Day 82, Sunday schmunday

Boyo these weekends are getting tougher to deal with, let me tell ya. And seemingly for no apparent reason, nothing clear has pooped its head up in front of me and given me a clearly defined answer. Annoying, it is.

For me, weekends have always been a challenge to keep anything--resolutions, projects, hobbies, potential life creating paths, etc.--going for as long as it’ll last. I know I mentioned this before, ages ago it seems, but the weekends are really just treasure troves of temptations for me and as the project is continuing on its way as well as getting closer to its end, all at the same time, well these past weekends have infamously become grueling mental and physical challenges.

In fact, I recall just yesterday wiling away the mid afternoon hours on my bed reading page after countless page of a new book all the while trying not to focus on the packages of dried fruit sitting on the kitchen counter, or the soy yogurt (peach and vanilla and delicious strawberry) chilling away in the refrigerator, or the delectable cinnamon raisin whole wheat bread and the vegan cream cheese resting in drawers in the fridge.

How screwy it was. How beguiling! What tricks my mind played with me.

Of course, I was able to stave off the temptation and keep my sticky fingers to themselves and out of the potential food overload that would have taken place had I let my mind wander. Not that I was even hungry or anything, just bored, and you know what boredom can do to something like a diet and exercise plan.

Hee hee. All this worry over some yogurt and fruit. Funny. I’m still amazed at my newfound conscientiousness and the power it has over my everyday life and actions. Had one of these long weekends occurred before the project began the I would have been in the kitchen straightaway pulling object after object out of the fridge and collapsing onto my couch with a great sigh, ready for the feast that I’d be partaking in. Remembering those times also brings to mind the couple hours after the great gorging when my body would react to all of the food and begin cursing my weak willed mind for letting it stuff itself with all of that crap.

I’m sitting pretty now, about to go and enjoy squatting jumpropes, and imagining life after the project.

It’s filled with fruit and vegetables, and more jumproping.

Day 64, The confidence is rising

So yesterday afternoon left me in a bit of a funk. Like I told you all with Wednesday’s post I was going out to apply for a new job and I did during the early afternoon, around one or so. I got there at the store and went up to their customer service desk to see if I could talk to the person in charge of hiring on new employees. Right then, so early on in this process, things went in a completely different direction than the one I had imagined they would in my head.

I’m sure that this isn’t the case but their answer seemed to me to be a brick wall that shot up right in front of me as I was running toward my goal. Their response was that they didn’t have a dedicated person that handles that particular kind of thing, no instead every so often they do a group interview with potential applicants to decide who they want to hire. I wasn’t aware of this seeing as how nothing I’ve seen at the store or online at their site gave any indication that this was how they did things. Things began to crumble away and my good feelings and bright outlook on the day immediately took a turn. What was I to do? It seemed like I had no option other than to leave them with my application and hope that it got into the hands of someone high up there where it would wow him/her enough that they would call me up regardless of how they, apparently, generally did things there.

I walked out of the place feeling pretty low and despondent. Suddenly it seemed that things would forever remain stagnant and I would be stuck working at a job forever that I didn’t want to do any longer. Of course, there are always other places to work at but this place was somewhere that I could have enjoyed working at and gotten a sense of fulfillment from. There are other places but, and I ask you this very seriously, what the hell is the point of working someplace if you can’t feel good about the work you’re doing and about yourself while you work there. I’m going to be so bold as to say that there is entirely no purpose in doing something like that. Frankly, to me, it would be a waste of ones life, and they’re already so short anyway (like I’m old enough to actually realize that :-) so why do it?

I got home after a quick bit of shopping around (those would be tickets to see The Dark Knight, baby!) and settled in to take of some other things. The mood that I was in was a dangerous one to be in. Bad things could have happened to my progress with the project. Normally I don’t see myself as someone who eats when they’re in low spirits but at that point that was what i was about to turn to. My head wasn’t clear and my mouth and fingers were developing minds of their own, completely separate from the one inside my skull. Food seemed like the place to turn to to ease my dispirited self and I was more than ready to give in to those mindless urges.

But then the progress from these last months kicked in. My hands stopped their idle wanderings and my mouth stopped salivating in anticipation of sweet “pick-me-up” indulgences. I regained control of myself and stopped me from giving in and going overboard with the fruit that I was craving but shouldn’t have eaten at that time. Yes, yes, it was only a bit of fruit but that’s not the point of this at all, the point is is that I could have slipped into some pretty nasty pre-project behavior that could have set me back a ways but I didn’t.

It seems that I have grown the confidence and control to say “no”. One of the simplest and, at the same time, most difficult and complicated things to do. Boy, was it worth it. I’m sitting here now thinking back on it and I sure am proud of myself, even now so far into the project I am still amazed that I’m able to do something that at first glance seems like it would be the easiest thing to do. Congrats to me.

This all brings to mind a quote that I may have mentioned way back but one that I’ll repeat here:

“Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy. ‘Easy’ doesn’t enter into grown-up life.”