Day 442 It's Harder When You Care and The Quest For Normalcy

Day 442

It’s Harder When You Care and The Quest For Normalcy

Monday started out moving very quickly on me and it never let up. This move of mine has me all stressed out. I hate moving, just absolutely detest everything it involves. And to think, some people do this for a living! I couldn’t imagine.

It’s crazy, but again I’ve had to deal with stressful triggers trying to manipulate me into bad choices with food and exercise. I won---but still, I guess I somehow thought I was beyond the effects of super stress. You see, I can handle regular stress really well, no problem at all. In fact, I perform at my optimum level under a healthy dose of stress, or energy---we’ll call it…But, you make it a super stress situation and watch out. I start to crumble like most people.

The more you care, the harder it is…because I know what’s right, I really care a bunch, making it harder to deal with these crazy stress triggered urges. Does that make sense? You understand? My importance level is super high; it’s life or death. If it weren’t---I would be careening out of control at this point. I guess what I’m saying is: It’s easy to not care. If you don’t care, you don’t have to fight. Just give in to the stressful triggers and go back to the habits that created the beast in the first place. It takes a special kind of resolve to make it through the most stressful situations. Nothing is going to steal this away from me, nothing…no stressful trigger, circumstance, person, place, or thing. Nothing can take away my resolve and separation of my habits from my emotions.

I’m telling you this: I fully understand why I struggled so hard in the past and why I failed so many times. I wasn’t ready to fight. I’m a fighter now. I’m defending myself with everything I have. I’m worth it. I’ve learned a strong lesson in loving myself enough to change, and doing everything I can to fully understand how that change occurs and how it becomes second nature. It is a process, I’ll tell you that. I haven’t perfected it yet, and I may never, but I’ll get close enough to ensure my success for life. How? Because I understand it now better than I ever have.

This morning I prepared an omelet but didn’t have time to eat it at home. No problem, I just plated the thing and took it with me. I showed the morning host down the hall my enormous five egg white, turkey breast, and mozzarella cheese creation and then asked him to guess the calorie content. He guessed 500 calories. His jaw dropped when I told him the wonderful calorie count: 180. Blammo! Yes…a big filling breakfast for 180! He couldn’t believe his eyes. I offered to cut him off part of it, but he declined and said he would start making them too.

My workout tonight was not my best effort. I took off for the trail with the intention of doing at least a 5K. Instead I did two laps, or 1.66 miles. Part of me says… "Sean, relax man. Something is better than nothing---look what kind of stress you’re under. You’re not Superman you know!” But I know this is a sneaky little rationalization designed to make me feel better about a lackluster workout. It’s a completely wrong attitude. I know what’s right. That’s not.

I grabbed a Subway sandwich for dinner. I normally don’t eat Subway this often. This was the second day in a row for this choice. I was just tired and in a hurry---it was easy, and probably the best choice I could have made out of all the choices on restaurant row in this town. Everything is packed in the kitchen. I didn’t want to dirty anything up. Excuses, excuses! I will say this: I look forward to next week. We’ll be completely settled in nice and cozy in our new place. Things will finally get back to some kind of normalcy.

Isn’t that what we’re after? Normalcy? What is normal? I feel more normal now than ever before. Normal is good. I long for normal. Thank you for reading. Goodnight and…

Good Choices,
Sean