General Jackassery

hmmmmm……It’s interesting to take a step back and look at the things you’ve done in the past.

I’ve been realizing more and more lately how complacent I’ve become over the last couple of months. Blame it on work, blame it on the canoe, blame it on any number of things, I’m not working as hard as I was last summer and last fall. I got what I wanted and I relaxed.

I guess sometimes you get lost and then out of the blue comes a blinding flash of reality and you realize what it is that you want. I was standing on a beach last August, watching the sun set on the Pacific Ocean and I realized that there were two things that I wanted. Standing there feeling the warm water of the Ocean lap over my feet, the sand between my toes, I realized that I wanted my health. I wanted to have the opportunity to experience those feelings for many years to come but I had allowed almost a year to pass were I was miserable because I couldn’t play hockey or ride my bike, etc. I had allowed my screwed up knee to be an excuse. I took too long to get it fixed and then I took too long and wasn’t serious enough about getting it strong again. I had also spent the previous year being miserable because of any number of things but mostly my knee and the P.O.S. house that I had forced my roommates to move into with me. The house and my knee were good excuses for me to throw away friendship, and the one person who had carried me through a lot of crap. Standing on the beach in Hawaii I realized that I wanted the two things that I had thrown away, I wanted my health and I wanted one person to be there with me to feel the things that I have, and to share in the adventures that have been my life.

I decided right then that I was going to dedicate myself to getting my health back and to getting that one person back. I had spent a year throwing them both away and it would take me a year to get them back. I worked my ass off literally, I spent hours on the bike climbing mountains and the time I spent on the bike served as a metaphor for the way my life was at that time. I spent so much time climbing mountains, hoping that if I just kept turning the pedals over I could get to where I was going, to my goal.

I finally made it! Around January of this year things seemed to start really going the way I wanted them to. I was healthy, nearly 35 lbs lighter than I was the year before, and I was much closer to the one person that I wanted to be the closest to. It seemed that I accomplished my goals and I relaxed, I got to the top of the mountain, I could finally take a break.

Once we get where we’re going we often fail to set new goals, we simply work hard enough to stay where we are.

Now that the news is pretty much out, atleast to the immediate families I don’t mind announcing that Sarah and I are engaged. Incase you hadn’t figured that out from the post that I put up the other day. We are both very happy and looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together.

So what brings this post about? Well I’ve started to figure out that I’m not happy being complacent. It’s not enough to set a goal and achieve it, I have to keep working. I have to keep setting new goals and as hard as I worked to get her back and as hard as WE have worked to get to where we’re going I/we have to work even harder to KEEP going.

I’ve had some really wierd dreams the last couple of nights and it finally hit me what was going on, the reason I’m tired so often lately, the reason I’ve gained some weight back is I’ve gotten complacent and it’s time to rededicate myself to new goals. Sometimes you have to work really hard to get the girl, and when you finally get her you think that you’ve done enough and you don’t have to do anymore. Well that’s not true. I’m rededicating myself to working hard to keep her and I’m rededicating myself to my own health.

It’s funny, last fall was one of the hardest times I’ve been through in my life, but it was also one of the happiest time because I’ve never been any healthier in my life, I was slimmer than I’ve been in years and I was probably the strongest I’ve ever been. So here’s to working hard at everything I do.

My newest goal is to “LiveStrong.”