Roky Erickson

Roky Erickson with Okkerville River, I think I have been waiting for you my entire life. Thank you for your time.

Willpower

Willpower is a tricky thing. Over the course of my life I have, at times, done things that take a great deal of willpower. I have quit smoking, quit drinking, and I once abstained from fast food for an entire year. But I am still fat and can't to seem to follow a budget to save my life (or my house.) I used to believe that willpower was an absolute, either you had it or you didn't. That clearly is not the case. It does not make much sense, however, for willpower to be transient. Why is it that I was able to get from just over 400 lbs to just under 300, but I can't seem to break from my current range of 290-310? How was I able to drive by a Carls Jr. without ordering a Big Carl for 365 days and now as soon as I am feeling too tired to cook, my car seems to pull into the drive-thru of its own volition? So maybe willpower is a pool, like battery power, that can be depleted an recharged. Great. Where do I plug in? Or mayhap willpower is a muscle that can be trained but exhausted if pushed too far. Yeah, I was doing great but then I sprained my willpower.

It seems that willpower is ultimately, like so many things, a choice. And the important thing is keeping the size of the choices we need to make in proper proportion to our ability to make those choices. I think most likely willpower is the name we give to million little choices that seem easy individually but end up adding up to one big choice. If I had had made the big choice of "I will quit smoking!" but then didn't make the hundred much smaller choices not to have this drag on this cigarette, I would still be a chimney. Similarly, if I had to attempted to lose 100 lbs with one big choice, the enormity of the task would have been overwhelming. So the question is, now that I have reminded myself of this, can I hold on to it and start once again making all the little choices? And when the darker demons of my psyche come calling, and they always do, can I avoid doing so much damage that I completely sabotage further success?

Also, since I am talking choices...I choo choo choose you!

P.S. I wanted to reference the George Jones song "Choices" many times while writing this, but none of you jerks listen to country music and it would have been meaningless to you. I hope you are all happy with yourselves. Thank you for your time.

Day One...check

Just a quickie post to say that day 1 was a success. The weights were lifted many times and with great vigor. I consumed proper amounts of nutritional food. I took Aidan to gymnastics and realized that if I attempted to follow him through one of his 1 1/2 hour long classes I would die. Painfully. Note to self: Make sure to add plenty of cardio to the plan. Perhaps it is time to dig up my ancient enemy on the courts of tennis wartime. Balls on Fire 2010! Coming shortly...my musings on willpower. Try to contain the anticipation.

Quick...Press Reboot!

A year? Seriously...a year? I wish that I could claim some amazing run of exciting adventures and discoveries that prompted this layoff from typing words into my blog, but alas I cannot. I had considered putting up a blog that attempted to summarize the last year's events and stories. It turns out I'm just a bit too lazy for even that. So...stuff happened, people did things, and I got a bit fatter. Consider yourself updated.

So, you may ask, what has prompted my return to the blogosphere? Good question, I would reply, it sure is convenient that you asked me that. I find a need for a place to come to have people help me stay honest to my goals. So I need help from the tens of you who read this to keep me on the path to usefulness. Using updates on this here corner of Al Gore's internets, I hope to motivate myself to stick with my current plan for personal enbetterification. I am going to post both my goals and my progress, or lack thereof, every several days. If I fail to post in a timely manner and any of you suspect I am hiding with a bucket of fried chicken, three cheeseburgers, and a head full of depression and defeat, please take me to task. You can post comments here, on facebook, or text me. And please feel free to drop the hammer...no mollycoddling!

I shall return in a very short time to post the initial goals, stats, and plans, but for now I am off to lift heavy things repeatedly. Thank you for your time.