All Shook Up

Time for a change. Time to shake things up a bit. Time to re-focus my priorities.

What with my job ending, me graduating from college (finally!) in a couple months, and new vistas opening before me, I figure it's time to say "Enough!"

Enough what, you say? Enough of sins that are not good for me - specifically gluttony and sloth. I finally see that the price I pay for these is much, much higher than the little pleasure I enjoy from them. Tuesday night, 3/15/05, 9:44 p.m., I'm sitting in the drive-thru at Portillo's picking up a smoothie for Mary Lynn and I have a small epiphany regarding this. I just finally felt so tired of it all - tired of being fat, tired of having no energy, tired of being broke, tired of being tired all the time!

I think the things I'm reading in my Health Psychology class are getting through to me. Such as how much I'm supposed to weigh, how active I ought to be, and - most importantly - what to expect in the future if I don't change. For instance, I have type II Diabetes - you know, what they call adult-onset diabetes. Had it six or seven years now. According to my text, someone who gets it by my age can control it through watching the ol' diet and exercising a bit. Me, I take drugs – two kinds – twice a day. A change in lifestyle will address that and save me some money and energy. When I lose weight I’ll save more money. i.e. if Sears or Target have a sale on men’s pants I can go buy some! Right now I have to order from large guy catalogs (“Introducing our new Hindenburg line”) and pay four or five times what I could pay in a department store. And that, my friend, sucks!

So, I resolved right there in the drive-up to make the change. To start: no caffeine, no sugar, be aware of calories for a change, eat sensibly (cleaning every plate in sight is not necessary), and get moving – get into a regular program of exercise and walk briskly whenever possible – don’t worry about parking as close to the door as possible: just park and walk! Exercise will be the hardest – I have never, I mean never done any kind of regular exercise! And as Cap’t Ron would say, “Ehh, it shows!” I picked up a copy of Men’s Health magazine’s special Weight Loss issue for some pointers – it’s a good read with useable advice and not as threatening as I thought it would be (the regular magazine is rather fascist toward exercise – and they want you to have all this gear! Sheesh!)

So, don’t wish me luck. (“In my experience there’s no such thing as luck.”–Obi-Wan) Just wish me well as I set sail on a new voyage. My motivation will come from a few lines of Kipling that I first saw quoted in Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. Here ‘tis:

The young recruit is silly – 'e thinks o' suicide.
'E's lost 'is gutter-devil; 'e 'asn't got 'is pride;
But day by day they kicks 'im, which 'elps 'im on a bit,
Till 'e finds 'isself one mornin' with a full an' proper kit.

Gettin' clear o' dirtiness, gettin' done with mess,
Gettin' shut o' doin' things rather-more-or-less.

From The ‘eathen by Rudyard Kipling


Courage.