Focus

There’s no way to write this sentence and have it come off the way I intend (i.e. without seeming arrogant), so here goes:

I’m pretty good at a lot of things—most things, in fact.

Before you roll your eyes or simply close your browser, never to read my egocentric musings again, note that I said “pretty good”. That’s a nebulously low bar to hurdle, is it not?

My point is that I am blessed with the ability to obtain new skills and knowledge easily. I’m not sure why this is, but I think it’s that my mind is adept at seeing patterns and moving toward efficiency. In other words, I can usually figure out what’s working and what isn’t, which means I “pick things up” sooner than most.

I am also cursed with becoming bored remarkably quickly, which means I lose focus WAY before I ever master anything. This frustrates me in retrospect, but I guess it doesn’t frustrate me enough to just immerse myself in something to see if maybe I could be great at something. Before I ever get to that point, something else piques my interest and I’m running off in its general direction.

It’s happened since I was a kid. Whether it was baseball or band, I’ve never had the innate focus, drive, and discipline required to take myself to that next level. Sure, I could have spent an hour a day doing rotator cuff exercises or doing scales and arpeggios in obscure keys on my trumpet, but there are too many other new things to try, right?

I’ve done some major agonizing over this. Is this a personality flaw on my part? Seriously, is there something wrong with me? Am I just so captivated by new stimuli that I will always chase the new experience instead of taking a deeper look at a familiar one?

I envy those whose path is clear.

Automaton (Doot Doo, Doo-Doo-Doo)

I’ve never enjoyed working out. It’s monotonous, inconvenient, time-consuming, and is a rather boring way to spend one’s time. I understand the benefits—really, I do—but they’ve never been enough to keep me coming back for more than, say, 6 months at a time.

For reasons beyond the scope of this post, my energy level had dwindled pretty significantly over the past couple of years. This led me to join a gym several months ago. At first, I was a bit lax about attending—usually about twice a week while keeping my diet the same. Strangely, I started to gain weight. I had maintained the same poundage for over 3 years, and now that I was moving around my weight was creeping up. I know what you’re thinking—maybe I gained muscle—but the amount isn’t really feasible given the amount of weight gain and what I was doing in the gym.

To nip it in the bud, I decided to go to the gym five straight days and make sure I didn’t eat/drink anything questionable. The next week was almost as strict. This required discipline, mostly on the diet end of things. Beer and food taste good, you may have heard.

I lost about 7 pounds. In two weeks. It wasn’t really all that hard.

This scares me, because now I am left with a classic angel/devil dilemma.

On one hand, I am curious to see just how far I can push my body, given proper work/fuel/discipline. I’ve always been reasonably athletic, but I’ve never really just pushed the holy hell out of myself. What might be the results? Do I owe it to myself?

On the other, why don’t I eat and drink whatever I want, since I can easily drop the weight if it starts to creep up?