Now to get to the points of the day:
1)Thanks to my SONICBOOM alarm clock (Lights, Bed Vibrations and an OBNOXIOUS tone) and a call from the mother of my atheist god daughter, I was up at 5:30am to start my day like a big boy.
2) Got 2 workouts in: The morning- Pushups and abs, The evening-3.5 mile run....pull ups to come later. Gotta get lean and mean!
3) My longest observation of the day:
The title of this blog isn't coincidence, today, amid the crappy weather, I sat in crappy traffic. This didn't bother me today though (perhaps because of delieriem from being up for 3 hours before I started my commute on 4 hrs sleep). WHY!?-you may ask.
Two reasons mainly, first, traffic is stressful. But we need stress in our lives, without it (according to human physiology, not JUST some asshole with a blog) we would die. That's right, without stress, we would die. I don't remember the exact specifications as to why, but I'll poll some of my smarter, former classmates as to why and get back to you on that.
The second reason it didn't bother me is because I am increasingly finding that life is all about balance, a yin and a yang, if you will. We get stressed out doing activities-speaking in public, working out, sitting in traffic, thinking about an upcoming date. We also get very relaxed doing activities-watching TV, smoking, eating comfort foods, having sex.
Both of these factors must be in balance. Too much stress and you have a heartattack, hyperventilate, tear muscles, or are all stinky and sweaty (And no one will find you attractive at that point). Too much relaxation and your muscles atrophy, you get cancer, balloon up to 400 lbs, or get REALLY chaffed.
Several articles I recently read on realsimple.com centered around being happy. Scientists are reevaluating how they study happiness in humans. Two of the conclusions reached are these:
-You can't be happy all the time, happiness is mostly a high we get from doing something, and like anything else you can get a high from, you can gain a tolerance to.....so be happy responsibly and in moderation. It follows a fundamental tenent of childhood: Too much of a good thing ceases to be a good thing (Drink a glass of whuskey, then drink a BOTTLE of whiskey and see how happy you are).
-Happiness also follows a yin/yang pattern that is echoed throughout life. Nothing tastes sweet without something tasting bitter, you never know your true love until you've dealt with your un-true loves, people in Hawaii who live in a paradise, are typically miserable because they fail to appreciate the beauty of their surroundings-because they don't deal with 8 degree winters. The point I'm making is that without being miserable at some point or another, you will never know when you are really happy. I.E. When I sit in traffic for eons, cursing the 90 year old Asian woman driving the SUV while talking on her cell phone and failing to recognize that a solid merging line means you should have merged 100 feet ago, not pull a left turn into the express lanes right when the median is on top of you (and more importantly ME), it will just give me that much more reason to smile when I am pulling 70mph and get home in 40 minutes that afternoon.
Hopefully some of that made sense. Work hard, play hard people. If it's good enough for Hugh Heffner, it's good enough for me.
Speaking of a man to epitomize all men, (or at least the dreams of all men-800 years old and still sleeping with co-eds=MAN DREAM, brought to you robot technology and Viagra) that brings me to something I am going to try and do everyday, "Classic Man of the Day."
This man can be real or fictional, doesn't really matter. He brings some facet of what all men (and by all men, I mean myself-again, deal with it) strive to be in one way or another.
So without further delay, today's "Classic Man of the Day":
That's right, Paul Bunyan! American Folk Hero Extraordinaire! He was a classic man, if ever there was one! Legend has it Bunyan created the Great Lakes, the Grand Canyon, and being a great lumber jack in general. He helped other men with their troubles in business, was humble, intelligent, but didn't take shit off anyone.
That's about all I have for the day. On the topic of stress/relaxation balance, I still have more work to do for tomorrow relating to my J-O-B. I hope you learned something and maybe laughed a bit too.
Until tomorrow, Fair winds and following seas.....
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