Sounds like a horrible new sitcom starring a resurgent Jamie Kennedy, only on ABC!
So, what was the idea? Not too long ago, Monique had mentioned something on Instagram or Facebook or both or something about paying attention to unconscious habits and routines. That's something which has resonated with me before, typically when I realize I'm unconsciously doing something stupid, but then I blow it off. "Oh, I'll get to it. Sometime. Eventually." And then I don't. Seeing it again pushed it back into the forefront of my mind.
We all do things without really considering the why of it. Most of the time, they’re such quick and mundane tasks that they really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But you might also find that you’re spending an inordinate amount of time or brain power on absolutely pointless bullshit. Maybe all of those claims that you don’t have time to do the things that you would like to be doing are complete crap, because you’re wasting a lot of time on nonsense that doesn’t matter without you even realizing it. Or perhaps you’ve developed some habits that really are negatively affecting your ability to get to where you want or need to be going.
I decided that this time, I wasn't going to just dismiss it for 'another day'. I’d actually go
Now, this may have strayed from the beaten path that post was talking about. But I don’t tend to worry too much about particulars put in place by other people if I can expand on something to make it a positive for me moving forward. If it’s something I’m doing without consideration and it’s not good for me, it simply needs to fucking end.
And since I’m a big believer in public sharing meaning perhaps I can’t just keep doing this shit without at least facing some mockery for it, let the list ensue!
1. No more "I'll get to it tomorrow" This is an area where I've gotten better, but I clearly need to keep working at it. Certainly there can be times when extenuating circumstances might limit my ability to actually do something. However, when we aren't talking about one of those rare situations where another factor is legitimately getting in the way, no more waiting. If I can do it now then that's it. No more discussion. No more excuses. Move forward.
2. Sleep is Not the Enemy I am a night owl. Always have been. By and large, that’s okay. However, there have been too many times lately when it’s 11 pm and I’m tired...but then I just stay up anyway, often LATER than I normally would. It makes absolutely no sense.
I think this partly stems from when I was writing professionally a lot more. If the creative juices were flowing, I would just keep at a job until I was tapped out. That made for some really messed up hours, even for a night owl. I haven’t totally shaken this weird idea that I ‘need’ to stay up and now it’s time to cut it loose. If I’m tired, I go to bed. If I’m not, I don’t go to bed. Pretty simple. Most of you probably figured this out years ago, but apparently I’m a late bloomer.
This is also a really important one for me because it directly ties into so many of the other things that will be listed here. So much bad stems from this and just becomes an epic shitstorm of stupidity. And for nothing! In the cases I’m referring to, I’m staying up until 3 in the morning DOING NOTHING. Because I stay up late so...I can’t even really think of a reason. That doesn’t even begin to make sense! And speaking of making no sense, MAN do I get dumb when I’m hurting for sleep. I speak like an idiot, I think about as quickly as a block of cheese would, and I just feel ssssllloooowwwwww all the damn time.
As a quick little addition here, no more brewing up coffee because it’s 9:30 and I’m kinda tired. I don’t want or need a crutch, particularly for dealing with fatigue that isn’t anything wrong.
Are there exceptions to this? Sure. If I’m actually doing something meaningful or enjoyable or fun, maybe I’ll keep burning a little bit more of that midnight oil. However...actually, I’m now getting ahead of myself. Let’s hold off on diving deeper into this particular pool until a bit later on.
3. Better snacking habits I am never going to be someone who counts calories and monitors their food intake to any major degree because I find all of that obnoxious. Am I smarter in general about what and how much I eat? Yes. Does that mean no more bacon cheeseburgers or cheesecake? Hell no. I like bacon cheeseburgers and cheesecake, so I’m going to keep eating them. Not every day, but they aren’t going away.
Most of the time, I’m pretty good...until we hit the late hours. Then all Hell breaks loose. Maybe that voice of control in my head falls asleep at the switch or something, because I start grazing my way through the kitchen. It’s completely unnecessary because I sure as Hell am not even hungry. Yet there I am far too frequently at 1 AM chomping down a plate of nachos while the popcorn is popping, with ice cream soon to follow and WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?! Seriously, now that I’m considering my all-too-frequent late night snack disasters I am somewhat appalled. Of course, it absolutely explains the flat-lining in terms of workout results of late.
I have pretty solid self control the rest of the day, so it’s time to have it in the evening as well. Are there going to be nights when I dive into a dietary holocaust? Sure. (And no, I’m not calling that shit a cheat day. That just wraps things in a negative connotation, and negative connotations are why so many people who do obsess over calories end up losing their minds and leaping hip deep into a taco bender. Mmmm...taco bender…) But it’s time to show some fucking restraint.
Now, I normally don’t give two shits about obsessively tracking my weight, tending to focus more on how I feel and look (that makes me sound way more vain than I actually am, but you hopefully catch my meaning). However, I think that maybe a good way to kick start this change is to attach a number to it. So, by the end of the year, I want the first number of my weight to be a 1. That’s not some insurmountable monster of a challenge since I’m probably hovering around 210-212 right now and have the workout part of things squared away, so it should be easy...IF I stop turning a single evening snack into a bonus meal.
4. No More Empty Hours WOW do I waste a lot of time on empty, pointless crap. I have a stack of books sitting at home waiting to be read...but I don’t read them. I have a
This REALLY needs to stop. This is the one that actually makes me want to slap myself in the face because there’s no good reason for it. My time is valuable. It’s time to start treating it as such.
5. Stop Sitting Cross Legged For a Long Period of Time This is more of an impromptu entry. I just stood up after an hour sitting cross legged on a bed. My lower back and knees aren’t happy. They never are whenever I do this. Fucking stupid.
6. Frustration is so Goddamn...Frustrating Okay, now we’ve reached the audience participation portion of things, because I largely don’t know what to do here. I’m open to ideas, to suggestions, to examples of things that worked for you, to whatever.
Let me use the most common current reason for my frustration as an example. I’ve been looking for a job for a while now. Originally it was just a search for a second part time gig, but now it’s a full blown job search. There are changes I want to make that I can’t afford to. There are things I’d like to do that I can’t afford to. I feel like I’m stagnating and spinning in circles, but I’m stuck. It would be one thing if I wasn’t really looking that hard and failing to come up with anything, but I am trying and still coming up flat. I’m applying for things I would kick ass at. The problem is that hundreds of others are ALSO applying for those things, and many of them would equally kick ass at them.
Now, I’m not looking for advice on the job search part (more to come on that a bit later on anyway). The real issue here is that I find my frustration with things like this becomes an all-consuming entity. I really don’t have a good way of dealing with it. I suspect that filling previously empty time with things that I actually enjoy will help by keeping me occupied and distracting my brain for a while longer. Sleeping when tired will also be of aid since I get fucking cranky and very quick to depress when I’m tired. Beyond those, I’m open to suggestions. The constant cycle of over-thinking and growing despondent when something doesn’t immediately reveal itself sucks.
Oh, and if you’re about to suggest a couple of stiff drinks...well, we’ll be getting to that shortly.
7. Stop Eating Trail Mix on the Bed Fucking sunflower seeds everywhere. Goddammit.
8. Broaden the Horizons And right back to the job search bit. Recently, I pretty much stopped doing content writing. I generally enjoyed it, but I was worn out from 5-6 years spent constantly churning through gigs and looking for the next one. That’s what you have to do if you’re stuck relying on it at all and I’m tired of running on that hamster wheel and competing with dudes from third world countries who charge $12 a job because in their life situation that’s an awesome wage. Between the constant freelance job search and the 'real world' job search, I was grinding myself down pretty rapidly. So I decided to close the book on freelancing, at least for now.
A bit of the job search frustration has dissipated now that I’m not pretty much doing two searches at once. But it’s still present because the economy is completely broken, and this province has been so mismanaged for so long that I honestly don’t see it becoming un-fucked at any point in the near future.
So, it’s time to start looking elsewhere as well. If there isn’t jack shit available here, then I also need to look places other than here. I’ve never had to do this before because I’d always been able to find work pretty easily when I needed it. And I have absolutely no idea how to really even do this well. But rather than add to my list of things that I over think (which is everything, really. I over think everything), I’m just going to start throwing my name into hats and see what happens. I’m actually somewhat fucking terrified of the whole prospect, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And part of me wonders if just hitting the reset button somewhere else might not be a bad idea, anyway. That brings me to...
I have gotten better about this, but I need to improve at eventually letting things go. I’m pretty sure that I’m not a killer robot sent from the future (and if I am, whoever programmed me needs a new line of work because I’m not a very good killer robot). I’m a human being. Human beings fuck up. Human beings make mistakes. Learn from it and move on. I still have progress to make on the second half of that concept.
10. Stick to Beer When Things Aren’t Great Hoo boy is this one that I’ve had to re-learn recently. As a normal and functioning human being (generally speaking), I enjoy a few drinks from time to time. On rare occasions, I enjoy enough drinks to cross the border from buzzed into the neighboring county of tipsy. I’ve been told that I’m actually a fairly pleasant drunk when it does happen, though it does entirely remove what little filter I have and holy mother of fuck do I start babbling. Still, I tend to be a happy drunk if I'm happy sober.
However, when I’m not doing well...be it down, frustrated, pissed off, emotionally beat up or exhausted, what have you...the whiskey needs to stay in the cupboard. Because as miserable as I am sober under those circumstances, I go to a very dark and nasty little cave when I mix in the bourbon. It’s not that I would do any actual real harm to myself or anyone else under those circumstances, but the whole previous point gets magnified a hundred-fold when I go spelunking into this part of my psyche with single malt as my guide. I don’t want or need to mess myself up further.
This is one I’ve stuck with for a couple of months now, but I wanted to add it to the list to make it more official I guess.
11. Real Conversation is a Good Thing There are times when I’m out with people and I feel like unloading things like this in person. But I don’t always do it. It isn’t frequent or anything but it happens. I need to get away from avoiding that. This sort of feels like my own life’s constant struggle, but it’s a fight that I need to keep having.
And there you have it. My shameful list of stupid errors, bad habits and overall wastes of my own time. It really is quite awful to see it all splayed out like this, but at least now I’m aware of what I need to change and get away from. And now that I'm back from vacation, I actually feel like the batteries are charged up. I feel ready to go. So let's tackle this shit.
Maybe this will inspire some of you reading this to ponder what you’re doing and not even really consciously considering. Feel free to share, or post your own, or call me a complete tool or get back to doing something you actually find interesting.
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