Goals: Month 3 ->The Interconnection

Here I am again.  Putting off writing my progress.  These goals have gotten delivered later and later.  In all honesty I’ve had a  lot going on.  March and April made for a lot of thrashing as I decided to re-up on sobriety and stop smoking weed while I was at it.   While I hadn’t been drinking really at all the decision to stop smoking weed was one born out of a desire to have a stronger relationship with the emotional component of my life.  Doing this both shifts my ability to accomplish certain tasks and the desire.  Without further ado here is what I have for the month of March.

March: Health

Goal	Accomplished	Expected	Grade
Healthy Eating	9	21	43
Drink 2L Water	19	31	61
30 Minute Workout	0	17	00
Unassisted Sleep	28	17	165
Day w/o Cigarettes	14	21	67

Health is always a fickle relationship.  As much as I think I should work out I almost never do.  I did however get a quite a few sets of heated yoga in. I don’t quite consider yoga vigorous activity but I would say it qualifies as SOME activity especially in a 75 minute class.  I really need to re-qualify this concept of working out to something I’ll actually do.

Re-qualifying eating healthy to be not eating garbage has given that a nice little 9 day bump.  Cutting out things like refined carbohydrates and eating some vegetables actually makes me feel a lot better than I would expect.

Lastly, while I am under my goal of not smoking cigarettes in the month of March I have overall made a point to quit cigarettes while I’ve eliminated smoking weed.  In fact these two things go hand in hand.  I realized that it would be forever impossible for me to quit smoking cigarettes if I didn’t stop getting high because it is in those moments that I would always compromise my tobacco goal.  Boom, and just like that a new pack of cigarettes would be found the next morning in the house.

I’m hoping that this choice of eliminating vices will have a holistic effect.  While the initial transition is a shock to the system and a miserable physical experience it has been overall worthwhile.  Smoking cigarettes has a distinct physical craving in addition to the psychological cravings that go along with compulsive activities.  The best thing that I learned to do during this time was to focus on the acknowledging the physical sensation.  Accepting the current experience is ultimately temporary provided surprising relief.  Even if it didn’t seem be coming anytime soon.  I was shocked that this worked at all.

March: Creative

Goal	Accomplished	Expected	Grade
Beautiful Thing Review	0	1	00
Life Lesson Learned	1	1	100
Write Nonfiction Story	0	1	00
Write Fiction Story	0	1	00
Record Podcast	0	2	00
Edit 30 Minutes of Audio	1	1	100
Edit 30s of Video	3	1	300
5 Minutes of Standup	1	2	50

Creativity was a little all over the place.  Getting myself to sit down in front of a computer and start typing is always a challenging task.  In my head I think all I need to do is get myself to start writing for ten minutes, then hopefully I will establish a flow and ten minutes turns into a couple of hours.  This is almost always how it works, but I constantly find myself avoiding getting started.  I could certainly benefit from a little bit of discipline in this area.

While writing suffered editing video was shockingly a success.  I made a ridiculous sound check video which I do not recommend watching here.  I got to support a comedian friend of mine by helping edit one of her comedy reels: Frances Does A Thing.  A big part of what made this a little easier is Lauren was an active part of the process for her video.  I didn’t have to focus on the vision of the product nearly as much as the technical implementation which is nice when just getting started learning a new skill.

I also got lucky with 30 minutes of audio editing that I did for the show Gilmore Guys: Dave Does Scotland which I do with my friend Dave.  In this episode Dave talks about his experience in going to get photos in Scotland with a friend he had made on twitter.  Not only is the story an absurd adventure but the pictures that he got also turned out pretty cool.  You can see the adventure video here.

March Activities

Goal	Accomplished	Expected	Grade
Hangable Canvas Photo	0	1	00
6 Mile/Hike Camp	0	2	00
Ski/Snowboard Day	4	5	80
Meal w/ a Friend	2	2	100

The activity category is one of my favorites.  I specifically enjoy the hell out of the lunch activity.  In March I got to spend a Sunday afternoon getting food with two improvisers I’ve taken classes with Camie and Ryan.  Part of this was a farewell for my friend Camie who has decided to run off to Sweden to pursue a career opportunity.  She can’t help but be bad ass.  Unfortunately during this lunch I was painfully exhausted from a poor nights sleep so my interaction was almost non existent.  I think at one point in time I laid down on the bench of the table we sat at while I listened to Camie explain her plans and Ryan responded with his Bounty paper towel dry and remarkably witty sense of humor.

I also had the pleasure of getting lunch with my friend Meredith in March.  Meredith is dangerously happy.  Seriously she’s infectious.  Side effects include: laughter, feeling light hearted, and an addiction to mayonnaise (thoroughly documented here).  Once a power lifter, then improviser, Meredith sets out to learn new and interesting skills.  One of her current goals this year is to read more books then there are weeks in the year.  I don’t remember the exact number, I think it’s 80.  In either case she makes my  inability to squash four books look pretty lame :p

Okay enough of lunch.  On to snowboarding.  In March I got a solid four days of getting out on the mountain under my belt with my good friend Mary-Ellen (featured photo).  Mary-Ellen is one of my best friends on the planet.  I haven’t listed her for my lunch goal because we have at least one meal together every week.  That said I would hate for her presence in my life to go unappreciated.  She helps keeps me sharp and on my toes. The reason that I learned to snowboard at all is because she invited me to take a lesson with her.  We went from one lesson in Steamboat to getting nearly 20 days on the mountain together.  One of which spawned the idea for Adventures on the Substrate. And hopefully more of those adventures are to come.

March: Reading

Goal	Accomplished	Expected	Grade
Gulag Archipelago	0 pages	34 pages	00
On Becoming a Person	0 pages	23 pages	00
The Body Never Lies	0 pages	18 pages	00
Ordinary Men	0 pages	19 pages	00
12 Rules for Life	0 pages	31 pages	00
Man's Search for Meaning	40	-	-
Recovery	120	-	-
Analytical Psychology: In Theory and Practice	54	-	-

Reading is blah.  Most of the books I listed as goals aren’t necessarily books that I want to read as much as they are books that I think I should read.  As noted I picked up three books that I find way more intriguing to my current interest.  Those books got all the focus.  That said setting goals by raw page count is sort of a ridiculous measurement in terms effort though.  One of the books that I have been blowing through is Russel Brand’s recovery.  While the book is very insightful and I appreciate the utility of it’s content it is nowhere near as dense as Analytical Psychology which is a much more technical read.  That said the page count is a great objective way to measure if I’m doing ANYTHING, but not a great indicator of quality of what’s absorbed.  That said  all of these books are fantastic distractions from the other books I “committed” to reading.

March: Finance

Goal	Accomplished	Expected	Grade
File for Mortgage Release	0	1	00
Pay Extra $X into Debt	0	1	00
Week in Budget	1	4	25

I finally did it.  I put my house back on the market.  It is for sale.  This is an intense experience.  One that I struggle with.  I own a house from way back in the day when I lived in Pennsylvania.  Really I own a mortgage.  I would love to get out of it, but I previously haven’t been able to get a buyer.  This stupid house is a huge psychological burden.  I have to ensure the mortgage gets paid.  I’m always worried there might be some new repair that has to be made.  Worse yet there is a repair that needs to be made to the sewage stack which I cannot make because it requires access to my neighbors unit which he will not grant me.    The whole process is exhausting and I’m hoping it will be over soon.

As consequence of the house and attempting my best to get out of it, I haven’t been paying down any extra debt.  Instead I’m stock piling as much cash as I can in order to be able to buy my way out of this house if I have to.  It’s a depressing act, but honestly I’d rather be free than sad.

March: Summary

Section	Average Grade
Finance	8.33
Reading	0
Activities	45
Creative	66.75
Health	67.2

Alright in summary.  Lunches are awesome.  It’s easy to make goals that involve your friends.  Whether it’s doing a mundane task like editing video/sound, or doing something more mutually enjoyable like grabbing lunch or going snowboarding.  These are good goals to have.  They ground you in your relationships with others.  These social interactions pull me away from my other feelingless goals that are purely objective driven and allow me to realize the benefits of the people in my life.

Sincerely,
k.