Stream of Consciousness #2

Reflecting on my last two posts, the Chinobous #

I know that people lose pets every day. Above all else, I wanted those posts to be me being vulnerable and open to sharing even the more ’every day' experiences. After all, if I’m going to write in this blog, I’m going to do it right and I’m going to follow its purpose: to just be a true channel for my voice to be ‘heard’. I don’t care who listens or why. I just get to be me here. So, I have made some after-thought edits to those posts to address certain language I didn’t like and double-check grammar. I always have my Github commit history, too, so that helps me feel a little better about an edit.

Getting Myself Out of This Rut #

Since trouble began brewing with Chinobou, which is going on probably a month now, I’ve been focused on that and sad and overall a little depressed. I was working out 3-4 days a week for a solid month and a half, and this traumatic load brought that to a grinding halt. Of course, ironically, pushing just a little harder and continuing the exercise would have helped me stave off the depression some. Nevertheless, I have been moping and doing things that make me think I’ll feel good, instead of things that will actually make me feel good. For example, I’ve been gaming too much and staying up too late. To be fair, the gaming has been something of a coping mechanism for me. It keeps my mind busy and I get to socialize some with my friends who also game. It is obvious to me, though, that I have to find new footing and start prioritizing my health again. So I am certainly subconsciously (now consciously?) writing this as my own form of self-peer pressure. Alright, fair play Christian.

Plan? #

My plan needs to be first and foremost to get to bed at some reasonable time. Then I need to get up and work out on the days I determine to do so. I really just want a consistent 3-4 days. Like, actually average 3.5 days/week. That can’t be too hard to achieve. Finally, I need to discover a self-sustaining reward system that I can use to self-train. I need some way to continue to motivate myself, so I can step on the gas and let off the breaks when I need to, to work toward accomplishing my more long-term goals. But let’s keep it simple here. I also need to learn how to accept bad days for what they are, and still wake up ready to do my job the next morning. I think that sometimes it’s far too easy for me to encounter a more difficult day and to be tempted to abandon all effort for too long before trying again. I think, truly, I need to determine what motivates me. So,

What Motivates Me? #

Ugh, that’s such a loaded question. I’ve retyped my answer here a few times now. The truth is that we humans are motivated by a million-billion things in a million-billion different ways. I am motivated by most of the things most people are motivated by. I am motivated by praise, reward, and quite literally anything else that fires off a bunch of specific NTs in my brain. I am also motivated by specific things. I wonder how I can dial into some of those specific things to enhance my self-accountability system. I’d like to come back to this soon. Hopefully I’ll follow this SOC up with a new post outlining my game-plan soon. TBD. Until next time, cheers.