On endings: month in review

Now Listening to: Fight Off Your Demons, by Brand New

This week has been nothing short of insanity.  For that matter, this month has been nothing short of insanity.

I might as well start with how I did on my October goals, so here we go:

- Stayed vegetarian (something I’m not sure I’ll ever drop), and stopped eating ANYTHING unhealthy: pizza, pastries (cake, donuts, brownies, cookies etc), ice cream, packaged junk foods, and only eating whole grain breads.  I’m actually going to lax up on this one for the next 30 days.  It was a great month, and definitely an eye opener, but socially it’s boring.  No eating out really, and no baking stuff.

-Run 30 minutes, EVERY, SINGLE, DAY.  Working out a little each day, and running for an hour on saturdays.  I changed this one up a bit, but I felt like I went above and beyond a little bit.  I ran/worked out every day (except for this past week), and actually slowly progressed up to 7, 8, and 10 mile weekend runs instead of 6.

-Correct my posture at least 10 times a day.  My posture isn’t so bad any more, though it’s not perfect yet.  Meh.

-Read the scriptures/PMG every single day.  Had this one good until last week.

-Pray every day.  Again, good until last week.

-Write a blog post here every single day: mostly good until last week.

-Read for enjoyment an hour every day, read Wheel of Time 11, The Dark Tower 2 by Steven King, Read steve pavlina’s book.  This one kinda fell apart, but I did finish Steve’s book and got halfway through dark tower 2.  This last week ruined it, so I don’t feel so bad.

-Not playing video games: done.  Games bore me now, sad…

Now, this last week has changed my life considerably, and I’m not going into too much detail.  Certain things will just be different from now on, my focus has changed, and I’m “moving forward” again.  That just so happens to change the way I update this blog: from now on it’s going to be an occasional thing, little tidbits and updates as I feel they’re necessary.  I’m going to set up a second blog (killed my old second blog) for my fiction and freewrites, though I’m not sure how much I’ll post my stuff even there.  It’s been a (mostly) fun month, the blogging was good, but the month goal is done, and I don’t feel it’s a habit I need to continue.  Oh, and by the way, you all fail at telling me when I missed a post .  Except Blake, good job man.

Anyway: this last week.  First, I didn’t eat most of the week, so I dropped a solid 10-15 pounds.  For a 6’2″ dave who already only weighed 155, this is bad.  I’m not sure I’ve ever been this thin in my life, and it shows.  I look like… Shane (no offense buddy).  I haven’t slept much either, and I’m about to drop right now (it’s 2 am, November 1st now!).  Been CONGESTED, can’t breathe well, and I get headaches.   I got to 3 classes this week.  Out of like, 12.  However, I’m honestly doing fine, just physically depleted.

So, looking forward, let’s see how to handle November:

-Physically, the focus is on putting weight back on.  So, lifting on Mon, Wed, Fri.  Small runs on Tues/Thurs, and a huge run on saturdays (I’m going to get to 13 miles this month, after that I’ll give running a break for a while).  Eat, eat, and eat some more.  I’ll probably have some junk food in social situations, but that’s it.  It makes me sick, our bodies weren’t meant to handle that stuff.  I think I’ve hit a peak physically, I just need to recover from illness and keep it up.

-Spiritually, I want to work on sabbath day observance, praying twice a day, and reading my scriptures/PMG for at least 30 minutes a day.  Getting ordained an Elder, moving forward on my mission papers (getting my wisdom teeth taken out next month).  Covering the basics and moving toward mission preparation.

-School, it’s just a matter of getting back into habits.  Getting back to class, doing all the reading, and taking notes.  Nothing new here.

-Reading/Writing, I want to make this my primary focus for my extra energy, to read or write with any free time I get.  I still just want to finish Wheel of Time 11, and the Dark Tower 2, maybe another book I’ll choose later.  I’m going to write an hour every day, and this month not by blogging.  Shifting my focus back to my fiction.  I might even enter NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month).  Fun.

-Financially, Blake is getting back to work on the artwork for Hue in a week or so, and then we’ll finish up the game and get it launched.  No biggie, just finishing the job now.

-Misc: Sing again, 30 minutes per day.  Draw 3 hours a week (weekend thing).  Sell games, sorry video games, you had a good run, then you lost my interest.  Darn.

So there’s my goal planning.  Done.  It’s great to have life more planned out, to be more aware of where I’m at, but sometimes you have to set a direction and run with it, and that’s okay.  There’s a lot more to life than trying to achieve perfection.  Don’t get me wrong, set your sights high and dream big, but be absolutely certain you’re enjoying the ride.  I don’t want to come off as cocky, but I’ve achieved a lot of my goals, and it’s been absolutely fantastic.  I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and that’s saying something (especially with the death of my puppy on sunday).

It’s just that somewhere along the way I let life become a math equation.  I imagined the very best life I could be living and went for it, full speed ahead.  I made some changes along the way, corrected course a few times, but it worked, I’m pretty much living the life I was picturing.  That’s where the concept of eternal progression kicks in.  Once you get to that place you first saw as your best life, you can see an even better one.

Here’s to the future,

|dave

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