Blog Archives
Do It Today
Everyone wants to improve themselves. There is something about everyone that they’d like to change, whether it’s their health, their career, their outlook, something. Change, real change, is very difficult to do, however. It’s easier to rationalize or procrastinate than it is to follow through and try for various reasons. One is complacency, that pernicious voice that whispers that hey, things aren’t all that bad, so just sit down over here with a box of HoHos and we’ll get ’em next time, champ. Another is fear, like I talked about yesterday. The fear of failure is brutal, since the person you are failing is the same person you look at every day in the mirror. The self-loathing that accompanies it is crushing, which makes it harder to contemplate making the changes you want to make for yourself. Fear is the enemy, always. There is only one real solution to making changes: Do it. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month. Today.
Short Five for Wednesday, Jan 20
1. There are few things more joyous than remembering you brought a Raspberry Zinger to work and left it in your desk, but forgot to eat it at lunch, just before you go home. It’s like a reward for surviving yet another drab workday.
Five Things for Tuesday, December 22nd
1. I thought the Redskins would lose 30-3 against the Giants, so I wasn’t shocked by the 45-12 ass-kicking they took. The team is a pathetic mixture of overpriced free agents (DeAngelo Hall, Clinton Portis) and complete cast-off scrubs (Levi Jones, Stephon Heyer, Mike Williams, DeAngelo Hall) with a few actual skilled players left to go through the motions (London Fletcher, Jason Campbell, Andre Carter). It’s a bad season, the worst I can ever remember. One can only hope that this is rock bottom, and that next year we can at least earn our self-respect back.
Five Things for Monday, December 21st
1. We had a huge snowstorm over the weekend. We got probably a foot and a half of snow on Saturday, which was beautiful to watch inside a nice warm house. My wife and I had fun taking pictures of the girls playing in it, we shoveled the driveway and deck a couple of times with a broken snowshovel and a spade not designed for the job (but it did remarkably well at scraping ice and dealing with the plow-packed stuff at the end of the driveway). I even ran and jumped a few times into our assembled Wall of Snow after we finished the driveway, laughing like a loon and making my wife laugh too. I threw snowballs at trees and dogs, practiced my punting form on big snow chunks, and generally had a blast. I really like this winter thing.
Ennui
–noun: a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom: The endless lecture produced an unbearable ennui.
It doesn’t mean what I exactly thought it meant; I was right about the weariness and discontent, but not that it results from boredom. I was musing on it the other night when I was thinking about a general down feeling I’ve been having lately. A discussion with my wife yesterday over lunch I think helped enlighten me a bit. After finishing my story, my life then lacked a purpose. Purpose is something I’ve struggled with before, and it makes sense that after finishing a big project that dominated my time, that I would suddenly feel untethered and unsure of what to do.
Five Things for Monday, 10/12
1. The Redskins lost, of course, as I said they would. I’ve been correct every week so far if they would win or lose. Not sure that’s such a great thing. Having your team become a national laughingstock due to the owner’s clueless tactics, the head coach’s clueless coaching, and the players’ inability to get out of their own (as well as errant punts) way is particularly embarrassing and galling. Hail to the Redskins!
Five Things for Thursday, 10/8
1. I have an awesome wife, whose depth of caring and empathy for people and animals surprises me and warms my heart every day. She is so full of love and giving that it can sometimes hurt her, especially when she sees or thinks about the abuse that people can wreak on each other and defenseless animals. She makes my heart swell with love when I hear about her stopping her car and helping turtles cross the road on the way to work, or checking on dogs that she passes regularly. She does all of these things because she can’t ignore them, and I am proud and full of love for her because of it. She humbles me, and I feel a little bad that I don’t have the same empathy for my fellow man that she does (I love animals, but people – bleh). But I figure if I can give her enough love and support to help her love and support the rest of the world, then it’s a job well done.
Five Things for Wednesday, 9/30
1. I graduated last night! My wife and I have finished our regular therapy sessions, with a healthy and happy relationship with each other, each of us better and stronger and more forgiving of ourselves even as we recognize our faults. I am incredibly proud of both of us; the road was the most difficult one I have ever had to go down, and along the journey there were many times that I just didn’t want to face another day. With hard work, honesty, trust, and willingness to fully invest in the process, we have become a healthy and happy couple once more. I can’t give enough credit to our awesome therapist, and to each of us for sticking to what we said we would do. Yay us!
Winter in Derenemyn 