Day Nine: Blindly Visualizing a Better Life...

 

Happy Day Nine! As it will have to be sometimes, this post
will be a shorter than usual. However much I can stuff into my lunch hour short
will have to suffice… I do have a couple ideas that I wanted to convey before
the 90 Day Life Change Challenge update.

First off, I would like to say that my job gives me access
to hundreds and hundreds of coping skills, life skills and situational survival
tools for mental health. I am so appreciative of the people I work with and the
access that I have to vast amounts of trainings, manuals, videos, and even direct
access to therapists. Not everyone has this luxury, so I am grateful for the information
and contacts…. They are inspiring and they put up with me, for the most part... Except for that one guy, you know who you are...

I am finding it easier to look around and be grateful for
things but I still like to make people paranoid for fun…

Switching gears…

Last night I got a comment on the Day 8 blog that made me stop
and evaluate how I do and have always done things. The comment was about my
choice to take the opened bottle of vodka out of my freezer and put it on the
shelf in my garage. The commenter was quite correct that ordinarily, those who
are in early recovery shouldn’t have access to an open bottle of vodka… You can
apply that to almost everything that people get addicted to including drugs,
cigarettes, vape pens, sugar, etc…

Family Guy cut-a-way time…

By the time I was in high school, I had seen plenty of
situations where adults in my life would roll down the window, toss out a pack
of cigarettes or a can of snuff and curse saying that they were done with the
habit only to see them stop and buy a new pack or can or in one case that I clearly
remember, helping my cousin scan the bushes along a road looking for his can of
Copenhagen Snuff… We found it burst open and then we went to a GoMart and got
more but I digress… Of course everyone has seen the movie where the alcoholic
dumps the bottle down the drain while weeping… So I was very familiar with how
to not quit using a substance…

One day when I was in high school, my best friend and I were
riding with his father in a pickup truck with me in the middle seat. Suddenly Mr.
Simmons reaches in his breast pocket of his t-shirt and pulls out a pack of Camel
Unfiltered (I remember them primarily because he used to spit out bits of
tobacco when he smoked them, and I used to take one every now and then when he
wasn’t looking…) and hands them to me and told me to put them in the glove box.
I did as I was told because Mr. Simmons was a 6’5”, 300+ pound man who had
resting bitch face and when he asked you to do something, you just did… He was
never mean to any of us, but he was fucking intimidating as hell. My friend
asked his dad why and Mr. Simmons flatly stated he was going to quit. The tone
he used didn’t leave room for doubt or questions.

Now weeks went by and we never saw Mr. Simmons smoke and one
day while helping him put a transmission in his truck, which by the way weighed
100’s of pounds and he was lying on his back holding it up with one hand and
trying to put in a bolt with the other, the dude was a monster… I asked him why
he put those cigarettes in the glove box and not tossed them out the window… He
told me plainly, “because I’m stronger than a pack of goddamn cigarettes…” I
left it at that and over the years I deciphered what that meant, and I used the
concept throughout my life to stop several bad habits.

Mr. Simmons used a pack of cigarettes to build his resistance
to smoking. They were right there in the glove box and he had full access to
them whenever he wanted but, he didn’t want them, and I think that was his
entire idea. I had seen a ½ dozen instances of people in my family toss
cigarettes and snuff out the window only to stop within days or hours to
guiltily buy a new pack when the need grew too great to handle. So what I saw Mr.
Simmons do was a exhibition of strength and character that is now a part of my
behavior. He said he was done, and I watched him be done…

Thank you, Mr. Simmons for that piece of demonstrative
wisdom…

So yeah, I have a bottle of vodka in my garage. It’s not hidden,
and I don’t sneak out to take a drink and refill it with water, so it looks
like I didn’t. It is in plain view and when my kid comes to town, if he asks
for a drink, I have it. The planet didn\"t quit drinking, just me... 

Mr. Simmons was a pillar of strength and now I can show those
around me that I too am “stronger than a goddamn bottle of liquor…”

Point here is to find a way to succeed... 

Back from the cut-a-way…

When I was in therapy, my counselor let me be me and I slowly
concluded that if she was agreeing with my methods, they must be valid for me.
I imagine there are some out there who will enter their recovery by sweeping
through the house and removing the substances that they are having trouble
with. There are plenty of reminders in my home about vodka, I spent 43 years
with it in my life and now, I’m done with and when I say I am done drinking it,
I’m done. I don’t trigger easily so that bottle on the shelf is safe from me…
Wait, maybe I am safe from it? Well, either or…

Now, how about a little Bob Perrine confrontational motivation?  Nothing I like more than pointing out the obvious... 

I saw this photo and it caused me to think that the best undertaking
you will ever work on, is you. Nothing in this life will ever give you a
greater return on the time you invest in working on you. The greatest version
of you is waiting, just beyond your decision to create it. It will years of work,
reading books that will remind you that you are not working as hard as you
should, evaluating yourself  and coming
to conclusions that aren’t comforting and taking all that negative energy and
using is as fuel to power yourself out of it. Disappointment in yourself first
requires you to forgive yourself and then reform that personal relationship that
allows you to move forward with trust that you can overcome, adapt, and conquer
your problems. The really great thing about taking personal responsibility is
that you can do it at any time. No matter how far down, no matter how much
weight you have gained, you can lose it, no matter how much time has passed,
you can learn, no mater how bad your habits, you can change them. It is never
too late to get that personal epiphany that you can start over at any time, on
any day you select. You can choose to build new mental, physical, and social habits
that will lead to a personal image that impresses you instead of disappointing you.

The problem is that most people don’t want to be reminded
they lack, that they are far less than they want to be. They would rather watch
mindless television than read. They would rather order a pizza than cook
something healthy. When they do make the decision is made to improve, if the
results are not immediate, the pursuit is abandoned, then forgotten but the taste
of disappointment never leaves their mouths. Years of self-abuse become
sickness and sickness leads to self-pity. In the end it was never their fault.
A shitty life is usually results in one of two conclusions, someone else’s
fault or monstrous self-loathing.

So listen if you’re reading this and it’s speaking to you… You
don’t need to wait until the pandemic is over, you don’t need to wait until Monday
and by the first of next month the spark you feel right now will be long gone…
You don’t need to wait until the weather is warmer… Listen, all you need a
better mindset because the opportunity to change your life is perpetually
available.  Break through the barriers
you have set for yourself. Be the example you want to be…  A shitty life is your fault, and no one is going
to come and save you because unfortunately the truth is no one can save you. I
cannot make you change your habits unless I put you in an environment where you
don’t make your own choices. Ask a prisoner in a penitentiary how that feels.
Chosen transformation leads to revolutionary changes, forced change just leads
to revolt….

Your choices have consequences, a simple adage that rings
true. Most use it to point out the negative. Let me take the other side and say
that choices do have consequences, you ever see someone who made the choice to
improve themselves? The consequence was they improved themselves….

Get started, improve yourself and you won’t regret it. I
have never seen a person get in shape and then say “I wish I felt like shit
like I used to…”

Now, a little update on my project before I go back to work.
Thought I made it through everything yesterday, had all my exercise done before
8:00 AM and when I sat down with my guitar at 9:00 PM last night, I glanced at
my list of challenges and saw that I failed to take my vitamins at lunch… A
nice shot of vitamin B before bed isn’t a recommendation for a good night’s
sleep…

Fuck…

So last night I learned to pay attention to the details of
the list of changes that I made…  Today I
took my vitamins at lunch… All I have left today is to sit down with my guitar
and that’s perfectly okay because that is the thing on my list that isn’t a total
chore. The remaining catalogue of pain is slowly becoming routine, but comprehensively
still not a day in the amusement park… However my suffering is bringing about some
wondrous results. My mind is sharper, and last night I slept deeply for the
first time in a long time. My guitar playing is rapidly improving… This morning
I put on my pants, started to walk out the door and realized I needed a belt…
The improvements are widespread because I am working from a holistic approach.
I am still suffering but as the author and psychologist Susan David so aptly
pointed out “Discomfort is the price to a meaningful life.” I chose this
suffering to make myself a better person… Isn’t that magnanimous of me? I feel
better and you get the experience of the wonder of me…  You are so lucky. Look, I said I was
improving all aspects of my life, but an improved narcissistic asshole is still
a narcissistic asshole, just sayin’…

So Day Nine is mostly over… If you had started nine days
ago, you would be nine days  improved…
Get off your ass and get to work… Just make the decision. Changing your mind is
way easier than diabetes… Less needles are involved…

See you tomorrow.

As always, love ya, mean it…

 

Day Eight: Okay, Screw This, What's in it For Me?

 Great news! The seventh night of alcohol detoxification doesn’t have any dreams! The downside? Well, it also includes little to no sleep… Yesterday was a disaster and last night was probably one of the most miserable nights of my life. At 2:45 the fight to keep from getting demoralized was lost. I lay in bed after tossing and turning for hours and I felt like I couldn’t take another minute of it. The darkness was too much, I didn’t want to turn on the lights, and I felt like I hit the bottom. In that moment, I wanted to get up, get dressed and find the half bottle of vodka I have on the shelf and just find some solace in the bottom of the bottle.  I asked myself those selfish, stupid and ageless questions that all addicts ask themselves…

What the fuck am I suffering for and what is in this for me? Why in the fuck am I doing this? 

In those moments, you have got to find your why. I wonder if that makes sense to anyone else. “Find my why…” What does that mean? I think in times of stress, times of trouble, we look around us and our fight or flight mechanism kicks in and we have to make decisions. Should I keep fighting or should I just succumb to the addictions that rule my life. 

Find your why.

Your “Why” is the definition of your intent that designates why you are choosing to do what you are doing. It is about your personal choices and the reasons you make those choices.  It is your conviction. It is your personal mission statement. It is a vision of your life as you want it to be.

So why am I suffering? Honestly at this point, I don’t know yet. Partially, it is because I despise the fact that alcohol has a hold on me. That is a strong word isn’t it? Despise. Since I have been a child, I have been independent, strong willed and mule headed about most everything. I cannot fit alcohol into that mindset anymore. I thought I had control of it. Hear me out… I did not drink until 8:00 PM every day except for the occasional stints of day drinking once in a blue moon. I limited myself to two drinks on weekdays and three on weekends. The two drinks became bigger and bigger until my 12 ounce glasses were 10 ounces of vodka and 2 ounces of cranberry juice. My limit was “I don’t want to get mouthy”… Every 5 months, I took a month off to “keep control” of it. I was in control like a driver going 125 miles an hour on a curvy road. On the verge of losing it constantly... Take a good look at that. On the surface I could tell people I “only” had two drinks per day but underneath my statement was the truth that I drank 20 ounces of vodka per day, and 30 on Friday and Saturday nights. I drank a 750ml bottle of Russian Vodka per week and that adds up to four to five per month. I drank so much that my tolerance levels were so high that I didn’t have hangovers. I planned my day around eight o’clock. I had to get everything in because after eight, vodka and I danced our dance and nothing was going to stop that. I was proud of myself. I was “in control”… Except I wasn’t in control, the alcohol was. My life was planned around it and even though I kept myself from going too far, it was everything I could do to keep that speeding car in the road. 

Now, how did I justify that? That sounds excessive in ways that are shocking.

I exercised like a fiend, fasted 16 hours a day, ate a 100% whole food, plant based diet, worked 40 hours, excelled at most everything I did but the struggle to keep that level of success became intolerable.  I began to notice that I was sluggish all the time, gained weight that I did not want and felt generally like shit every morning and just considered it like a badge of honor that I could do what I was doing. Let’s back up to one part of that last statement and take a good look at it. Connect “I gained weight I didn’t want” to an earlier writing where I explained the “Look Good Naked Project”… Those two don’t match up do they? 

So, what’s in this for me? Health and vanity… Simple as that. Feeling good and the success of  “The (ongoing) Look Good Naked Project…” 

What does “health” mean to me? We all define things for ourselves and (hopefully) adjust those definitions as we get more information. As I get older, I understand that my health is connected to so many things. Holistic was hippy word when I was in my twenties… I didn’t have time to listen to some idiot talking about my mind and my body were connected… I thought “Who gives a fuck?” I can work all day, eat a steak, drink all night, then get  laid, take some drugs, party til 4: AM, get 30 minutes of sleep, take a shit, get a shower  and do it all over again, for days. To me, that was healthy. Fuck a bunch of holistic bullshit.

Now when you consider your body like a vehicle, that philosophy doesn’t work very well. A vehicle takes maintenance, oil changes, and good fuel, down time and generally, you don’t punch the accelerator every time you go somewhere. Run a car or truck long enough without taking care of it and well, sooner or later you’re calling a tow truck. 

Over the years, as I learned more and felt the hand of death stalking me, I have become a vegan, and kept drinking because yeah, drinking is bad but being a vegan is good. Then I started exercising, but kept drinking because yeah drinking is bad but exercise is good. Add some meditation for the mind body connection… Keep drinking… Add the whole food label to my vegan diet to enhance the fuel I intake… Keep drinking…  Drop as many bad habits as I possibly can but keep drinking. Get more sleep, but keep drinking…  Justify, justify and then justify because drinking is part of my life, always has been, always will be…  

Realization is a motherfucker… My last month off to keep control turned into 25 days because I hurt my back. So if I can’t exercise, why not drink? Even though I am suffering, I am thankful this morning because I was dumb as fuck for so long but I finally admitted that drinking vodka was not something I could control anymore. 

But…

This shit blows ass… My friend sent me a link about the stages of alcohol withdrawal and good news, my suffering is on track and quite normal. My symptoms are more psychological than physical now except for the insomnia and Hell I can deal with that easily… Being tired is as American as apple pie and meth addiction… I’ve been tired for 30 years… Hopefully as I adjust I will get better sleep and that will pass also…

On we go… You didn’t think I was going to just cry on your shoulder and walk away did you? I mean, that level of addiction is really deep and I wouldn’t want you to be able to say “well, I’m not that bad so I must be okay…” Here is the deal… The truth of the matter…

STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHER PEOPLE TO JUSTIFY YOUR OWN PROBLEMS…

Okay, let’s look at statement. If you read the first part of the blog and you said “well damn, I don’t drink THAT much, I must be okay!” If you think you drink too much, you drink too much. This goes for any addiction… Pick your fucking poison, if you think you have a problem, then probably do.  Try this, just consider stopping whatever you suspect is a problem for a second, analyze the immediate justifications, feelings, emotions and finally, gauge your anxiety levels… The higher the numbers of reasons, the more negative the emotions and the higher level of anxiety, the likeliness of a problem is greater. This isn’t psychology; it’s just my personal experience…. 

In fact, this entire “90 Day Life Change” experiment is based on my personal experience but I suspect that out there are a lot of people who want to change, you just have no idea how to start. 

Here is an idea, drop the excuses, talk to someone if you need to, get some professional help if necessary. Find your why and get to work. If you had started yesterday, the principal suffering would be one day closer to being over. Want to stop smoking? Get the patch if you need to, get ready to suffer and then get it on. Want to lose weight? Stop fucking around and find a program or diet that works for you and execute it like it is designed to be done. Remember Nike? Just Do It… Drinking got the best of you? AA is waiting for you with hundreds of people who can be your example. Same for drugs, NA has the answers you need… Want to start exercising? Then get off your ass and get to work. This life isn’t kind, it isn’t fair and if you want to excel, you’re going to have to suffer. No one ever said life was fair and if you are whining about how you never get a break, while that may be true, no one gives a fuck. The decision to start is on you, then there are plenty of people, programs and help for you to get through the rough patches and succeed.

Stop complaining about “trying” and buck up and “Nike” that motherfucker… Just do it. Stop saying "I'm trying to lose some weight" and simply state, I'm losing weight... Then if people judge for for being too confidant, lose more weight to spite them.

Okay… My updates. Night seven was a bitch or a bastard, take your pick… I cannot describe it in any other way except to tell you that last night I cried. I complained to myself until I broke down and wept. I guess I needed to because when 5:21 came, I hit the snooze and I laid there and waited for 5:30 AM to happen. When I heard Lady Gaga (yes, Lady Gaga wakes me up and you can kiss my muscular ass, she is amazing...) I got up, made my bed, bathroom, coffee and at 6:00 AM I started the clock and did a ½ Murph in 00:22:24.68, did P90X3 Total Synergistics, a 2 min and 30 second static plank, meditated for 20 minutes and sat down to write. Today I will complete the entire challenge. Took me eight days to adjust, stop whining and find my groove. Won’t be like this every day, but progress is progress. I am only comparing myself to myself here as I am taking my own advice. My failure yesterday wasn’t palatable and I decided at 3:00 AM that even if I wasn’t able to find sleep at all, I would be up and running no matter the pain, no matter the cost. 

When you punch through the barriers that you make for yourself and look past the nonsensical expectations (and/or reasons they have for you not to excel…) of others, and catch on to the truth of how powerful you are, when you realize that the human mind is the strongest thing on this planet and you get a taste of the other side, you want more.  The feeling that I had yesterday when I got up 4 ½ hours late woke me up and this morning whetted my appetite. Now I want more... Today that 90 days is nothing… I cannot wait to see how deep this rabbit hole goes.

See you tomorrow…

Love you, mean it…

Day Seven: So What Should We Do When We Fail?

If I could subtitle these blogs this one would be “Day Seven: So What Should We Do When We Fail? Or “Fuck… I Overslept… Now What?” Number one rule of Challenge Club, talk about Challenge Club. So I had this awful, chaotic, nightmare filled (more like phantasm filled…) night with dreams that had everything from a scuba diving girl who was filming a documentary on dolphins, a woman who was in Bladerunner:2049 who was angry about not meeting Jared Leto because he was an asshole to running in the dark being chased by an ominous tall man who I could hear crashing through the underbrush softly laughing and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t getting winded because I was dying. I sat in a bar and the bartender kept screamed and mocked me telling all the patrons that “this guy doesn’t drink no more!!!” I wanted to tell him that it was “any more” because “doesn’t drink no more” is a double negative and it means I still drink… Which, by the way, I wanted a drink so bad I could smell the vodka behind the bar... So I thrashed until 4:15 AM until I fell asleep exhausted and I don’t remember turning off my alarm at 5:21 but I sure did. So I woke up and the light was entirely wrong in my room and I saw 9:43 mocking me on the face on my phone… I overslept by 4 hours and 13 minutes so I am a little behind today. I think I may have crossed over into alcoholism a bit more than I wanted to admit. This detoxification bullshit is not for the weak… Secretly, just so everyone is aware, I wanted to say that “Detoxification isn’t for pussies…” but this is 2021 and you can’t say that anymore because apparently that’s sexist however when people are being difficult, it is still allowable to call that person a “dick” and nobody says anything. That’s probably a double standard because it’s really easy to offend people nowadays, especially is they’re a pussy… There, now I gave you something to think about today if you have time for any deep thoughts on the matter.

So I did a spectacular failure. Challenging yourself to get up at 5:30 in the morning, and oversleeping four and a half hours is a spectacular failure… I know, I know, I didn’t get drunk or do bongs and run naked through a park during family hour. Seriously though, in the realm of self-improvement, what if we took every aspect of it seriously? If I take on three challenges, why not consider all the challenges equal? Say I want to stop overeating, go to bed earlier and start exercising all at once. So at the end of the day, I exercised, and I am slipping into bed at the right time but I overate all three meals. Am I allowed to say , “Well, at least I got two out of three today” and fall asleep happily thinking “good enough…” I call bullshit on that one. I have eleven aspect on this Change my Life Challenge and I damn well mean to hit every facet of it, every day or I feel like I failed. It’s that simple.

“Oh, Bob, don’t be so harsh! People need room to wiggle…” I say no… How about fuck no in fact… Wiggling is for worms and children on church pews. Wiggling is fine when you are playing around. When you challenge yourself, that’s a serious thing isn’t it? If it isn’t then it isn’t a challenge, it’s just a half-hearted attempt not to be taken seriously.

Time for a cut-a-way Family Guy style here…

Yesterday I spoke of my grandfather teaching me his approach to life. This guy was born in 1918 or so and lived through everything… Pandemic, World War I, The Great Depression, World War II, etc… There was no “try” with him. I believe he taught Yoda the axiom “Do or not do, there is no try” when Yoda was a pup… I have this vivid memory of him standing over me and I was crying about some childish nonsense and he was telling me to complete something and I sniveled “I’m trying!” and he stood me up and took a quarter out of his pocket. He showed it to me and dropped it on the ground between us. I looked at the quarter (which in 1969-70 was a fucking chest full of gold doubloons to a five year old… Do you know how much purchase power a quarter had at the penny candy section?) and I looked up at him towering over me. He said, “try to pick that up, it’s yours…” I remember being incredulous and I bent down and he stopped me. I bent again and he stopped me. He kept saying “try...” After three or four attempts he picked the quarter up and put it in his pocket. He looked me in the eye and he told a five year old “you don’t “try” to do things, you do them or you don’t do them. Many of you right now are saying “oh my god, what a dick!” and I will tell you two things, stop being sexist and secondly, take this lesson for what it was. Making a half-hearted attempt at something you want just means you didn’t really want it all that bad anyway. Later that day, he walked by and dropped that quarter again and I snatched that motherfucker up like a mongoose on a cobra… I learned in that moment that wanting has different levels. You want enough to succeed or you want enough to “try”… Both have equal starting value, but one is a sure thing… You guess which one is which. Now my philosophy isn’t for everyone and I understand that fully. I don’t judge people who are weak; they simply do not understand the possibilities of their power. For those of you who still think I’m being a dick, just for final clarification, take this analogy. You can “try” to fix the car because you may not be a mechanic and “trying” is all you have but… “Trying” to not eat that donut is bullshit… If you tell me that you’re “trying to avoid” sugar, pay attention, you might see that smirk swim under my face. It will ripple the surface like a fish swimming by the boat… You don’t actually see the fish, but you see the result…

Back from the cut-a-way…

So now what? Today I failed by oversleeping four and a half hours. Admittedly, I feel rested up and that’s the positive side of this. On the negative, I am far behind but luckily, it is Sunday so it is my exercise rest day and I don’t have anything on that side of the calendar except for light stretching so it balances out but I still have that lingering feeling of dismal failure so how should I approach that? Remember yesterday when I talked about reading all those self-help books? Now is when they come in handy. The quotes, tidbits of motivational speeches and stories of those who succeeded in the past as they struggled and learned how to fail and still keep going come in handy at times like these…

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” -Henry Ford

Isn’t that beautiful? 

As my drill instructor in basic training used to say “Do it again!”  

Except he didn’t “say” it so much as he got in your face and touched you nose to nose and screamed manically into your mouth “DO IT AGAIN!!!!!”  You know, now that I think about it, Marine Corps drill instructors have lots in common with mid-20th century grandfathers, just the tone is different… 

Now pay attention, this is the important part of today's blog... The "super serious" part... 

When we start looking at our obstacles as openings, we set ourselves up for evolution of our character. Instead of letting failure win, we can look back at the choices we made and find new ways to redirect for new choices and a successful outcome. When we cultivate that ability we are able to move forward with new information knowing that we have the power to change the trajectory of our future. This gives us the opportunity to make new choices, and nurture a holistic understanding of how those choices affect our lives. Then we can take this idea and move forward from that failure and we are given the new opportunity to take control of the choices that we make. This puts us in control of our own outcomes and we build resilience. Thank you Henry Ford and Lewis Watson…

The definition of resilience is “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Failure, pain, obstacles and suffering develop our resilience. Resilience is not a skill that is learned over night, it is something that must be practiced, nurtured and built upon. I personally think you discover how tough you are. Resilience is a realization when you search for it. You can take those punches to your face that life INEVITABLTY hands you. You know the unexpected deaths, car accidents, sickness, etc… You can lie there and cry for a while, no harm, no foul, but eventually you gotta get up and you gotta dust yourself off and get on with it.  Some need therapy, some need another person to lean on for a while and we all need to be heard by someone, but we are resilient and we can rise up again, maybe not who we were before, but different, stronger and better because now we are warriors who can help others around us who suffer the same fate that we did. Resilience isn’t just withstanding the storm, but it is developing compassion and empathizing with those who are weathering the storm after us and helping them when they cry out for assistance. That’s beautiful isn’t it? We suffer so we can develop resilience and support those who befall the same fate.

Well, I’m late as fuck… Today was a lesson learned and tomorrow when the 5:30 alarm sounds, my ass will be out of the bed and my feet on the floor. If success tastes sweet, then this morning was a drink from Fear Factor…  Maybe the bullfrogs in a blender with some swamp water or a nice "blended rat" smoothie perhaps...

See you tomorrow!

 

Love ya! Mean it!

 

Day Six: Taking Responsibility is a Self Inflicted Hell...

I have some readers now and I get questions about why I do this self-inflicted torture so innocently named “self-improvement.” Someday, we will be shitting in our pants. Yep, it is as simple as that folks. We will be sitting around wishing that we’ve done more, been more, attempted more. There seems to be this thread that runs through our lives that says “someday I am going to…” It’s like a dream of the human to sit around and think up shit to torment ourselves with. “I wish I had traveled more…” or “I wish I had gone to school…” My grandfather, perhaps the wisest man I will ever know or maybe my child mind remembers him in a different light than reality but isn’t that why we learn the simple, profound things in life? The child mind decodes those things we are told and accepts them rather than our adult stubbornness that refuses to listen, refuses to be taught… He used to say “shit in one hand and wish in the other and see which gets fullest the fastest…” As a child, I used to laugh but that vulgar wisdom stuck with me all throughout my life. Wish all you want but it won’t amount to fuck all… Ya know? I’m not saying don’t dream of a better existence. Life without hope and dreams would be hellish at best. When we dream, we see ourselves doing better than we are. The trick is dreaming and then turning those dreams into actions. You all know the fucking rhetoric here… Action plans, breaking ideas down into steps that can be done in order to achieve success, etc… My point here is that in order to avoid that last minute panic as you turn 81 and feel that tightening in your chest as your heart nears the end of its rhythmic contractions, you need to stop fantasizing and get to work.  I’m reminded of a quote from The Shawshank Redemption. “Get busy living or get busy dying.” You have 86,400 seconds each day, and it’s your choice what you do with them. It’s your choice to just keep living the life that just gets you by. Or, it’s your choice to finally break out and take those chances that you’ve always dreamed about.

Remember, you can never get more time. Can I shriek that at you so it will sink in? YOU NEVER GET MORE FUCKING TIME!!!!!  Use this time you have right now to take control of your life. It won’t be easy, but nothing good ever comes easy. Life is the one thing that you definitely do not to do over. Don’t let dreams become regrets.

Let’s talk for a few minutes about motivation…

Motivation is bullshit. Oh fuck, I just invalidated everything I have ever said to get people started… So let me adjust it just a little…

Nah… Motivation is bullshit… Now let me clarify that. There are two kinds of motivation. Extrinsic motivation is that motivation you experience when you read blogs, self-help books, listen to motivational speakers, etc… That feeling you have when you read or hear that guy or gal that touches a nerve in your psyche and you make a plan to change some aspect of your life that you are unhappy with. These ideas, although quite valid aren’t really yours. When Les Brown says “Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears”, we feel that truth. The problem is that the thought belongs to Les Brown and even if it is the truth, unless we get Les Brown’s epiphany, it will linger in our minds and fade out doing little or nothing to help us begin our journey towards real change. We would have to have an experience similar to Mr. Brown’s experience to internalize that thought. Now I am not saying not to listen to, or read motivational speaker’s book… What I am saying is that being extrinsically motivated doesn’t last. Balk all you want but we all have read a book, seen a movie, heard a quote that fired us up and right then, we have decided it was time to make a change… Three days, two pizzas, three six packs and a bag of weed later, that “fired up” becomes a camp fire that you pissed on and abandoned… The real danger of that is we become calloused because we get motivated, lose it, get motivated and lose it, get motivated and lose it and one day we realize we are 100 pounds overweight, working a shit job we don’t really want, unhappy, unhealthy and life is just something we drag our ass through rather than experience it.

Fail enough times and it sticks folks, I hate like hell to point it out but unless your tenacity is that of a bulldog, you’re going to burn out. Sorry… Not sorry…

Let’s fix it. Now while extrinsic motivation is pretty much useless, we can get some tools from it. We can build a foundation made from the quotes, sound bites, speeches, books and Ted Talks we listen to.

Let me stop there for a second and share a personal experience with you. When I began this journey years ago, I got this idea that I could look good naked again… So I read some books, listened to some speeches and conceived “The Look Good Naked Project” with no fucking clue of how I was going to do that. This was my moment that I experienced extrinsic motivation. The project fell by the wayside time and time again over the span of a decade or more, but it stuck with me because I had some ideas in my head that belonged to other people. About six years ago, on the day after a rather over celebratory Thanksgiving, I stepped out of the shower and before I could grab my towel I caught a glimpse of myself in a full length mirror. The body that had been athletic, graceful and strong was now something that horrified me at that precise moment, my epiphany occurred. I burst into tears and “The Look Good Naked Project” metamorphosed from other people’s ideas to my objective, my intention… I was 40 pounds overweight, sick to my stomach, pasty skinned and at age 49, I was a candidate for heart attacks, diabetes, and cancer and in reality, a truly shitty, doctor filled end of life experience… I had decayed into a middle aged disaster. At that moment, my life changed. I had no idea how to change, what to do or who to talk to but I knew that I didn’t want to be what I was…

Now that I wrote that out, perhaps that is the key thing we all need to take away from this blog. I did not like who I was… When we describe ourselves, we say “I am…” Am is a transitive form of the verb “To Be” and that is how we describe our very existence. In the moment of time, I decided that I did not like my own existence. Perhaps the saddest statement a human being can make.

Change happens with epiphany.

Three years ago, I had a deterioration in my spine where my neck attaches to my thoracic spine. The doctor told me that exercise was out of the question. Now, had my motivation been extrinsic, I would have sat on that couch for the six months I was ordered to sit on and just gotten fatter than I was... However, I sat on that stupid couch, watched Maury (You are NOT the father!) and endless documentaries about health, ate 1,100 calories a day, and read upwards of 200 self help books from the library. To make a long story short, I didn't quit just because I couldn't continue the path I was on at the time. I switched paths and I learned so much that I changed the way I thought about life, health and being. My body became a reflection of my work. I sat on the couch and lost the final pounds I needed to lose. I fed my mind more than I fed my body and it changed the game for me. I became more like the person I envisioned in my head. Other people's ideas became the building blocks of desire to be better than I was. The Maury part was for entertainment because i don't think you can learn anything from that show except maybe don't sleep around without condoms because showing up on Maury for the fifth time to find out that guy number five also isn't the dad looks pretty miserable... Funny as fuck but still, not fun... So listen, start reading, listening to motivational speeches like this one and get your epiphany on, You will thank yourself later... I promise... 

That leads me to the other kind of motivation. Intrinsic motivation… It has the label of motivation but I personally don’t think that is a proper definition.

 mo·ti·va·tion

/ˌmōdəˈvāSH(ə)n/

 Noun

  1. the general desire or willingness of someone to do something.

  "keep the staff up to date to maintain interest and motivation"

 

I don’t think that even sounds like something that would change your life… So let me redefine intrinsic motivation as “Epiphanic Intent…” or “an unwavering determination driven by profound desire to not be what or who we are.”  We have all run into someone we used to know and they were nearly unrecognizable. The overweight person who isn’t overweight anymore or the alcoholic / drug addict who is now a glowing picture of health. These people may have been sparked by motivation to change but these profound transformations come from discipline.

I’ll close with this today. Like I said, someday I will be an old man, way sooner than I want but what I want is irrelevant. Time is relentless and death is certain but there is now, and now is of the utmost importance because now makes the memories for later and I right after I shit my pants for the first time, I want to laugh because I fought this motherfucker down to the last second. I intend to be learning something on my last exhalation… 

See you tomorrow…

Oh fuck, I forgot to give you the great news! Today, Saturday of all days, I woke up at 0530, got up, made my bed and did a complete ½ Murph in 33 minutes and 15 seconds… As I stepped up to do the fifth set I was crying, not sniffling, I was openly weeping because it hurt. If you think drinking or drugs is affecting your level of physical fitness, try stopping... Short term but way worse... Sometimes the suffering we experience is self-inflicted and that is just a truth of self-improvement. Change fucking hurts and if it doesn’t, you’re not doing it right…

 P90X will be the only thing I will not complete today but Monday is calling me like the Sirens of Titan… Monday will be the first day that I complete all of my challenges and that is my intent even if I have to shit my pants to do it…

 

Day Five: Showing Up by Staying Home...

 

Alright… I did it, kinda. I dragged my ass out of bed this morning at 6:00 AM and yes, again, I was 30 minutes late, but I got the COVID19 shot yesterday and my arm… Me, me, me, me, me... Sore arm, me, me...Wait a second… I got up 30 minutes late because I failed to get up at 5:30 AM like I was supposed to. The alarm went off at 5:21 AM and I hit the snooze four times instead of once. If nothing else, this writing project is going to force me to stop making excuses. Now, I may have failed in getting up, but I carefully did a partial ½ Murph, not in record time and not with any impressive speed, but I did it. That first set was about as careful as old people fuck and the second not any faster, but I am slowly making headway towards 100%. For those of you who have not read my previous stuff a ½ Murph is:

100 Burpees

150 Squats

100 pushups

50 pullups

I break all my numbers down into 5 sets because at my age, doing 100 burpees in a row might not turn out so well in the end… In fact, it might be my end. So I do five sets of:

10 Burpees

15 Squats

10 Push-ups

5 Pull-ups

15 Squats

10 Push-ups

5 Pull-ups

10 Burpees

My fastest time for five sets is 17 minutes and 45 seconds… My time for TWO sets today was 15 minutes and 52 seconds. So not my best time, I did not finish and even though I failed, I showed up… That is what we are going to talk about today… Showing up without going anywhere…

The gym is fine, do not get me wrong but the gym is far away… It involves getting up, getting dressed, finding your gear, getting in your car, truck or van, and driving to the gym… Going inside, setting up for your workout, working out with multiple instances of waiting on some sweaty human to finish on the machine you need and sometimes that person is a total dick leaving their body fluids on the machine you want to use… So you can either:

A)  wipe it off

B)  confront them

C)  go tell on them

D)  Just lie down in their pool of sweat (which sometimes happens when you are not paying attention)  

E)  skip that part of your workout…    

None of that is pleasant… No one wants to clean up after a stranger and no one wants to confront some low brow meathead hopped up on some chemical pre-workout drink at 6:00 AM in the morning or after a long day at work or really any fucking time… Meatheads aren’t approachable when buzzing off energy drinks and narcissism… Free advice – Do not approach a person about their inconsiderate behavior when they look like the reflection in a funhouse mirror or you see veins the size of oak tree roots in the shoulders, chest and forearms… They do not like it because it interferes with them gazing lovingly at their own reflections in the endless gym mirrors… Only approach these people with questions about them or how to be like them otherwise, just wipe off the machine…

After your workout, you can gather up your stuff, walk from the warm and pungent venue out into the parking lot and drive home… Now let me point out that pungent isn’t always bad… Frying onions have a rather pungent, pleasant odor but the pungent of the gym isn’t like that… The pungency of the gym is a group of sweaty, farting, belching and heavily breathing people all mixing their perfume into a stew of human incense that you really wouldn’t want to burn… Secondly if you have ever driven to the gym in cold weather, it takes you 15 minutes to get warmed up once you arrive and the rush of freezing air that greets you at the exit when you are drenched in sweat with greased up joints and warm muscles doesn’t feel good. Your car, which probably did not have time to even get lukewarm has chilled back to outside temperature and driving home is like one of those polar bear swims they do on Lake Erie in February. You know, when they cut a hole in the ice and people with death wishes go swimming? Alright, I did not have a death wish but when I jumped into the water, time stopped, and I screamed like my eight year old daughter on a cheap county fair roller coaster… (Skip ahead to 1:20 for the scream…)

Now doesn’t all that sound like getting in shape is great fun? Nope… Well I have a solution. It takes away the excuse that I hear ALL the time now… “Well, I have gained weight BUT AS SOON AS THE PANDEMIC IS OVER, I’LL GO BACK TO THE GYM…” Let’s look at that… The gym is empty right now I will give everyone that… Nobody wants to acquire COVID19 at the gym because that’s like leaning into a left hook. The grocery store? Yeah, of course, everyone needs food and if you risk your life for food and get COVID19 that’s understandable and even I, in my cynicism would feel empathy for you. But tell me you got COVID19 at the gym and I might show up at your oxygen tent just so I could see a real life idiot… Just joking because I’m not going near a hospital right now, but I will nod knowingly and possibly giggle when I get the text message about your plight… Now if that pissed you off, I go skydiving and if I bounce off the runway because my shoot didn’t open, feel free to do the same… Now while I am sorta, kinda joking hear me out. If you are talking to me and you tell me that you continue your gym excursions in the middle of the worst part of this pandemic, I won’t directly say anything rude but if you really want to know my feelings, take a good look at my face when you tell me, if you have any psychology training or interactional intuition, you’ll see it… It’s that smirk that ripples under the surface of my face, almost imperceptible, but believe me, inside my head, there is some raucous laughter at your choices…

My point after all that is this… Your reason for not going to the gym during the pandemic is not an excuse, it is a solid reason. Totally reasonable, logical, and valid. However, your reason for your weight gain and not working out? Therein lies the worthless excuse. There are ways to workout that do not lie within the walls of a gym….

Let’s talk about one that doesn’t involve leaving the house but first,  let’s get the top two excuses out of the way…

“I’m only motivated to workout at the gym…”  That’s like saying you are only horny in a bed… I personally can fuck just about anywhere except in public, but I also don’t work out in public because making orgasm noises around groups of strangers bothers me…  Lifting weights and working out noises sound a lot like orgasms…  Think about that…

“I don’t have any equipment…”  You don’t have equipment? Do you have legs? Arms? Do you have body weight? Are you susceptible to gravity? Then you pretty much have what you need for  a strenuous, difficult, sweat inducing workout right in your home…  If you seriously just MUST have equipment, stop throwing money at the gym and invest in kettle balls, exercise bands, a doorway pullup bar… Can’t stop throwing money because of a gym contract? *snorts laughter* Sorry about that…  If you need direction, invest in BeachBody Online or some other subscription service. BeachBody Online has dozens of programs and hundreds of workouts far cheaper than any personal trainer. This is the 21^st century, you can have so many things right in your home now, so during the pandemic, take advantage of the technology you pay for…

Again, my point here isn’t to shame you for loving the gym, it’s shaming you for pretending to love the gym and telling yourself that as soon as the gym reopens safely, you will return and burn off a year of no exercise… Honestly, how much did you use the gym before the pandemic? Tell the truth…

So you can put up with this…

You can wait for this:

 

 Or you can do this:

 Plus you can do this in your underwear with JBF hair, bad breath and a hole in your panties… Or manties, if you’re so inclined. Instead of the travel routine to sojourn to the gym daily, do what I do… Roll out of bed, put on a t-shirt and underwear, turn on some music and get to work…

 So pick five or so bodyweight challenges off the internet and get in a real workout… Need cardio? Try a HIIT workout… Need group motivation? Challenge your friends, family and co-workers and setup zoom workouts, text each other, ridicule each other… Fuck, if you don’t have anyone, email me and I will accept your challenge… Plank, sit-ups, push-ups, squats, wall siting, burpees… All exercises that will kick your ass and you can still Instagram them… A huge bonus about working out from home is that you can set up an Instagram photo shoot and not be in someone’s way while or look like a totally self absorbed asshole…

You know, while your planking, call your mom, she probably wants to hear from you… Unless you have a mom like mine, then, call a stranger, they will appreciate it more…

Let’s get through this shit and come out on the other side better people, more motivated, focused and healthy…

See you tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day Four: Eyes burning, Stressed, Short on Time, Tired and Yet, Inspired...

 No alcohol means broken sleep... I have accepted that but my acceptance has done dick for my worn out mind and exhausted body. Today was rough. I didn’t make it out of bed until 6:00 AM, 30 minutes past my target time. My back hurt, eyes burning, headache, sick, tired and hating myself for my commitment to this 90 day life change challenge. I’m not one to complain much after my initial grievance but today was one of those days that I struggled to put on a happy face…

Now you might ask me why I have this multi-faceted goal to improve my life with exercise, diet, etc, etc etc… and I have so far failed to meet my own expectations and haven’t given up…

Analogy time… (A comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification…)

Let’s compare this little experiment of mine to being the coach of a football team… It’s the big game and like my Life Change Challenge, there are many parts of a team that make up the whole. Offense, defense, special teams, kicker, coaching, field… You get the point. My challenge has getting up early, eating right, exercise, etc… Now let’s just say that the offense isn’t working in the first quarter. The quarterback is having issues, the front line is struggling and no one can catch a pass. Kinda like me right now, struggling to get up at the right time, exercise is non-existent unless you count that eight minutes of Pilates I did this week… However, on our imaginary team, the defense is kicking ass… Good pass rush, tackling, etc… Again, like me, my diet is stellar, I haven’t missed a blog and one lesson per day on the guitar…

So, if this imaginary team isn’t doing well offensively, should the coach just throw in the towel? Tell his team to go to the locker room and forfeit the game? Fuck no, he will make adjustments, motivate some people and get his team firing on all cylinders… Jesus, now the team is an engine? What the fuck? These overlapping analogies are getting need to stop…

Anyway…

Just because 3 or 4 out the twelve categories of my Mega Challenge aren’t working is no reason to quit…  In fact, tomorrow I have already decided to get up at 5:30, do a ½ Murph, plank and meditate before work… My only failure, and yes, not doing what I intend is a failure, not “unfinished success”, it’s a fucking failure… Period… I know, I know, lots of people out there cannot face the fact that sometimes we fail. If you said that you are going to, say, quit smoking and three days later you’re hiding behind the tree out back smoking and spraying yourself with cologne and chewing gum before you go inside, ya fucking failed and now, because you’re hiding your failure, you’re a liar… Failure isn’t the end for me, it’s a motivator… I hate to fail. I despise it. It took me two years and a ½ dozen tries to beat P90X3 the first time. I cried every time I quit and I would just heal up and go right back to week one, day one and curse the name of Tony Horton every time.

Wait, before I go on… I needed to say this about myself… Winning is anticlimactic for me… When I finish something I am proud of myself, but my only thought is “What’s next, because if I can do what I just did, how much further can I go?” I tried at least six times to beat P90X3 and the day I beat it, I started the over again the following Monday with a 5,000 squats in a month challenge, which by the way, I failed at for a couple of months before I made it…

Here is that challenge for anyone interested…

So look, go ahead and fail, kick yourself and get back up… Keep going… The game doesn’t end when the other team kicks your ass on a set of downs… You have to lose sometimes… That’s what gives you character.

Just know this, you committed yourself and now people are watching you. Unless of course you didn’t tell anyone that you’re making changes, but that’s pretty unlikely because the inspired human always opens their mouth but only the committed, the self-controlled and the strong stick with their own undertakings… Remember the guy behind the tree smoking from earlier? Yeah, he is either lying to the people he bragged to or avoiding them… I would rather suffer through the pain, meet my goals and expectations then be “that guy”… So which person are you?

Finally… Let me tell you this… It took me years to get to this level but I did not just fucking leap here from my couch… I made goals, I met some, I failed some. I struggled, I quit, I hated myself and I adjusted the process more than a guy in tight pants adjusts their junk… The secret is that every failure was conquered in the end and every victory was fuel to plan the next assault on becoming a better person… This is a process, a marathon without end. I will never be done, I will never be satisfied because the human experience is boundless and the only limitations are the ones you put in your own way.

“I wanna do “X” someday is just another way of saying you don’t have the initiative, the resourcefulness or a plan to do it. It’s not even on your radar until you figure out how “X” is going to happen. Goals realized are just the foundation for the next attempt at self-advancement...

Let’s talk about fasting tomorrow… I cannot think of any sports analogies to go with fasting…

See you tomorrow… I have a guitar lesson and its getting late... But not too late.... haha

 

Day Three: Okay, Okay, I'm up... Is this over yet?

The good news is that I got my ass out of bed this morning at 5:30... The bad news? My injured back did not let me do my 1/2 Murph and P90X3. However, I did let Marie Winsor torture me for a few minutes with some Winsor Pilates... Way back in 2000 something, I was scheduled to get back surgery and someone introduced me to Pilates and now whenever I need a tune up, I just wait until the sharp pains pass and do a month of Pilates and Dr. Winsor always comes through... So a few days of Pilates should fix the issue and I will be back on track for 100% of my 90 Day Life Change... But anyway, I did manage to wake up, get up, meditate, do some Pilates, and not get drunk... Well, I wouldn't have gotten drunk anyway but I need the praise... 

I won't be long today, my sleep is wildly disrupted because, well... Surprisingly when you use vodka to go to sleep for years, taking it away causes sleep disruption. Imagine that.. So right now the nights are pretty long and I am pretty tired when I get up. I think there should be some sort of law where the detoxification  process has a work furlough attached to it... Seriously, trying to work, workout, do challenges and learn shit simultaneously isn't pleasant. 

So how do I know I have a substance abuse problem... Well fuck, lets just get real, shall we? Today I was sitting at my desk doing some work and I get this weird email about my Amazon account being shut off... Three hours later after being on the phone with the bank, two credit card companies, four Amazon scammers (Please give us your account number... Can you go to an Amazon distribution center to verify your address? Please got to zoho.com and give us your account numbers....) and fielding multiple emails, text messages and phone calls from all over the fucking country instructing me how to let them keep scamming from me... All I could think about was how a drink would settle my nerves... It was right there, being that self aware guy that I am, I realized that this 90 dry out (...and planned permanent abstinence but let's not get crazy right away please...) was more than needed, it is a requirement. I think I may have an alcohol problem... When problems arise and all you want is a drink, a joint, a pipe, a pill, etc... then you may need to confront that demon... Just saying... So I noted my desire, squelched it and then listened to some industrial techno while I worked on my day logs and time card... 

I still want that drink...

So no sleep, bad back (improving slowly...), a monkey on my back, stolen credit cards and the thought of 86 days stretched out in front of me with nothing but discipline and self control to weather the storm... Sounds like a challenge and if you read yesterday's ramblings, bring it the fuck on... I will go down in flames before I quit...

So now you know... Alcohol abstinence is on the self improvement list for a reason...

I would like to point out that alcohol has been a part of my existence since before I have real memories... I vaguely remember playing sick as a young child so I could get a hot toddy before bedtime... Warm whiskey for toddlers was a thing back in the day... Before that, my grandfather was a bootlegger and he ran illegal whiskey during prohibition... My dad, heavy drinking all through his life... Wild Turkey on the rocks... I got drunk at age 12 with my elderly neighbor and his dog, "Ripper"... He was a big coon dog that loved Pabst Blue Ribbon... I drank all through high school, the Marine Corps, heavily between marriages... I was a bartender for a while... So you can see why when my world burned down this afternoon, I thought about my friend, Mr. Stolichnaya and what relief he would have brought me... Time to quit... Fuuuuuuuuuck me I don't want to... 

So everything else is a go, I wrote again today (obviously...), fasted until noon, whole food for lunch, didn't overeat, meditated, plank challenge was a rest day and I can feel exercise time coming back soon... I am going to have to start P90X3 over from the very beginning again... Unfortunately that means that this cycle will extend beyond my 90 day moratorium on fun, but whatever, I will just challenge myself to something harder anyway...   

So much to talk about over the next few months, should be interesting...

But for right now...

Goddamn, somebody give me a drink...