Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Time to take action

Mere minutes from 2015, so it must be time to lay out the plan for the new year. Well, it's not really a plan for the new year, it's really more of a plan for life without a Big Project taking up all of my time. It's time to focus on the things I've been neglecting in order to pursue the Big One. Fitness and weight loss are on the top of the list. Reading lots of books, writing something, keeping my relationship with my wife moving forward. That's what this year is about.

It's about the process, with hope that results will emerge from being focused on getting things done a certain way. My play it by ear approach hasn't seemed to be too effective. It's time to make plans, plot a strategy, and see if I can finally make some progress towards reaching long held fitness goals (which are by extension relationship goals). I need to stay healthy to reach some of these goals, but even if injury does become and issue, there are things that I can do to keep making progress towards getting into better shape.

Consistent effort yields results. Small steps consistently taken add up to significant gains over the course of a year. Making time to squeeze in sets of push ups, a few ab exercises, a couple of trips to the gym every week. That's what gets things done. There are no short cuts. There's no way to just make it happen. Gains and changes occur over time. It takes awhile, and that's what makes it so frustrating. Motivation and focus need to be maintained for months to really make something happen.

That's why I've focused on meeting weekly goals. Two trips to the gym to lift every week. Cardio four times a week. I'd like that to be mostly running, but if that's not happening, there's the rowing machine and the stationary bike. Ab workouts four times a week. I will set push up and pull up targets too. A certain number of each a week. I will also make a plan for when I will do these exercises. I'm not just going to wait and see when it will happen. I'm going to pick a time and I'm going to make it happen on schedule. It's not the way I like to work, but I don't know what else I can do to make it happen.

I have to make it happen. I can't wait for things to just appear. So I'm not particularly motivated or energetic. It's up to me to make it happen no matter how I'm feeling. Excuses don't get things done. Change requires action. I'm the only one who can take the action that will lead to change. Change will happen, one rep at a time.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Proofs

Post-MBA time looked like this expanse of freedom to explore all kinds of opportunities and big projects when I was in the thick of finishing my class. No more of this obligation to fulfill some arbitrary class requirement. My time would be my own and I could do really important things that really meant something to me. Well, those big things require energy. I'm struggling to find the energy to do much. The drive to make something happen is the key to any personal project. Now that I have the time to try some different projects, I'm finding that I just don't have the interest.

I'm just worn out from the rigors of finishing my class, a busy couple of months at work, the drain of life in general, and finding my workout groove after spending the last month trying to heal up from nagging running injuries. I just need to give myself some time to recover, let my energy and drive built up slowly. Don't rush anything, don't force it. Just let my life unfold casually. What's the rush? What do I have to prove?

But that's the real fear. What happens to my drive when I don't have anything to prove? I've documented some of my struggles with figuring out who I am and what I'm about. Getting closer to those answers makes me more comfortable with who I am, less driven to show that amorphous "everybody" that I'm somehow superior. Energy was always there when I needed it for LSAT prep. The hardest part of my garage workouts was just getting in the garage in the first place. Once I was out there, I was able to get it done. I could push myself, I was willing to hurt a little to get stronger. With more strength would come better times on the rowing machine. I would be proving something.

So I was really trying to prove something to myself. I just wanted to feel like I was worth something. Achievement and accomplishment was how I fought against the emotional void of my family. Achievement and accomplishment gave me attention and recognition from others, the kind of attention that I didn't get at home. Maybe I was trying to earn the praises of my absent father. Or maybe I was just lost and alone. It only matters now as I struggle to work up the energy to do the things that I've always done.

So my energy crisis may be a consequence of burnout and fatigue. It may also be a consequence of an absence of meaning. If I manage to separate myself from the patterns of my youth, I may be undermining the effectiveness of the coping mechanisms I used to give my life some emotional substance. The experience of real emotions saps the power of those old routines. Those old routines were very, very central to my identity. I used accomplishments as a proxy for a self. I did things to prove my value to others because I didn't really know who I was or what I was about.

The scary thing is to think that things I've always thought were very much me are really just ways for me to feel better about myself. I did things not because they were particularly pleasant. I did things I was good at. I'm pretty good at school, I manage to do pretty well at my job. Most of my blog posts are about school and my job. Reading and working out are pretty regular features. As I think about it, many of the things I thought about doing were things that I've always done. They're stand by activities, stuff that is ready to to at a moments notice.

Where is the exploration? What have I've done that's new or different? If my energy levels continue to flag, I'll have to assume that it hasn't been fatigue or burnout at the core of my energy crisis. It's my motivation. If I don't have anything to prove to others, that means that I need to do what is meaningful to me. I'm sure what I've always done is meaningful to me, but I may need to make an adjustment or two to figure out how to make things matter to me rather than focusing on how I can prove my value to everybody else.

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Necessities

My brother gave me a really lame Christmas present. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. Stupid me took the wrapping off of the box. I should have kept in on so I could try to return it and get something that I will actually read. It's not that the gift is bad, I can think of other things that would be worse (like socks, Mom. If you want to give me some socks, just give them to me, they don't need to be a Christmas present). What makes the gift lame is that I would have found it appealing when I was a teenager. I'm almost 40. I'm not the person that I was all those years ago, but in all too many ways my brother in particular and my family in general seems to have a thing with keeping me the person I was back then.

In their minds the young version of me is the true version of me. That's who I am supposed to be. My brother and I are supposed to be best friends. I'm supposed to like Stephen King (another recent Christmas present) and be a sloppy eater. My family expects me to play a certain role and for way too much of my life I've been all too happy to play along and fill that role. I made the decision not to do that earlier this month and it has been interesting to see how they reacted. It's been more interesting for me to see how I've reacted. Noticing the stress and tension, the desire to make things right, and recognizing that these feelings were rooted in family dynamics that go back to when I liked reading Calvin and Hobbes in the paper was a revelation. All those things I felt I "had" to do turn out to not really be all that necessary after all.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Derailers

I tripped over a very important consideration when it comes to my inability to really make much progress on my weight and fitness goals in that previous post. Pursuing a variety of goals invariably leads to compromises around how much time and energy I can give to any one goal. My pursuit of an MBA undermined my efforts to get in better shape. Reconciling the demands of my classes on the time that I had used to workout was one of the first things that I had to accept when I started taking classes. I couldn't workout and keep up with my classwork. The classes took priority. I eventually shifted my workouts to the morning, but late nights kept me from going out for some runs. Even more insidious was how my classes drained my willpower as the program wore on. My focus and desire waned as I got closer finishing. It took more energy to attend to the classwork. The energy I used to write posts and work on assignments wasn't there when I needed to work out.

So achieving one goal, getting an MBA, limited how much progress I could make on fitness goals. Injuries have also had a huge impact on my fitness. Problems with my feet a couple of years ago and the calf issues that plagued me for most of last year seriously limited my ability to get in running miles. The breaks that these injuries have forced on me have set me back considerably. Rather than slowly building my fitness, I go in cycles where I get in good shape and than have to rebuild as I recover from injury. I'm still in much better shape than I was a few years ago, but I have to wonder where I would be if I hadn't had these setbacks. Even with my classes, I'm pretty sure I would have attained my goal of a sub 50 minutes 10K by now if I had been able to consistently train over the last couple of years.

I haven't published some research I did at work a few years ago because my classes took away all the time, energy, and mental focus that I need to get my paper in shape for submission. It's 80% of the way there, but it's that last 20% that's really hard. There's lots of tedious work in this phase. The shift in my work day from one with big chunks to do lab work to a day broken into much smaller chunks with many more meetings thrown in makes it hard to find the time to do for this tedium while I'm at work. There is no way that it will get done at home when classes were pending. So achieving one goal, getting a promotion at work, cost me another goal, publishing a paper.

Recognizing how my goals are related, and how my success in pursuing these goals depends on factors that aren't always under my control is something I have to consider as I think about what I want to do now that I don't have the MBA commitments. I get back a bunch of my time, but I also get back all the energy that I gave to that effort. This MBA experience has made me much more appreciative of how I use my energy. Physical energy is one thing, but my mental and emotional energy is also critical to succeeding in getting in shape, being a better husband, and getting the things I want from life. I can't just throw it all out there and hope it works out. I need to focus on what I want and ensure that I'm using my energy in way that gets me closer to that goal.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Some things change, some things stay the same

I was just playing Tetris and making plans. I'm sure I played Tetris and made plenty of plans when I was a teenager trying to figure out where I wanted to go in life. I'm not sure what it means that I'm still playing Tetris and making plans. If nothing else it just shows how things don't really change all that much as we go through life. We age, our weight fluctuates, hair falls out in some places and grows in others, but all the load bearing parts of our life don't really change all that much. At least if we don't make the effort. We're pretty much the same person at the core of it as we meander through life. The circumstances of our life change, but I'm not sure that we change all that much unless we are honest with ourselves and really focus on making things different.

So what were the plans that I was making while I was playing Tetris? Some work stuff, some life stuff, some recognition that work stuff and life stuff don't always have to be so different. There needs to be more appreciation in my life for the things that I already have. I spend way too much time planning for things that I don't have. That's counter-productive. I have plenty of great things in my life. Making those great things even better is what I need to focus on this year.

I reread a recap post from the end of my first year writing this blog, 2010, before I started writing this post. It was exactly the kind of recap post that I was mocking earlier this week. It was a little disheartening to see that some things haven't changed in the past four years. Weight and fitness are still an issue. Still trying to read a Dickens book. I have finished my MBA though. I guess that's progress. I've read way more books. Only 25 that year. I've read close to forty this year. I'm a better husband. A better dad. My work situation is much different. My marriage is different. I live in the same house. I'm typing on a different computer. I've had more sex this year. I still don't get to bed as early as I should.

I need to get to bed now. I hope I can stop making plans and actually do the things I want. Or maybe I should realize that I'm really close to having what I want and I should stop making plans to get more of what I want, or at least realize that it's more about tweaks and optimization rather than wholesale change. That would be progress.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

It's been another great year!

I thought about writing a year in review after we got the always amusing newsletter from one of our college friends. The standard newsletter type stuff came to my mind when I first started entertaining the idea. Beach trips, all kinds of baseball games, a trip to Philadelphia, a wedding. But then I started thinking about the kinds of things that happened this year that you don't capture with a picture. Changes in relationships, insights into the whys and ways of my life, little backstage peeks of the production that is my life. New ways of seeing the world, recognizing why people do what they do, what matters to them, what makes them who they are. I don't know if anybody would want read a newsletter like that. That might be an even better reason to write it.

Before getting the annual holiday update, I thought about recapping my year in other ways. There's the metric focused approach. The number of books read, 40 something at the last count, miles run, miles lost to injury. Meters rowed, pounds lost (and gained). Looking at where I spent my time (classes, reading, writing stories for an anniversary gift (and copying those stories into a notebook)). Boring, boring, boring. That's a good way of looking at what I did, but there is nothing in that approach that gets at WHY I did those things. Or why I failed to do other things. What about the way all these things are related to one another and all the other parts of my life? Simply recounting what I did doesn't get at that. Did I make progress towards something? Am I any closer to the life that I really want or am I just marking time in the life that has sprung up around me?

I finish my MBA this week. Well, it's pretty much finished now but I don't consider myself finished until the last set of questions are posted in the final forum. Then I'll be done. It's an interesting experience finishing this degree. It's just the kind of thing you would put in your holiday newsletter. It's a notable accomplishment to include in some self-congratulatory list compiled to reassure me that I'm doing something worthwhile. Even as I finish the degree and people at work congratulate me and not what a great accomplishment it is, I'm left wondering if it was worth the time and effort. I always told myself that I did the work at night so it didn't really interfere with family time. But all that working at night kept me up late. My energy and focus was spent on papers and exams when it could have been spent on my relationships. My wife teases me about the subject of my next degree. She's wondering what will be more important to me than her next. What will be the next subject that I study to distract myself from the reality of my life. Classes, papers, discussions are ways to avoid dealing with the real world.

All the stuff that I would include in some kind of annual recap would just be a list of some of the ways that I shunted energy away from what really mattered into things that keep me from fully experiencing life. Focusing on my goals is an easy way to avoid dealing with the things in my immediate life that make me uncomfortable. Is it more important to read some arbitrary number of books or to recognize when my son needs me to listen to him and understand why he struggles? Is it better to have all of my patience and energy shunted into a meaningless paper about China or to be fully present and engaged when my wife tells me about a problem she's having at work?

The pursuit of some arbitrary goal selected because it makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something is more likely to be keeping me from really achieving something else. What would happen if I went all in on my career for one year? What if I really focused on my physical health and relationships? Would I accomplish more than a list of random and kind of hollow accomplishments that aren't really about making something happen?

There's really only one way to find out...

Saturday, December 6, 2014

What's next?

I had all these plans for what I wanted to do when I was finished with my MBA. I'm still not finished with the class, but the big 20 page paper that I had to write (is it any wonder that I haven't posted here in months?) is finished. I thought my time would open up after than and I would start doing the things that I haven't been able to do with class commitments. I haven't finished a book, written anything of substance, or really done anything of note. Now that I really think about it, I'm not really sure that I SHOULD be doing those types of things.

Looking back over the last couple of years, I've given so much energy to some personal project, MBA or law school prep being the most obvious examples, that I haven't been giving my energy to the relationships and people in my life. I've failed to give my life the attention it deserves because I've been too busy thinking about some paper or how to do better on an utterly meaningless exam. That's not the best way for me to be living my life.

I thought about projects that I might do after I finished my MBA, but I really just need to stop trying so hard and just let things be for awhile. The best thing for me to do may just emerge after awhile. I may not have to push, push, push if I just let the important stuff bubble up to the surface.