Writing is not hard. Not writing is hard. The past couple weeks have been doozies. It's been a mixture of moving, wrestling tournaments, getting the house ready for shows, preparing the kids, getting ready to move a business, a bout of good ole gout, changing insurance carriers twice, kids changing schools, starting a new position and just plain life. In all of that the goals have been hard to keep. Running on a gouty toe? Not fun, not even a little bit. I still did it on one occasion as I tackled what I assume is one of the steepest hills I think I have ever tried to run up in my life. I was in the army in North Carolina, so I think there have been comparable, although I was 18 and weighed 165 pounds at the time. Writing has been sporadic as well, a couple days during the weekend that a page didn't get put down as we were out of town and we were focusing on the kids having a nice time before the final move.Still in the back of my head I was composing and working some things out in between swimming pools, Discovery Centers, acute care, and wrestling matches. The Acute Care was for the toe again, everybody else in the family is fine. Nobody drowned or was hurt in a wrestling match. When you have so much going on that takes you away from your other goals it is very easy to fall back and listen to the time wasters in your head. Don't do it. Get back on those goals as soon as you can. Of course this is said by the guy who has been working on this specific blog for a couple weeks and is rewriting it in hopes of salvaging it.

Aging can be tough. It is the fighting of the midlife crises, all the goals, little to gigantic, that slipped through with the erosion of personal time and perceived responsibilities. The whole figuring out if you wasted the first 30-40 years or not(For the record, I don't think I did. i just didn't use them to maximum effect). The big deal is what do you do with the next 40? I often wonder at what point our internal mechanisms lock up the autopilot and we just say "I'm cruising for the exit signs! I can make it from here!" I was just about there in my own head, but there was a tingle in the back of it that said, "I'm not going to let you do this to us!" And there came the lack of satisfaction in the way I was handling life from family to career. Because in my head(I don't say heart, that's just an organ for pumping blood.)I knew I could do more, but at what I want to do. That's what is important.
I'm sure a lot of people don't feel they can change. That they have the weight of the world on their shoulders and there is no way out, but 65 years old and a social security check. My dad lived that way, it was a harsh self-torture of booze and hopelessness. Not recommended.

 There are a lot people who know how lucky they are living their dreams. True story: not all dreams are the same. Don't let anyone talk you out of your own. Every dream if pursued with passion, intent, and purpose can be achieved. It's as simple as that. The people that do that are the people that inspire me. Here's a tidbit, those people didn't "get lucky" they made those things happen for themselves by directing their focus and energy into making those things happen.

I recently posted a meme on my facebook wall. This should be news as I detest memes for the most part, I usually find them vague and too much fluff to hide behind. Sometimes I think people use them as shields and "cyberwalls" as we fakebook through to the next post about what we are having for a noon meal. This meme spoke to me, mostly because it was a said by one of my favorite people in the entertainment industry. The quote goes like this: "No such thing as spare time. No such thing as free time. No such thing as down time. All you got is life time. Go." The man who said this is Henry Rollins. He has been around for decades in music or spoken word. If you've ever followed his music or his poetry or his interviews, that guy believes it. Intensity doesn't even begin to cover his demeanor and go at it attitude. I hadn't thought about him in a while and when I saw that meme. It just blew me away. It's entirely true. If I truly live in the present and try to make sure I am moving forward and building the life I desire. I don't have a second to spare. If I am thinking, better be thinking about improving myself. Every second on the couch not spent with my kids is another second spent manufacturing my own Cat's in the Cradle. Every second you read this blog is another second you don't spend with your wife, your family, your friends, your goals. Tricky, for me, because of course I want you to be reading this blog. Hopefully, you are using it to help yourself, or at the very least discredit what I am doing under your breath from the personal discomfort I am causing you. The goal is to use every moment to fulfill the life you wish to create. There are no wrong answers of course, it's all individualistic. If at the end of the day I really threw 100% of myself at every situation, then I can't be unhappy with the result. I did all I could. However, if I hold back, if I tell myself "I can't" or "I didn't" or "That wouldn't work", then I've self-sabotaged my own goals. Everyone knows when they do this, admitting it is another story. If I do that, why set out to do anything at all. Use your life time wisely. Tricky thing is you spend some of that life time every second.  No refunds.

The hectic panic of trying to strive through life at a 100% is challenging to say the least. You set goals, you manage your kids, your job, your relationships. You still have to find time for your dreams in there somehow. There is interesting viewpoints on living at 100% from all facets of life. Slow down, enjoy life or life's too short, you got to keep on moving! If that is not clear enough: Part of life wants you to sit with a Corona on a beach, part of life wants you to be Bud Light and play ping pong against Arnold Schwarzenegger! The good news is either way gets you a beer in the end. Goal accomplished! Do you see where these mindsets can butt heads pretty quickly in my internal monologues? At the suggestion of one of my friends, I started reading a book to help me learn to try and not cram so much writing into one day with instant expectations that I will publish after a year, as well as it takes time to craft a book/story/manuscript. (Unless you're Stephen King. He has made some sort of deal with something Unholy and wakes up with a manuscript under his pillow every 3 months. That's strictly my opinion with no real proof of Mr. King's unholy deals.). To really slow it down, rather than just stream words onto a page and hope it sticks. The different methods various writers use to arrive at the end of their stories. All are varied as snowflakes. There is no one way to do it. I guess I kind of knew that. Internally I am taking it that the difference between a decent writer, a good writer, and a phenomenal writer is the extra time taken on working on their books. In short the book is telling me to find my own time to write and how to write. The most interesting part of the book is to do an experiment where I take an average day and put all the things into various time slots. Then see how that scheduled day fills up. This exercise would work for anybody really. If done mentally, that schedule fills up pretty fast for any of us. Work, kids, kids' activities, friends, family-time, Spouse-time(or significant other for you non-committal types), hobbies, exercise and of course personal dreams. That's a lot. It's easy to see why so many dreams or even hobbies fall to the wayside. I also see why parents try to get their kids to enjoy the same hobbies and activities. Which there is nothing wrong with that in the least. Schedule-wise if we all enjoy the same activities, it frees up a lot of other time and I think we bond better as people.

Living in the 100% doesn't mean you have to take every thing that is thrown at you and say "yes". It means accepting the things you want to do and putting all of your effort into them. If you choose to do it, do it. It's O.K. not to want to do everything. It's giving your all to the things you have CHOSEN to do. If you are going to be in a relationship with someone, be in that relationship. Schedule time for that relationship and be present in it. My wife and I figured out the other day(well, we probably always noticed it) that she'll sit in her chair and I on the couch when we have our At-Home-Date-Nights and watch our DVR'ed shows(The Blacklist, Modern Family and Parenthood should always be part of your 100%). Mostly this puts a nice side table between us that we each use for snacks and beverages. Is that 100%? How dumb is that? The whole time past the age of 12 I wished there would be a hot girl sitting next to me. Now, I have one right in the house, and we sit in two different spots because we need a place to put the cheese and crackers. Silly. The new rule is we sit next to each other, and of course the dog will not leave us alone. So, she sits with us as well, like our own chaperone, obviously she is just trying to get her paws on the snacks. There isn't anything wrong with some new rules to break up habits we fall into as people. Sometimes spontaneity needs a kick in the pants with some ground rules.

How did this come to be an issue for me? Last night we(once again "We" means my wife and I) started brainstorming all the things we wanted to do once our family relocation was complete. Eat better, drop a bunch of the processed foods, go on family walks, date nights out, etc, etc. That list can build pretty quickly. I understand we didn't need to do all those things and it was just brainstorming. In my head though, it was conflicting with the book I was reading about limiting your commitments in order to make time for writing. Not finding time, MAKING time. A big difference when you think about it. I would say I started to shut down about it after a bit. I was seeing my dream being pushed to the wayside. My internal daily planner was filling up rather quickly and I found I didn't want to suggest anything because my goal is to write, but my family, my wife all take the 100% as well, because without them what is the point anyways? This doesn't mean I don't want any part of those ideas. It just was a little overwhelming to think of all that being implemented, when I have suppressed a personal dream of my own for so long.

Instead of shutting down, I should have kept going and then offered the solution I had been reading about. We should have mocked up the previously mentioned personal schedule with all the items we absolutely want/need to do. Then insert the new ideas/tasks/dreams in to the same schedule, in short find a place and time for them. I'm not usually a draw-out-a-plan-guy-for-my-personal-life, but I'm getting there(I don't think I shocked anybody with that bit of information). However, I like the idea of actually penciling in what a day looks like. It's not set in stone, but it can show us what we do or do not have time to accomplish. Maybe, list things as being part of the 100%, generally things you can not do with out: family, work, a goal. The insert the ideas we may not be sure about, but it's always something we have wanted to try. Stressing to make sure we have the tasks in our schedule that we normally do no matter what. For instance personally, I always like to have some screw around time, especially as a person who likes stories. So, yes T.V., music, and reading are important to me, as they do lend inspiration. It's also always nice to sit and think for a half hour about nothing and everything(I believe people call this meditation, but I'm not that deep). I need to put those in a timeframe and when I would normally do them. After all that is done look for actual win-win situations that actually may free up time: Go for a walk with family, maybe that could count as exercise as well for the day. Get to exercise and get to spend time with family. Win-win.  T.V. time can be part of Stay-at-Home Date-Night. It's all good. After it's all done and penciled in look at it together. Can we scale it back? Or do we see we have plenty of time on other days to accomplish/do things left on our brainstorming list?

I find that everything we really want to do can fit into a schedule with my family. As long as we talk it out and communicate and work towards our win-win solutions.  Everybody loves puzzles and making things fit.We are on the same team, working on the same schedule balancing puzzle. It's not such a bad idea to put that 100% effort into the puzzle that constitutes our daily life.

(Once again. I am not a life coach, what may work for my family may not work for some. If you feel you need a life coach please get one. I am for hire. Currently my advice is free, mostly because I haven't found anyone willing to pay me for it yet. I would also like to thank everybody that supported this blog by reading and sharing it. Between this site and the first one around 2000 people have visited it, no confirmation for sure if they actually read it. Anyways I feel that is a win-win and makes me feel pretty good about my efforts as well as gives me lots of practice writing non-fiction. I also apologize if Mr. King or Mr. Schwarzenegger are offended in any way. I would love to play ping pong with the Governator. I also would love to have as many published works and movies as Mr. King, except for Graveyard Shift. I still want my money $4 back from that awful movie. Thank you!)