<WRITTEN MAY 21 2012>
Friends and family, I want to share a lesson (more accurately a perspective shift) that it has taken all of my 37 years on this pale blue dot to come to. Moreover, this message comes not from a desire to allow all of you to bask in the majesty of my brilliance (j/k) but rather a true desire to help anyone who might feel lost, or at odds with the disparity between who you are and who you want to be. And no this isn’t a religious awakening…so don’t ask. :p I want to share with you a journey I started January 1 (and all the while beg your forgiveness for the cliché of New Year’s Resolutions…but in fairness, said epiphany didn’t really happen until March so it feels a little less campy). But I should back up just a little. I have spent a number of years significantly at odds with the man I was. My attitude, my spirit, and my body were…well broken is the most accurate description I can think of without swearing. I think, and am ashamed to admit, that the final months of 2011 my misery pushed me to the point of giving up. And I kind of did. Thankfully a strand of fight remained. As I rang in the New Year, I was 255 lbs., a prisoner in my own body and mind, and as the ball dropped, I knew change was coming. For better or worse, I was going to change in ’12, and thankfully the direction I went was positive, even if the goal didn’t become clear until recently. For anyone who hasn’t been 50% of my entire healthy weight over said healthy point, it is hard to imagine how oppressive EVERYTHING is. I couldn’t stand from a sitting position without help from my arms. I couldn’t sit up laying on my back (roll over to get up…seriously?). Walking a flight of stairs was a trial. And as a metaphor, the line between my body and mind was the Gaza Strip. Two warring factions, locked in mutual hatred and a stubborn refusal to give into the other guy scarred my psyche…and everyone suffered. So the journey of a thousand miles began with a step, specifically a step to “anywhere but here”, and since the preceding months direction was taking me closer to “anywhere but happy”, why not turn around and go the other way? Not sure if I actually hit bottom, but there were three orangutans down there playing blackjack, and one was hitting on 19 with the dealer showing 7. So my master plan started with recognizing that I would never be happy at this weight, and if the change was going to be positive, that was the first thing that had to go. Not that the visual image of my weight over the last decade hasn’t resembled a yo-yo but hey, even temporary relief (all I could hope for at the time) was better than what was. So I started dieting. Again. And outside of an irrational desire to maim any Pizza Hut delivery guys I saw, I started out strong. <insert applause here> The weight started dropping, and outside of a few reversals El Camino, North Coast Brewery, Del Taco, Round Table, North Coast Brewery, North Coast Brewery, Nort….well you get the point. Week after week, some modest victories, some big ones, some disappointments, and a few profanity laced tirades at that lying piece of….metal, in the shape of a scale I started feeling better. Not, good…but less oppressed. Yay!!!! Progress!!!! But my victories were really tempered by my long running negative state of mind, and perception of myself. So, long story short my favorite PhD turned me on to this really cool stuff. It’s called Prozac. Ahhhhhh, you’re thinking. “I hope this epiphany isn’t just happy pills”, and I can assure you while they were a catalyst, they are a crutch…not a prosthetic. They’re my Nicoderm. It is my support until new (healthy) habits become the routine. Or, that’s the plan at least. One step at a time, how quaint. Life lessons via Hallmark worthy quips. Yeah, I wish there was a more sophisticated way to express that, but …
"Hey, just because it's a theme song don't make it not true. " – Kirk Lazarus
Anyway, something changed inside me. Two decades of obsessively destructive impulses to anger over even trivial things, was met with this weird sensation. People have LONG told me that I couldn’t choose to never be aggravated, but I could choose how to react. Brace yourselves boys and girls, because here comes the punch line. I could CHOOSE how to react. Those decades that choice was instinctual and involuntary. But I chose every single angry reaction none the less. I chose to take a trivial nuisance and let it fester. I chose them all before they happened by not believing that I could choose. Succinctly, tell yourself something is impossible, and let me know if there is any chance you can do it. And the words “You can CHOOSE your reaction” while uttered by many and as true as any words ever said to me, were unintelligible. Such a simple message, and yet infinitely complex. But what really changed wasn’t the words, or the message. Suddenly I possessed a translator. Suddenly I realized that by accepting the broad concept that this wasn’t impossible I started seeing the choice. And yes, I’m Neo. Woot woot!! And so my journey reached February(ish). Epiphany stage one achieved. The door to choice is ajar. Sure looks pretty in there. It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that I actually opened it a little more though. Did my Prozac dosage get upped? Well yeah…but I swear, this isn’t the drugs. But that period in between was exactly what I needed. I wasn’t ready for the door to open yet. Any enlightenment would have felt artificial and I would have rejected it. As weird as it sounds that transition where my instinct to anger still welled in me, but I felt that I chose to be angry. Consciously. Very subtle difference, but this leg was about accepting that there was a choice, even if I still tended to choose poorly. And what started as an inkling of a fundamental shift in my perception was like seeing an iceberg. All I saw was the tip at first, but I just dunked my head under. I don’t know that I’ve grasped just how big this thing is, but I just know it’s bigger than I ever imagined. So as I grappled with the concept of choice I became acutely aware that a greater understanding awaited me, and realizing that my chemical romance was the catalyst I asked to double up, got the okay, and I started pushing on that door. But it didn’t move. So I pushed harder. Then in a flash it hit me. The light switch went off. I was touring the plant, and came across a scattering of discarded parts that someone had just left. Some lazy SOB decided that his time was so precious that discarding his crap meant it wasn’t his problem anymore.
“Screw you guys…I’m going home” – Eric Cartman
The anger flared. December 31, 2011 this would have been the catalyst that started the spin that ended with me spun into a frenzy cursing everyone and everything until I got home. Where I could finally direct my anger at a constructive receptacle or two. Namely my wife and cats. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But this wasn’t December. It wasn’t even April. This was yesterday. So yeah, the anger flared. The CHOICE popped up, and I laughed. The most campy Hollywood overacted laugh of my life, but it was pure. This slight. This nuisance. This inconsiderate act. It was perfect. It was decades of angst and anger. Countless perception trumping reality moments. Years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds of hate and anger focused on an instant in time. And there it was. Laid plain. A careless act that was invisible a second before and invisible a second after stood there and looked at me. Time stopped and I became aware. Suddenly this insignificant moment in my life stood face to face with my healthy and beautiful son, my parents, my loves, family, friends, and health. And as time rolled again, that trivial moment that would have been the world to me shrank and I saw all of you. And there amongst the masses of people who have been positive forces in my life was the real me. The fighter. Happy. At peace. I looked at that moment, to that giant who couldn’t be conquered. The impossible CHOICE that I could never see past. This tiny, insignificant demon that haunted me and enslaved my mind standing there between me and what I have been yearning for. So I laughed. Really? You? You have held me back all this time? Teeny, tiny, trivial, pointless, you. And that my friends is where I am. Savoring the realization that there is a happy place, and nothing is holding me back but the CHOICE to ignore the insignificant, and just walk on by and never think of it again. Hopefully soon, I’ll get used to the irony that the impediment to my happiness has in fact been the inability to grasp the impediment to my happiness. In the mean time, if there was a stock to buy based on the future usage of hearty belly laughs at things that shouldn’t be funny at all…I’m selling my Facebook stock and going all in on this. And if laughter is the best medicine, Glaxo is in trouble.
So there it is. 142 days into 2012, and today my friend the scale said 210lbs. 45 pounds gone. My journey from man who couldn’t even see the door, to the man who has opened it 2 inches. I never said it was “Mission Accomplished”…but then again, in the right context “Mission Accomplished” can also mean maybe in a few years we’ll finish the mission. If so. Mission Accomplished!!!!!!!! <cheers wash over the crowd>
Right, sorry about that. Awash in the aura I forgot that this message isn’t about me. It’s about YOU. The time has come to separate you into three categories. The good, the bad, and the u…. Nope, wrong three. Apologies. Group one are the people who understands everything above. It makes sense, almost like “Duh? Doesn’t everyone feel that way?” Group two are the “tweeners”. You know that your perception can dictate or facilitate a CHOICE, but you can’t grasp it, or at least you’re still learning to really get it. Group three are the Jim circa 2011’s. You’re still reading because you love me <blushes> but you can’t see how what I’m saying is any different than the millions of other “deep thoughts” that sound great, but aren’t real. Here’s what I’m asking of you. Awwwwwww…there’s homework? BOOOOOOOOOO
Group 1 – I love you all, and knowing that your “normal” is my epiphany just makes me smile.
Group 2 – If you see the door, believe in it. If you can touch it and know it’s real, open it. If it’s already opening, keep pushing. I’m right there with you. You’re worth it. And I love you all too.
Group 3 – My greatest fear in this is that anyone reached my critical point and actually gave up. I hope above all else here that every one of you still reading blazed through the previous sentence and said “Not me”. If you did identify with it, I hope that you too have the thread connecting you to hope and can find it in yourself to open yourself to hope again. But if you were like me. You read motivational threads. You connected to something. It resonated with you, but you can’t own it. It feels impossible. I’ll say only this. Impossible is just a word. It is a construct that gets us all off the hook from trying. There are two victories to be had. One is the fight. Saying it’s not impossible means you’re worth the fight. And you are. Every last one of you. The second one is when whatever life altering realization you have changes you. And the latter won’t come without the former. So you. My skeptics. Those to whom this letter is really directed. If you’re still reading, I assume that you either want to understand, or you’re REALLY bored. Just know that I fought against that impossible concept for years. For decades. IT CAN BE BEATEN. And those words mean nothing until you decide to prove to yourself that you’re worth trying for. But these words do. I love you. Believe that if nothing else. If you’re reading this, it’s because you had an impact on my life, and I hope that I can return the favor.
