How to change your life

Slowly...one step at a time.

I have written a lot about setting goals, working towards them, and achieving them, but all those goals were athletically oriented. You can read about all that crap over HERE at my racing blog, starting with my inaugural post and mission statement.

But what about all the REST of the stuff I'm trying to accomplish in life? Not everything requires sweat and hours of grueling exercise. Well, I set a goal to become a nurse and I'm less than 100 days from fulfilling that goal. Some titles I can currently apply to myself include, but are not limited to the following: Ironman, marathoner, ultramarathoner, soon-to-be Registered Nurse and Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Ok...what about smaller stuff?

How about this one.....flosser?

Uh.....shit. I admit that I have never successfully been able to pick up the habit of regular flossing...not for more than a month at least. I try to be living proof of the benefits of taking care of one's body, but I can't even take care of my teeth! Granted, I've been incredibly lucky. I've had only one cavity, despite the fact that I've probably flossed less than 50 times in my entire life. I've also had multiple 3-4 year stretches between seeing dentists. I'm not counting on that luck to continue indefinitely though. Just last week I finally understood why people hate dentists. I had my 6 month cleaning and when the lady went to start looking for stuff to scrape, she found some....a LOT of it. AND IT HURT!

So once again I've decided that it's high time I became a flosser.


"It's as hard to quit smoking as it is to start flossing." - Mitch Hedburg

It seems extreme, but there may be some truth to it. Putting aside physiological dependence, quitting a habit is the same as picking up a habit...they are both lifestyle changes that require the same commitments from an individual. A person must first solidify in their mind that they are ready to make a change. My past failures at the flossing habit have been defeated early by a lackadaisical attitude of "Gee, I should floss more." Next, a person must form a realistic plan of action. I never once came close to this step. Next, you have to actually follow through with this plan and hold yourself accountable. I read somewhere about a study that determined the average person needed to repeat an activity 60+ days in a row before it would become a daily habit. Once a habit is formed, then you have succeeded.

I have decided that flossing every day is unrealistic for me. The dental hygienist mentioned to me that plaque starts to harden after 48 hours, so I have decided that if I can floss every other day, I will be happy...and definitely better off than flossing NO days. I have resolved to make Monday, Wednesday, and Friday my flossing days. I am proud to report that Week 1 of Project: Danny Becomes a Flosser plan has been a resounding success. I have committed myself to achieving this goal, so now before I go to bed there is no debating about whether or not I can skip it or put it off until tomorrow. If it's MWF, I'm f*cking flossing. End of story.

Literally...that's the end of the story. Wish me luck!

The Cruel Cycle of Grocery-Having...

Stage 1: Have groceries

You have just gotten home from the grocery store and you put everything away. You feel so proud that you have done the responsible thing instead of putting it off and ordering a pizza out of laziness. You are also probably tired from this whole "modern day hunter/gatherer" ordeal, so you're not quite ready to choose a meal to cook and prepare it. In fact, there are so many god-damned options, you are having trouble even deciding what you want to eat. So you put it off. Cooking takes so much time...GOSH!

You eat a banana before bed.

Stage 2: Grocery supply begins to dwindle.

All of the really good meals have been cooked and eaten. The healthy stuff is still ok to eat, but it's now or never. The problem is that you aren't necessarily craving any of the things you still have left...DEFINITELY not the healthy stuff. And going to the grocery store is absolutely NOT an option, because there's still food in the house.

You eat the last box of Mac and Cheese.

Stage 3: Groceries are gone

There are no more complete meals left. The once-fresh veggies are shriveled and you are too ashamed to throw them away just yet. You're damn sure not going to eat them though. All you have left is half a serving of plain pasta(no sauce), a can of tuna(no bread), some tortillas(no cheese, chicken, salsa, or anything that would be put on a tortilla), and an egg of dubious age. You are completely disheartened and disenfranchised with groceries, so you're not going to the store...besides...it's 9 pm and you haven't eaten dinner yet.

You eat the plain tortillas....and furthermore for the next week or two, you order pizza, fast food, or let your 'opportunivore' instincts from your college days kick in. You will eat anything. After enough time, you somehow muster the strength and courage to visit the grocery store again.

Repeat.

Quick thought....a drive-home metaphor...

This will likely offend somebody, so I guess there's that.

On my drive home I was thinking about old age and dying and what it would be like to look back on your life and think to yourself, "Man, I really did everything I wanted to do and I'm ready to say goodbye and turn out the lights." It was at that point that I wondered if I'd still have that lingering fear of the unknown, of death...and of the so-called "afterlife" that I don't believe in.

Will I fold and choose a "god" to swear allegiance to out of weakness? Out of fear of retribution for not living my life for that particular god's glory? I feel like if I do things the way I plan on doing them, I would honestly be able to look any god in the face at judgement and say "I lived a good life, and I didn't even have to be frightened by the prospect of burning in hell to do it. I just did it because I knew it was the right way to live. I learned to love, to empathize, to explore the world you allegedly created, to help my fellow man, and to do all things as justly and conscientiously as possible."

If that god still decides to condemn me because I did not do all of those things with them in mind, then so be it. But I doubt any supposedly omnipotent god could really punish somebody who was only living the way they were created to live. Unfortunately, not a single religion has a god like this.

Which leads me to my thought of the night. A metaphor for why I think religion is absolutely stupid. Not spirituality, mind you. Religion.

Religion is stupid because it would have us believe that a man could cure cancer, but it wouldn't matter if he was wearing the wrong color lab coat when he did it.

Good night.

Prohibitive advice from popular music...

Don't:
1. Stop thinking about tomorrow
2. Stop believing
3. Stop before you get enough
4. Do me like that
5. Go changin'
6. Go chasin' waterfalls
7. Fear the reaper
8. Forget about me
9. Worry
10. Eat that yellow snow
11. Think twice
12. Turn around
13. Speak
14. Change that number
15. Let the sun go down on me
16. Take my Kodachrome away
17. Try to fade this
18. Stop the beat
19. Leave me hanging on like a yo-yo
20. Let me down

New blog!

I decided to create a 2nd blog dedicated to my athletic stuff. You can find it here.

If you "follow" me here, I hope you'll "follow" me there if you like. I guess I just had an OCD moment and needed some organization. This blog will still exist for the purposes of me writing about silly stuff, of course.

Hope to see all 10 of you on the other blog soon!

Danny

Facts about "Love" according to popular music...

1. It's all you need.
2. It will keep us together.
3. It will tear us apart.
4. It will keep us alive.
5. It is what it must have been, though it is over now.
6. It's a burnin' thing that makes a fiery ring.
7. Foreigner, Stevie Nicks, and Haddaway want to know what it is.
8. When a man does it to a woman, he can't keep his mind on nothin' else.
9. Whiiiiiiitney Hooooooouuston will always do it tooooooo yooooooooooooou.
10. Meatloaf would do anything for it, but he won't do that.
11. It stinks.
12. You can't buy it.
13. When I fall in it, it will be forever.
14. Air Supply is all out of it, but makes it out of nothing at all. They are also lost in it.
15. The Black Eyed Peas want to know where it is.
16. Lionel Richie wants to share all of his with you, though his is endless.
17. Bad Company feels like making it.
18. There's nothing wrong with it.
19. You give it a bad name.
20. Strangers in the night ponder the odds that they'll be sharing it before the night is through.

Two years ago...AKA "My New Birthday"

Here I am, coming off of my 2nd ultramarathon...still sore from it, and possibly getting sick as a result of that long, chilly, and physically taxing day. As I was looking back through old blog posts I realized that today is an important day. A year ago, I wrote a post reflecting on how I had started tracking my running mileage on February 18th 2009, so it seems appropriate that I should do the same thing today. Instead of rehash what I wrote last year, I'll let you read it if you want.

Last year, I wrote about how much I had changed, largely as a result of incorporating exercise into my daily life. With each passing day, I appreciate more and more how much this change will forever alter the course of my life. Because an odd truth struck me this week. It may not seem odd to anybody else because nobody else had the chance to grow up as Me. I grew up as just a regular kid...kinda scrawny, awkwardly tall, and not particularly good at any particular sport, but I played the sax. I was skinny and wore extra large shirts, which only enhanced the appearance that I was most certainly NOT an athlete. Not even close.

The odd truth that struck me this week is that I am an athlete. Like I said, people who know me now say "Um....are you joking? Of course you're an athlete. You are an Ironman, an ultramarathoner, a cyclist, and you have aspirations of someday swimming the English Channel. How could that even be a question?" Well, to be honest I have been living in denial about this status for quite awhile. At first, even though I ran all the time, I just called it exercise. When I started completing bigger and bigger races, I just called it that...doing races. At some point, when it should have been clear to me that I had crossed the threshold between casual exerciser to athlete, I simply stopped pondering the issue. I had never really been comfortable defining myself as such, mostly because I liked the idea that I was just an average dude who did stuff that 'seemed' athletic. But I can no longer hide behind that. I am an athlete. I wasn't born one, for sure, but on this day two years ago, I was reborn as one.

And I truly look back on that day as a legitimate rebirth. On February 18 2009, I was born-again and I became a different person. I was completely unaware of it at the time, but that first step out the door for that first out-of-breath, side-cramping, painful run...that was the first step in a long ongoing journey...a journey that I hope continues until the day I die. This new journey is a life that I never would have considered possible for a scrawny kid like myself. On that day, I was depressed, and in somewhat of a rut, and I made a choice to do something about it. I moved proactively rather than living another day passively.

That is why I have decided to change my birthday. It's really not a big deal to anybody anyways...I stopped celebrating my own birthday a few years ago. Not because I have a problem with getting old or anything. I am 30 and proud of it. I simply don't believe in celebrating it anymore. I was born on October 6th 1980. I didn't do anything amazing, I didn't cure a disease, I didn't raise $5000 for a noble cause...I very passively came into existence without any particular effort on my part. If anything, my mother deserves to have attention, cake, and presents because she is the one who battled for hours to give birth to a 10.5 pound Danny that day. This is the problem I have with celebrating myself on a day that I achieved nothing aside from crying, peeing, and pooping for the first time.

On the other hand, February 18 is a day I am legitimately proud of. That is the day I changed my life. That is the day I fixed myself. That is the day I improved myself. Sure I had done races before, but I have to admit that my first half marathon involved me being dragged, kicking and screaming, through the training plan(Thanks Ashley!). This was different. Nobody suggested that I do this. Nobody told me it was a good idea. Nobody else is responsible for the choice I made that day, and therefore I have decided that I will allow myself to celebrate Danny on February 18th from now on.

I'm calling it my new birthday. I don't need or want presents, but if you feel like you'd genuinely want to wish me a happy birthday if you knew what day it was, let's just pretend that it is now February 18th. Tell me congratulations on another year of being active, of being healthy, of being truly and fully ALIVE. If I have ever inspired you to do something that you might not have considered on your own, tell me about it today. If you have me to thank, either fully or partially, for the fact that you now run, cycle, swim, do races, or whatever it is you do...thank me today.

With the establishment of my new birthday, I'd like to now get the statistics out of the way. Since February 18th 2009, the day I started living, I have run 1200 miles(300 on trails), biked 2090 miles, and swam 40 miles. Completed: 4 half marathons, 2 marathons, 2 ultramarathons, 1 Olympic tri, 2 half Ironmans, 1 full Ironman, and countless smaller races in between.

I currently have several friends training for Ironman races. My brother has done 2 half marathons(one of them damn near beating my own PR), one Olympic tri, and is currently training for a 70.3. I have no doubt a full Ironman is in his very near future. My father is registered and training for his first half marathon, which I plan to run with him. And then there are the countless unwitting friends who I have conned into coming trail running or cycling with me. Sorry guys, but this is athletic evangelism, and I intend to convert all of you.

So.....happy birthday to me...it's good to be alive!