The past two months have been hectic to say the least. I've been doing more courses in the university than during the fall, and I also started a new work project which actually turned out to take quite a lot of my time and energy. I'm doing things that are entirely new to me such as detailed project planning and resourcing. Factor in a new relationship and the end result has been an almost complete neglect to my own personal growth, which resulted in a slight depression.

Pohang, South Korea

During these couple of months I've learned something new, though. This is probably the first time ever when I have had so many promising opportunities that I simply can't get involved in all of them. I had to start prioritizing and actually refuse from things which is definitely something that doesn't come naturally to me.

Because of the standstill in my personal growth I have felt that I'm not moving forward, that I'm not evolving, and as a result I felt like I had betrayed myself and wasn't living up to my own standards. I also learned that this blog and my personal growth are very much intertwined. Without new profound realizations and discoveries in my own life it feels like I don't have enough interesting things to write about.

It's great to be able to plow through obstructions and get the job done. And it's good to keep yourself disciplined and on purpose. But if you forget your larger purpose while pursuing the small and endless tasks of daily life, then you have reduced yourself to a machine of picayune... Tasks are important, but no amount of duties adds up to love, freedom, or full consciousness. You cannot do enough, nor can you do the right things, so that you will finally feel complete.

- David Deida: The Way of the Superior Man

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Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

- Matthew 6:34

I am not a religious person. In fact I've been jokingly telling my friends that if I had a religion it would have to be Dudeism, and even that only so I would be able to marry couples. I think that would be cool.

Luckily you don't have to be religious to find wisdom in religious texts, and I think the quote above is a very important one to keep in mind. I am a worrier by nature. If I have many things that need to be done, they start to accumulate in my head and I find it more and more difficult to focus on actually doing them. I become stressful and I feel like I'm not getting anything done, even though in reality I am probably working harder than ever to meet my obligations.

I am good at dealing with stress. Or so it used to say in my CV. I actually thought it was true, but my current situation of working most of the week, dealing with university courses, and trying to keep my other commitments such as writing this blog have proved otherwise. I suck at dealing with stress. Having one or two big things to do is perfectly fine, but when the small ones start to accumulate on top of those, I am in trouble. I find it genuinely difficult to put them in order and deal with them without letting them gain power over me.

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You have finished cleaning the plate of the last bits of ham. You take a sip of your beer, feel your stomach bulging and think: "This is Christmas, it's ok to indulge and eat in excess. Soon it will be next year, and then I will get back in shape. I will start exercising and eating healthy, and by the summer I'll look great when I'm lying on the beach in my swimming trunks and enjoying the sun. Promise."

I wonder how many thousands, or millions of people are making these kinds of New Year's promises: "I will lose 20 pounds", "I will go to the gym 3 times a week", or "I will become a vegetarian". Few weeks into the future and most of them have quit, and most likely also made up reasons and justifications for themselves about why they had to quit. It's always something external, so that one doesn't have to face the reality of being a failure and take responsibility for it.

There are a few reasons why this happens. One is motivation. And I'm not even talking about how to motivate yourself, or what kind of techniques can be used to build up motivation. Most people lose the motivation to make a change because they haven't really thought the whole thing through. They haven't had a long, honest conversation with themselves about what is the current reality of the situation, and why it needs to be changed. The motivation for losing weight is never the actual event of weight loss, and if you don't look deeper, your motivation will be short lived.

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It's been about 6 months since I decided to stop watching news on TV, reading newspapers (except when stealing a glimpse of a headline at the grocery), and following most news sites on the Internet. Back in my high school days I took special pride in reading the morning paper and keeping track on world affairs. But for what purpose? Other than it making me feel smug and superior to those who weren't doing it, I'm not sure I have a good answer.

Photo by just.Luc (just.Censored)

Unless you've been living in a shed, you know as well as any man on the street that the past decade has affected tremendously the availability and amount of information. Even before the Internet, TV and newspapers took care that when something noteworthy happened in the world, it didn't take long for you to get a report. Then came the Internet and the quantity of available information just exploded.

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This calls for celebration! My first ever guest posts can now be found at Balancing Tenderfoot, which is a health and lifestyle blog written by my friend Karla :)

What started as a post about why everyone should do resistance training grew into two separate pieces; one about the health benefits of human growth hormone, and the other about how to do resistance training efficiently in order to stimulate its production, without spending a ton of time in the gym.

While at it, I'd also recommend checking this great post about how self-image can be a burden, and how to improve it. Another one of my favorites on Balancing Tenderfoot is about the physiological effects of being criticized, and what to do in order to lessen the tension caused by negative feedback.

I think this is a good opportunity to also highlight some other blogs that I subscribe to, or otherwise follow regularly. I'll give a brief description about the blog itself and couple of my favorite articles as an example of what you might expect from reading that blog. I tried to pick ones that I feel would be the most interesting to my readers.

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