What Are We Doing?

I'm writing this blog as much for myself as I am for other people.  Today is my last day at my job.  Sales have not been as good as we had hoped and it doesn't make business sense to keep doing what we are doing.  

I'm not worried about things financially, they will take care of themselves and I have plenty of options for earning money.  I am at a point where I can give up on dreams and choose a life of mundane comfort working a job to get by or I can aim big again and keep going after big things.  Anyone that knows me will know that I'm not one to do something boring so you probably already know the answer.

These are the questions that I've been asking myself.  What would you do if you could do anything you wanted?  If everything was possible and you didn't put self imposed limits on yourself or what you think you could achieve?

Would you travel the world?  Would you write music?  Would you become an actor?  Would you help people live a healthier life?  The possibilities are truly endless.  

Contrast that with what most people are doing at this point in their life.....  Working a job they don't like to go to.  Eating unhealthy food which makes them overweight and unable to do the things they would like to do or feel the way they would like to feel. They're probably stressed about money.  They're probably stressed about your relationships or your marriage.

"You've got to know your limitations. I don't know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way." - Johnny Cash

Sure, I could just go out and get a boring job and live the average life like everyone else, but I would rather go down in flames trying to be above average than give up and be average.

There are different groups of people around the world that aren't just laying down and accepting that life has to suck or that life has to be unfulfilling. Take a risk and get outside of your comfort zone.  There are many ways a person can do that, but what's important is that you find a way to do it.

This is the only life that we are 100% certain that we get to live, don't spend it living someone else's version of life.

This is a video of the tweets from a young woman named Amanda that found out she had 3 months to live.  She was going to die from brain cancer.  You'll see her tweets go from worrying about mundane and boring things to the reality of knowing her life is almost over.  Wow.

The video is unlisted, but here is the link....   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aaYXu_qzg0

I Feel Like Crap

I just got back from lunch and it was another terrible lunch.  I feel like shit and I know I need to do something about it.

Three years ago at this time I was on the way to being in the best shape of my life.  I was dieting for my first bodybuilding competition, I was eating right, doing my cardio, and feeling great.  In March of 2011, I backed out of the competition and decided I was going to try to seriously add some muscle for the first time in my life.  I even remember the day, it was March 17th.  I weighed 205 pounds and was about 12-13% bodyfat.

I'm ashamed to even put the number out there, but right now I'm about 24-26% bodyfat and 252 pounds.  I don't like terribly out of shape with clothes on because I do have more muscle than the average guy.  Three years ago, according to the body fat calculations, I had 26.65 lb of fat and 178.35 lbs of lean mass.  Right now I have 63 lbs of fat and 189 lbs of lean mass.  So you can see that I did gain some muscle doing my powerlifting and eating more, but I also gained way too much fat.

I got lazy and fell into the trap of thinking that I just wanted to gain weight and most would be muscle.  I have had a few starts and stops over the past three years where I tried to drop some fat, but they didn't last long.  I would rationalize my bad food choices and think that my workouts would take care of the extra food, but we all know that it's very hard to out train a poor diet.

A couple weeks ago, I decided that it's time to give this a shot again.  Summer is coming up and I want to look good, I plan on doing some physical activities such as a long canoe trip, hiking, volleyball, etc. and I want to be in good shape for them.

To give myself a kickstart, I am giving the 24 Day Challenge a chance and I'm hoping it will kick start my fat loss and get me on the right track.  It will also get me past my bad food cravings, reprogram my taste buds, and give me the momentum that I need to continue my fat loss up until I reach my goal.  I don't have a number on the scale goal because that doesn't matter.  My goal is to get in the best shape of my life, which would mean being able to see my abs and do any physical activity that I am interested in at any time.

If you are in the same boat as me and want to join in on this, I would love to have some friends and family jump on board and do this challenge with me.  I know many people have the same thoughts and feelings about their weight as I do right now, but they don't know what to do to make a change and have given up.  Don't give up on yourself, give this a shot and we'll do it together.   I hope to hear from some of you!

Addition By Subtraction

I don't really like the idea of New Year's Resolutions because I'm a big believer that a person should always be trying to improve themselves.  There's nothing special about a new year that makes self-improvement any different than any other time of the year.

I haven't noticed as many posts from Facebook friends as I typically have in the past, but the ones that I do see are mostly about things they want to add in their life or they are very vague resolutions like being healthier, saving money, being nicer, etc.

How to make a change.  See, it's simple!

I'm no expert in goal setting, but I have done a pretty damn good job of making improvements and bettering myself in the past five years.  What has worked for me is getting totally obsessed with whatever it is that I am trying to do.  It may not be healthy, good for relationships, or provide balance, but I definitely get shit done.

When I go after a new goal or try to do something new, I'm always super motivated in the beginning, like most most people tend to be, but after a bit of time I start to get bored.  Let's take guitar for example, since this is the newest thing that I've picked up.  In the past, I've done the methodical way of learning and have failed 3 or 4 times.  I bought the books, learned some of the theory, played Old McDonald from the books, but eventually got bored.  I took the slow and steady approach and it did not work for me.

What I did this time (and did the same thing for learning bass and drums) was that I figured out what exactly I wanted to do and put in tons of time right away until I could do it.  I took advantage of my motivation in the early stages and went wild until I got it down.  I didn't worry about any of the technical skills.  I found a song I wanted to play and I learned the three chords I needed to play it.  Then when I found another song with a new chord, I learned that one.  Now I can play about ten different chords fairly well and that covers maybe 80% of the songs out there.  When I come across a new chord in a song that I want to learn, I will learn that chord.  This kept learning fun and interesting.  Don't work on any skills that won't directly and immediately move you closer to your goal.

With drums, my goal was to be good enough to play in a band so I went all out, found people to play with and practiced over and over for hours until I could play the songs that I played.  I didn't worry about cultivating any other drumming skills except for the skills I needed to achieve my goal.  Now that I've gotten over the learning curve and I'm having fun, I've started learning some of the more technical skills and things that aren't as much fun, but now I know how some of those skills can be applied so it's worth learning them.

I can also apply this to life.  I haven't totally defined my goals, but I know some of them.  I want to have as many experiences as possible with the people I care about and enjoy my time with them.  Whenever I am presented with an option or a choice regarding things to do, I can ask myself if it will move me closer to my goals.  As much as I possibly can, I am going to keep removing things from my life that don't increase my enjoyment of life and add in other things that do.

An example here is that I have removed about 95% of my TV time from my life.  The only time I watch TV is if there is a specific show I want to watch.  Even then, I order it off of Google Play or watch it on Netflix. I have watched about 5 hours of NFL football this season and maybe 5 minutes of NBA basketball.  There are times when I would enjoy sitting down and watching a game, but overall, I have gained much more from eliminating TV than I have lost.  There is no way that I would be two years through school and be as good at music as I have gotten if I had TV in my life.  I also would've spent more money and I probably would've gained weight.

Now don't take all of this as me saying that I am better than others because I have made improvements and reached some goals that I put out there for myself.  I am only stating that this is what worked for me.  I know the goals that I have reached are goals that many other people have and they may be struggling to reach them just as I was.  Maybe you can take some of these methods and it will help you reach your goal.  Maybe it won't help, I'm not sure.  Like James Altucher always says on his blog, you need to choose yourself because no one else is going to choose you for you.  You have to care more about your goals than anyone else does. If you don't make it a priority, no one else is going to force you to do the things necessary to reach your goal. Take some personal responsibility and make it happen.

We Are Small

So this is Earth. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, every one that has ever lived is in this picture. We are on a rock traveling through space around a burning ball of hydrogen that is traveling around the center of an ordinary Galaxy in a universe with billions of other galaxies. 

You are there.  

I can see why this scares people and why some choose to believe in a god. I don't, but it's cool if you do, just don't go killing anyone in his name.

Anyways, everything anyone has ever done, everything we think is important, our job, our friends, everything is on that little dot and will most likely never leave it.

Knowing that, why do we stress about things? Why do we worry about what another person thinks? Why do we spend even a second doing things that don't make us happy?

We're all going to be on our deathbed before we know it and we're not going to care about much of the things we spent our time doing. Make the most of it doing the things you love, take chances, and dream big. 

I Won the Lottery

I am 32 years old without a lot of money.  Some would call me broke.

Somewhere out there is a man with a lot of money.  More than he could ever spend, but he is unhappy.  He is running short on the one thing that I have a lot of......  and he can't buy it.  Even if I wanted to sell it to him I couldn't.  This man spent all of his earning a bunch of money and now he regrets it.

I'm not breaking any new ground here, but what I have that he doesn't is time, barring an unforseen accident, cancer, etc.  According to the Death Clock , I have 1,788, 699, 820 seconds left to live and those seconds are ticking away.  It says I will die on Septermber 15, 2070 at 88 years old.  I'm not sure how it calculates that number, but I assume it's based on statistics.

The good news is that seems like a long time.  I have 56 years and about 8 months left to live.  I don't really need to worry about getting things done right now because I have a lot of time.  Go talk to any older person and they will tell you that time goes by very quickly and they wish that they would have taken advantage of their youth, done more things, and experienced more places.  They would've said yes to more people, places, and things.

Now back to the old man with lots of money and little time.  Is he richer than I?  Is he more wealthy than I am?  Our most valuable asset in anything we want to do in life is time.  If you have it, you are wealthier than any billionaire could ever be.  If you don't have it, then all the money in the world isn't going to help you.

People play the lottery hoping to get lucky and win a bunch of money, but they don't realize that they are already luckier than they could ever imagine.  We're here, somehow, and we're living life with nothing in front of us but time to do whatever we want.  Now the question is, how will we spend our fortune?

My New Year's Revelation

I remember when I was younger, everyone always said to go to college and get a degree.  Get a good job with good benefits and you'll be happy.  I know they meant well and that was the way the world worked for them when they grew up.  There was no way for them to know how much the world would change in the next 30 years.  There's never a way for us to know.

When I was a kid people didn't have cell phones, they didn't use the internet, they wanted a good job with benefits, they wanted someone to take care of them.  They wanted to give up freedom for security.  They got jobs with big corporations, worked in cubicles, got their benefits, went home and watched tv, had 2-3 kids, and died at 30 while they lived to be 70.  If that makes a person happy, then good for them, but I think those people were fooling themselves.  Nobody wants to be near the end of their life and look back at a boring life. I know that's not what I want.

I want more.  I was told when I got those things that I would be happy.  I just needed to get there.  Well, where is "there?"  I'm supposed to get to a certain place in life and then just be content, happy, and quit improving?  I don't believe life is about getting somewhere and then stagnating.  To me, being happy means having something to work towards, having goals, learning new things, making changes, always trying to be better, doing new things, meeting new people.  I don't think I will ever "arrive."  To other people that, scary, weird, dumb, irresponsible, etc.  To me, that's exciting, that's life.

I'm not sure what is coming next for me or where I'm headed, but I do know that it's going to be fun and I'm going to have a blast.  The only things I truly need in life are friends, family, a place to live, and food.  If I've got that then I can be happy.  I don't need a TV, pictures on the wall, curtains over the windows, a nice lawnmower, a super nice car, or anything else that people slave away at their job for.  I'd rather have none of those things if it means I can have great experiences with family and friends.

If I were to buy those things that I don't need, I would be trading away those hours I spent working to buy it for a thing that I really don't need in my life.  I'd rather trade my time earning money for awesome experiences.  Or better yet, trade away less time because I don't need as much money to enjoy life.  In a perfect world, I wouldn't need any money for anything and I could just spend my whole life enjoying the things and people I love.  We're not here on this planet living this life just to achieve some arbitrary goal that society sets out for us that makes us think we've "made it."  I don't need to own a house to be happy, I don't need two cars, a garage, or any of that stuff.

It's time for me to continue on the path I've been on.  I will continue to remove things from my life that I don't need instead of adding things to my life and making life more complicated.  Less is more.