once the leather straps conform to how I use them.

The inside is the real story, though. I can fit everything I need for work and then some. There are four main compartments, one on the front, big enough for my iPad, one on the back, big enough to carry a large Moleskine notebook, my paperback copy of the Great Gatsby, and my Kindle Paperwhite with the leather cover. Inside, there’s a compartment designed specifically for laptops, which is where my MacBook Air fits into perfectly. And then there’s the big pocket that will eventually contain my new Cocoon GRID-IT! that should come in the next week or so. When this comes, I will use it to organize my Apple SuperDrive, my MagSafe power adapter, my two pairs of Apple EarBuds, some AAA batteries, a stack of index cards, a lightning cable with power adapter, and the USB charger dongle for my adonit stylus. On the inside of the bag, there are even more pockets. I can fit another large Moleskine notebook (but that’s where my new Baron Fig notebook will go into once it comes), another pocket big enough to contain 3 Field Notes notebooks and 3 Moleskine cahier journals. There are two pockets for pens, and yet two bigger pockets on the ends, that I’m using to house 10 pens, a mechanical pencil, two highlighters, and a sharpie. Phew. And there’s still room to spare. The bag is so unbelievably light that it doesn’t feel like I’m carrying anything at all. I can’t wait to take this to work and put her to good use.

Wow, this entry turned into a whole review of a bag. That’s kind of awesome, actually. Anything else happen today? My Doxie scanner broke a few days ago, which is sad. I may be able to get it replaced, once the customer service reps get back to me. In the meantime, I bought the Scanbot app from the App Store, and holy shit, this app made me actually consider not even bothering with replacing my Doxie scanner yet. It scans beautifully. I can create a default naming convention for each scan, which I did, then it can OCR the documents, and finally upload them all to a specific folder in my Dropbox. The whole workflow was smooth, frictionless, and amazing. I don’t get that much paper in my life anymore, so if I don’t get a replacement Doxie from the company, I may just scan everything with my phone. The iPhone 6’s camera is that good.

I also cleared my desk. All it has now is just my iPad, my iPhone, and my CamelBak water bottle. Before it had like seven pocket Moleskine notebooks, a bunch of books, a folder with my handwritten novel in it, the two larger Moleskine notebooks, and a couple of random pocket sized Moleskine’s. Next week, I should be getting the mStand for my MacBook, Apple’s wireless keyboard, and Magic Trackpad. My desk will look nice and proper like, finally. I’m also considering buying a few more posters from Ugmonk to complete the scene. It’s going to be awesome.

Why does it look like I have fewer things but I’m spending all this money? Because I’m buying not only quality items, but I’m focusing on the details, and the details are everything.

Yeah, I’m ready.

I’m ready to change.

Is that right?

No, more like, I’m ready to let go and just live the way I want to live.

And how’s that?

I’m ready to let go and just experiment.

That sounds expensive.

For some things, sure. I’m not going to do it all at once, but looking back at my expenses a year or two from now, I’ll definitely be wondering why I spent all that money. But now? Now I want to have fun.

What the hell are you talking about?

I don’t know, honestly. I have this surge of energy coursing through my body right now. I had a great day today. Work was fantastic, and I learned a lot about a few things that have been bothering me for a few weeks. All I needed to do was just start on this project, and I quickly discovered that there was nothing to worry about.

Are you intentionally being vague?

It’s about iPads. No big deal.

If you say so.

My messenger bag should be coming tomorrow, and you have no idea how excited I am about that. I’m thinking about getting an orange sweater. I don’t think I’ve ever owned orange anything in my life. Actually, that brings me to a topic I wanted to write about, but I guess I can write about it now.

Way to blow your load.

Colors.

What?

I wanted to write about colors. Last year, when I bought my iPad, I bought a black smart cover for it. A few weeks ago, I decided to change that up by buying a green cover for it. For my new iPhone, I bought the blue silicone cover for it. At work, I’ve been using my iPad a lot for reading research articles and whatnot. I would lay the iPad down flat, the green cover spread out on the desk beside the iPad instead of underneath it. I would then put the blue iPhone over the green cover, and that colorful playfulness awakened something inside of me.

Did it now…

Yes. I’ve been too boring for too long. I want colors in my life. I want playfulness and joy and excitement.

And you think colors will help you achieve all that?

It won’t hurt, and if it brings a smile to my face, then it’s super worth it. I’m tired of intentionally gravitating toward muted colors — blacks, grays, browns, etc. — for everything I own. I thought it’ll look classy, simple, and even stylish. But instead everything looks the same, and it bores me sometimes. My place bores me. Today I wore my Green Lantern shirt, which, obviously, was green and bright, and I loved it.

So… colors?

Yes! Colors!

You know you’re weird right?

Yes! But who cares. Just wait and see. Let me figure this out and let me design my life the way I want to, without barriers or discrimination. Everything and anything is possible. And that’s exciting!

Yay!

Yay!!!

Reflection, true, personal, and daily reflection, is tough. It involves looking inward at a remarkable depth, examining every fiber of my soul, every act, every thought, and every moment of my day. I try my hardest to be as honest and true to myself as possible, regardless if it makes me feel happy or sad, angry or pleased. I don’t know if I always succeed, but I’m sure I don’t. All I know is that I have to reflect on my day every day or else I risk living my life blindfolded. I want to see the world, both the good and the bad. That’s the only way I know how to truly live.

I miss my friend. She was on my mind a lot today because I saw her picture tacked to the wall of one of her former teacher’s classrooms. I asked the teacher if she knew her, and she said she loves her. That she’s awesome and a great girl. I told her that she was one of the first friends I ever made when I moved up here to Montana, which is true. What I didn’t tell her was that we were no longer friends, that she cut me out of her life a few months ago, and that I started this blog 46 days ago because I wanted to move on from her. I wanted so much today to talk to her, but I didn’t because I can’t. If she went so far as blocking me from her phone and from her Facebook, then I need to understand that she doesn’t want me to contact her in any way. It hurts, but it’s the truth.

I know days like this will pass, and I’ll continue on with the daily struggles and vagaries of life. That’s what’s exciting about living: every day is different, every moment is new, and every possibility is endless. I have to keep looking ahead at a future I can create and shape into whatever design I wish. Sadly, I expect to see her again. I believe this separation is temporary, and one day in the future, we will meet again. The sad truth is that I can make this a reality by forcing it to come true. I know I can’t do that, though. I know I can’t. That’s the wrong move to make, and it’ll destroy me if it goes even worse than what it is now.

All I know is that there’s a lot of women out there for me. I can’t keep dwelling on everything that happened between this girl and me, nor can I keep living in a future I wanted to create with her because it doesn’t exist. All I have to do is take that first step toward a better future. All i have to do is just start.

I have this idea about letting go, but all my emotions and thoughts surrounding it are fuzzy. The way it started was that I discovered the Confidant hardcover notebook by Baron Fig. They have these videos from creatives and working people about how and why they use notebooks. Watching these videos just solidified something inside of me, and to better explain it, I have to delve deeper into something else.

Minimalism has constricted my life, and I didn’t even know it did until just recently. Simplifying my life excites me, and ever since I started living on my own a few years ago, simplifying was all I ever thought about. I wanted to know how to live more with less. I transitioned to keeping most all of my notes in text files because they were simple, future-proof, and highly transportable. That led me to learn Markdown, which is what I use to write the entries on my blog. It helps me keep some rich-text formatting while still using simple plain text. This is important to me because I am a writer, and the less friction there is between me and writing the better and happier I am.

Simplifying also meant getting rid of everything I didn’t actively use. Years ago I decided to go paperless. Over the course of a few years, I scanned thousands of pages into my computer, and they’re all saved and backed up on Dropbox. During the process of scanning all my papers into my computer, I decided to get rid of paper altogether. I threw all my non-Moleskine notebooks away. I bought an iPad last year, and one of the big reasons why was to use it for notes if I ever felt the need to. I haven’t, really, used the iPad for that. I prevented myself from using paper notebooks because I didn’t want the extra weight in my life, both physically and mentally. I felt bad whenever I added something new to my life because I felt like what I had not only was enough, but also more than enough. I wanted to reduce my possessions, not improve the quality of my possessions.

Which brings me back to the Confidant notebook. I purchased one today, and it should come within the next week or so. I still have one pocket Moleskine notebook I have not filled out because it used to be my journal, but this blog replaced that. I have two large Moleskine notebooks. I’m using one of them to transcribe the Great Gatsby, a project I started last year but have put on hold recently. The second notebook is completely blank, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet. So why did I buy another notebook? It wasn’t really the notebook itself, although it is very beautiful and something I want to use. It’s because I want to let go of this idea that I can’t flow with things that I decide to enter my life.

Recently, I spent a lot of money on things. I bought a new bag, and as you can see, it’s not only beautiful but pricey. I bought stuff for my desk, for my car, and for other parts of my life I felt needed something to improve the quality of it. Even though there’s a total of eleven new things entering my life in the coming weeks, minimalism has taught me to use everything I own, and there won’t be any exceptions here.

Just because I can reduce my life to the bare essentials — food, clothes, shelter, and warmth — doesn’t mean I should. I want a quality of life that helps me be happy, healthy, and creative. Do I think this notebook will bring me that? Hell no. I’m not even sure if I’m going to use it as regularly as I wish I would¹, but I wouldn’t know if I didn’t let go of a burden I didn’t even know was a burden.

I woke up at 2 am to my upstairs neighbors fighting, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I opened up the YouTube app on my iPhone and searched to see if there were any Doug episodes since I didn’t like lying in bed knowing I couldn’t sleep. And there was! I watched one, Doug’s in the Money, and I wanted to cry after because I missed this show. It’s been over a decade since I last watched an episode of Doug, and it seems like I learned a lot about life from that show. I feel kind of ridiculous after writing that, but there’s a truth there that I really believe in.

Work was hectic. The server crashed on Friday, and that’s just been causing me so many issues. Since I only slept for four hours, I was cranky all day and didn’t want to do anything. Every little issue that popped up because of this server hit me personally, and even though I kept my stoic appearance in check (haha), I was irritated inside. Why wouldn’t anything work? Why wasn’t any of this easier? Why did my predecessors not do things better?

Needless to say, I struggled to do much of anything today, but alas, I did. I worked out, finishing Day 21 of the Asylum program. Tomorrow is Rest Day, which makes me feel amazing. I started to read a bit from my book, but I felt so tired that I didn’t get past a few pages. I’m giving myself a pass on this tonight. But just tonight. I wrote my daily words this morning, and I meditated. Again, those are my big rocks, and I barely did them all.

I wonder how all this will look like a few months from now. Will my big rocks now still be my big rocks then? I think they will. I’m curious to see what else I can fit into my days. I wonder what else I can do to help me improve in a tangible way. Any brave readers out there care to offer some suggestions?

This entry feels different. I’m pretty sure no one’s going to read this for a few days, if ever, and I’m okay with that. Some days aren’t awesome, and today wasn’t one of those days. I’ve been meaning to go back and tag all my entries with tags that described my moods. Sad, happy, excited, melancholy, stuff like that. I want to see what tags pop up the most, and maybe that can give me a clearer picture on how my mood affects my journey. It’s an intriguing thought experiment that I want to follow up on.

And for my last sentence all I have to offer is this: sleep is important, so get as much of it as possible.

I seem to have had a knack for breaking things recently. Yesterday I dropped by blender on the floor, and when I picked it up, I heard something rattling inside of it. Because I’m stupid, I plugged it in and started it up. I could smell smoke immediately. I’m pretty sure it’s dead, but I haven’t opened it up to double check. Today while I was doing the very last move in the Vertical Plyo workout, I decided to push myself and instead of only jumping laterally three-ladder lengths — my limit since I started this workout last year — I decided to jump the whole length of the ladder. I slipped and slid right into my closet door, unhooking it from its hinges. I tried to put it back together but I couldn’t do it on my own. I texted my landlord for help, and I think he’s coming over tomorrow to check it out.

I guess it’s fitting that I’m breaking things since today I spent a considerable amount of money buying new things. Some of the things I’m getting will replace some things I already own, but most of the things are new additions to my life. I believe they’ll make my life a bit more pleasant, especially while I’m at home, but that could just be me justifying these purchases. I tend to do that a lot. Amazingly, these purchases cover a tiny bit of all the new things I want to get. Most of the stuff I want to buy will replace things I already own (like that blender), and others will just make my home feel a bit more homey. I like being a minimalist, but I don’t like feeling constricted, which is what it’s doing. A good rug costs a couple hundred bucks, but it’ll make a huge difference to the feel of my home. You know, stuff like that.

Since about Day 3, I’ve been crossposting these entries on both Twitter and Facebook. I’ve been thinking of ending that on Day 50 because round numbers, but I’m going to stop doing that with this entry. 99% of my traffic comes from Facebook, so this’ll mean most nobody will read my blog unless they remember to visit manually. Why am I doing this? I’m tired of being obsessed with the metrics of this site. That’s not why I started this. I’m tired of feeling a little hurt if one entry didn’t get as many Facebook likes as I would’ve liked. I’ve had a link to an RSS feed for this site on the navigation bar since pretty much the beginning, and that’s the best way for people to get my stuff. And also, it feels like I’m writing to an audience and not for myself. That’s where I think I’m better as a writer. Maybe that’s why I like writing novels more than screenplays.

We all need to reboot our lives sometimes.