Category: Health

I’m reading a lot lately…that’s a weird phrase. Lot lately! A lot lately. Huh. Anyway, been reading or seeing a lot of posts or articles lately about the power of journaling, whether it’s morning pages or brain dumps or journaling about your feelings etc etc. The message is – and I should grab some of these articles – but they’re basically screaming from the mountain tops that this is what Marcus Aurelius ( took Google about 20 minutes to load so I could figure out the spelling of that ) and Einstein and God and whoever else. Anyone that is anyone has brain dumped or journaled and implying not so subtly that this is why they’re successful.

Barf.

They’re so many barfs, I’m going to need to brain dump as to clarify where so many of them originate i.e I barf and I want to know: huh? what prompted that barf? and that one? and that one? So, there’s like 8 here, 8 barfs, and I’m barfing over different reasons as to why these types of articles – namely self help click bait – and journaling to be specific in this case – are so horrendous.

I’ve been journaling for years. Years. Decades. As a kid – maybe 8 – I was so mad at a friend I came home and instinctively wrote down on a pad of paper I hate so and so. Or something to that affect. Probably revealing more about my psyche than I should on here – and no, I didn’t grow up to hate people and he’s still a friend of mine today in our 40’s – but it lets one know, I’ve been doing this since before I can remember. It’s fine. It helps. I like it. It’ ok. I do it out of necessity more than anything. And I’m sure it’s helpful.

But let’s not over sell it. I’m not exactly king of the hill success guy over here. I might feel better. It clarifies thought, sometimes. Sometimes it just makes you feel worse. It’s not the end all be all answer.

And that’s the horrendous thing about some of these articles. They put a little too much shine on the outcome.

Write cause you want to. Just don’t expect to turn into Bill Gates or Aristotle as a result.

That’s…serious.  Sounds very heavy.  I agree.  Let me explain.

Some things don’t work our way.  Sometimes we don’t get what we want.  Blah blah blah blah.

But in those times – and I’ve been there – we can wallow.  Feel sorry for ourselves.  Go into a funk.  Get depressed.  Half mast.  Barely try.  Not put one step in front of the other.  Languish.  And lose.

This is fueled by thoughts like ‘I didn’t deserve this’, ‘why can’t anything work out for me’, ‘what is she doing’, ‘does she really love me’, ‘why do I keep doing these things to myself’, ‘trying doesn’t even mater’, ‘I’m too hurt to push through or keep going or work or work out or get going or stay at my desk or make that extra call or call that friend’, etc etc.

This also makes sense.  It’s a story that fits.

I’ve done it before and I know it doesn’t work, so now I’m doing something different.

I was reading a book called North by Scott Jurek detailing his journey of breaking the speed record – running – for the entire Appalachian Trail.  It’s a super gnarly, dark, undulating trail going all the way from somewhere in…Tennessee?  Florida?  I don’t know.  And ending up in Maine.  At the top of some hard, rock infested, wind blown, cold ass mountain.  And during this journey he completely fucks up his knee.  Actually, I think both knees.  I don’t think the medical diagnosis was ‘completely fucked up’ but it was ‘something’ to that affect.  It was something that most likely would keep most people hobbled, walking, but certainly not running, and certainly not running 50+ miles a day, every day, until he completed it a couple months down the road, thousands of miles away.

He had one advantage.  He’s been schooled or knows about his body from the perspective of how a chiropractor or a nurse or even a physical therapist would know about a knee.  He knew what it was.  I’m too lazy to thumb through the book now and tell you what it was – it doesn’t matter – it was something having to do w/ tendons and bones and ligaments.  Hurt like hell, but he knew what it was.

Same goes for a broken heart.  We know what it is.  It doesn’t feel good.  My friend said today ‘how are you doing’ and I said “I’m working through a broken heart’, but the fact is, is that right?  I don’t have an x-ray machine for it.  It doesn’t fucking feel good.  I feel sick sometimes, or that feeling of being on the starter blocks before a swim meet or a running race or before a football game.  Butterflies, sick feeling, longing, regret, missing, hurting.  Fucking hurting.  Wanting and not having.  Fear.  Lots of fear.  Please please please let it work out.  Ok.  So you get the picture.

But I also know these things pass, or mutate and absolve, if not completely, at least to some level that is manageable.

So, like Scott, I’m working through it.  Not working through it like at a therapists office, or in AA or w/ friends or writing.  I’m doing that too.  But…I’m fucking grinding and literally working…on my job, on what needs to be done, through this fucking bullshit.  Fuck it.  I’m not going to be stopped.  In fact, I’m working harder than I ever have, not as an escape, because there is no escaping this.  It’s with me.  I’ve teared up w/ music or without music just sitting here at my desk, working.  But I continue to fucking grind.  And I’ll tell you why.  I won’t be in this same position again.  Ever.  I.  will.  not!  Fuck.  That.  What position is that?  Wherever I’m at now will be better a week from now, a month from now and a year from now.  Why?  Because I’m dedicated to making moves, small, step by step moves, day in and day out, over and over and over again until they don’t fucking want anymore.  And then I’ll continue to do it over and over and over and over again.  Grind.  Work.

Before this heart break I was languishing.  Too many things going on in life (a story I was telling myself).  After this my heart has been broken open, or cracked open, and my story now is…I don’t want to be here in this spot when the next person comes into my life or lo and behold, if she were to fall into my life again.  I’m not waiting.  Fuck.  That.  I’m moving on strong.  I’ll date.  I’ll get out there.  I’ll meet people.  And I’ll work.  Every day will be one good decision after the next.

So the important thing to figure out or read from this I guess is this:  I don’t care how I feel.  If I feel broken hearted, or not feeling like working, or whatever.  I’m doing it anyway.

Sometimes it takes a broken heart to move forward.  And sometimes people use that as an excuse to languish.  I’ve done both.  I won’t do the latter again, not now.  Fuck that.  A fire has been lit.  I will not be caught in this position again.  That doesn’t mean I won’t get my heart broken again.  That doesn’t mean this is the right path to take.  That means this is the story I’ve decided to articulate for myself now, because those other stories – life isn’t fair, why do I do this to myself, things don’t work out for me, etc – don’t work.  They keep you down.  So I’ll run w/ a broken foot, twisted knee or a broken heart.  Fuck it.

It’s frustrating when you walk into the bathroom of, let’s say, a Chipotle ( below, last night, 9/5/18 ) or Starbucks or McDonald’s – companies that should know better – and boom, just filth.  Totally dirty.  Employees not…caring?  It’s not even the employees fault.  This comes from much higher up.  To me this is a cultural thing.  Especially with Chipotle’s recent storms of food safety, its shocking they aren’t just totally on it.  The floors are dirty and disgusting, paper all over the place.  You can tell no one’s cleaned this bathroom for hours and who knows the last time floors were cleaned.

This isn’t easy.  How do you clean floors during business hours?  I don’t know, but you figure it out.  Certainly the paper thing and the over flowing trash can be easily addressed – a quick, once per hour drive through and clean.  And while I was in there, an employee sauntered in, used the rest room and walked out.  No urgency.

I honestly can’t believe this isn’t more of an urgent matter.  And to be honest – it’s such an easy thing to do, to at least try and master.  Who said it – was it thefounder of McDonald’s or some CNBC profile of a master franchiser of McDonald’s ‘back east’…they said the first thing they look at to determine the health and “on it factor” – my phrase, not there’s – of a restaurant or location is to look at their bathrooms.  

This is just a failure.  And they aren’t the only ones.  Starbucks, McDonald’s…etc.   How can this not be a HUGE priority, esp for Chipotle?