Category: Thoughts

Lately I’ve been pondering why I’m able to be so disciplined and motivated. Since about middle school everyone has always told me that my personality is “extreme” or that my level motivation or discipline to doing an activity I want to do is more intense than their own. After thinking about why that is, I realized that I play a little game in my head when I’m pushing myself, and most people do not seem to play this game. I can’t remember exactly when this game started but I think it started around the time I was 12 when I started playing hockey more intensely and when I got into martial arts intensely for the first time.

If I’m doing an activity like working out that requires discipline to keep going and push myself I will always play a game in my head and talk to myself like this: “ok if I can do 3 more reps then X person I love will be safe for another day and have good luck”. Or I will say that I personally will be safe and have good luck for the day. Additionally sometimes the game goes more morbid and I will say something like “If I don’t do 3 more pullups then X person I love will be injured today”. Think about that for a second, it’s so easy to do 3 more pullups if the consequence is that your best friend or wife or nephew will be injured if you don’t. It’s actually almost trivial to complete the last set of whatever I’m doing at that point.

To me this game seems very common, but I came across a podcast by Joe Rogan today where he explained that he plays a similar game in his mind when doing hard activities. Quoting Joe

“When I workout it’s about rape and murder. My head is filled with scenarios where I’m stopping bad people. Stopping child molesters stopping bad people from doing things. I just fill my head with animalistic rage. That’s what I do when I get tired. When I get tired I think about saving someone I care about. I think about stopping someone who is trying to murder someone I love. That’s what I think about. I think about protecting people I care about. Or I think about someone trying to kill me. Think about the worse case scenario, you are tired and someone is trying to kill someone you care about”.

You have to put yourself in animalistic fury.

Another “cheat” I often do when I’m doing something that requires discipline is I make sure I only have to make the discipline decision one time, or at least as few times as possible. So for example if my goal is to not eat chips I don’t buy chips and put them in the house. That cuts down my need to be “diciplined” to only the times when I’m out at a store and chips are in front of me to purchase. The rest of the time I’m at home and physically can’t eat them, so I don’t need any discipline in those moments. Or another example, If I don’t want to leave dirty dishes around the house I can store all dishes and only leave myself 1 set. Problem solved there are no extra dishes, I have to clean them each time I eat.

Breakfast: Glass of warm water with lemon. 3 scrambled eggs. Ground Turkey. 1 Slice Ezekiel Bread w/generous helping of kerrygold butter, Vitamin.

Optional:
Green Drink

Snack: handful of Cashews.

Lunch: Fajita bol (cauliflower rice, peppers, onions, steak, tomato salsa, Greek yogurt, guacamole, spinach).

Snack: roasted carrots

Dinner: Fajita bol (cauliflower rice, peppers, onions, steak, tomato salsa, Greek yogurt, guacamole, spinach)

Snack: protein drink

Optional: Place ice pack on neck/shoulders for 20 minutes while watching TV in the evening to lower core body temperature and make it easier to fall asleep.

Notes:
6 days following meal plan, 1 day eating whatever you want then repeat
Steak = grass fed beef.
Veggies = organic veggies.
Eggs = free range organic.
Traveling = Qdoba or Chipotle and order Fajita bowl for lunch & dinner w/same ingredients

I went walking late a few nights ago, totally on a whim. Just randomly decided to go out and stroll. It was relatively late, probably around 11:00 p.m. For some reason I just started thinking about you and got very emotional. And then here I was walking through the streets for a couple of hours just wandering and thinking, growing more emotional as I went. It was very odd timing wise. There was nothing specific that happened in my day or came up to remind me of you. I suppose it was slightly close to the 1 year anniversary of your passing (which you so cleverly planned to be the exact date of your wedding anniversary, such a planner).

Anyway I just wanted to write about that night so I could remember it in my mind. Try to keep the memory vivid. It felt great to walk and just think about you, try to ask you questions (I even asked them out load most of the time, if anyone saw me walking teary eyed talking to myself I was probably quite a funny site).

The bigger question is why did that walk happen when it did, what is the reason behind the timing. I’ve obviously still come no where near close to processing that your gone. I still find myself if not on a daily basis then for sure on a weekly basis thinking about something I was to talk to you about or ask you… and then I actually remember that I can’t. I still find it very troubling.

The recent unrest at Mizzou is what lead me to finally writing about this topic. The items below are only a few of the many topics where I find the hypocrisy of society overwhelming.

Left leaning social movements:
Protesters get irate when police officers forcibly remove journalists from the Ferguson protests
When protesters demand “safe space” and forcibly remove journalists from their protest they are defended

Right leaning evangelicals:
People demand that the government leave them alone and stop interfering with their lives
This same group of people turns around and tries to force government officials to pass laws that allow the government to interfere with marriage and attempts to deny women the basic right to make their own choices for matters that affect their own bodies.

Right leaning tea party types:
People cry foul of government regulation getting in the way of too many personal liberties
These same people turn around and demand the government outlaw all drugs and “wage a war on drug users”

Left leaning progressives:
People talk about how prohibitions never work, the yell about how the war on drugs is not effective and how you can’t legislate morality
This same group of people turns around and demands that the government put a prohibition on owning firearms, and they yell from the rooftops how if you make guns illegal it will solve our problem of mass shootings.

The list really could go on for several more of these, but the moral of the story is I just have a real hard time comprehending why most people don’t see the hypocrisy in their view points. Everyone wants to push their own agenda ahead, and take no time to pause and reflect on how to apply their views evenly across a large set of issues. This kind of mentality makes me sad for our country.

Breakfast:
1 egg and 3 egg whites
1 cup of oatmeal
green machine drink

Lunch:
grilled chicken or fish
rice (brown or white)
oats and or peanuts

Dinner
grilled meat of any kind
sweet potato & green vegetables
whole milk & protein for dessert

Snacks
2 cups of baby spinach any time during the day (vinegar & oil dressing)

Lately I’ve had the itch to take more and more time off. Time off work work, and even time off from life. I’ve written about this some here and here but after reflecting more on it I realized a few things.

– I finally had a conversation with my business partner about the possibility of me moving on to do other work. This conversation went extremely well, much better than I anticipate. We went for a big jog in forest park and discussed all sorts of things and I finally articulated some of the feelings I’ve had lately. This conversation really helped me out and I felt like some weight was lifted off of me afterwards.

– I’m burned out. This year has been hard. I need to cut myself some slack and take time away from work. I have not decided 100% on where I would like to go but I have decided shortly I’m going to take some time off. I’m not sure how much time, I think I’ll just pick a date and leave with no exact end date in mind for the trip. I’ve always wanted to take a trip like that.

– I really like the person I’m currently dating. I’ve never had such a great relationship and I need to make sure that I’m fully present, enjoying all the aspects of it and appreciating how lucky I am not just floating along complacently.

– I’m too hard on myself and I’m doing much better than I was last month dealing with everything.

– Catching my family member drinking again was such a punch in the gut. I’m not exactly sure what I will do about it but I’m finally at peace with the fact that it will never change. I’m going to move forward permanently with the knowledge that this situation will not get better and I must decide what type of relationship I want with this person, if any.

– My sisters triplets scared me more than I thought and I’m not sure why. The night they were born and I went to visit I felt so claustrophobic. I realized that when I want alone time I’m not sure how to politely ask or tell people that need and I need to work on that.