Weeks 1507 & 1508

There is no good reason why I have so many double post weeks. 

I wish I could say that life was just busy and that’s why I didn’t post anything but the reality is that I just didn’t do it early enough in the day on Sunday and kept forgetting until it was so late in the week that I’m here posting another double week. 

MY GUY! 

If consistency is key, I’m lacking… In some areas. 

I’ve been super consistent getting back into the gym. I’m not sure if it’s the change in daylight or not going to the gym after work but this winter every single day felt like a struggle getting to the gym. 

This was especially true in January when we moved and I switched gyms. 

After deciding to go to the cleaner and… kinda less busy 24 Hour Fitness by me, I’ve been routinely going 6x a week. That sounds like a lot but I’ve found that I really struggle wanting to go to the gym 3x a week. 

The more time constrained I am, the more likely I am to go.

I’ve found that if I can take a bunch of days off, I just want to slide all of them to the front end of the week. Now, Monday is my only day off since I rarely fall asleep on time on Sunday nights and it reduces the Monday morning friction for me. 

I wouldn’t know the above if it wasn’t for trying out a bunch of different approaches. 

I also used to have practically daily workouts in college and found that worked really well for me. Something about sustaining momentum instead of fighting inertia makes a higher volume more sustainable. Well - and it was not optional in college (I got chewed out for not getting assessed by our trainer when I was so sick that walking outside at all caused me to cough until I couldn’t breath). 

Not only has working out in the mornings benefitted me, but my dogs. Truman and Ellie get to go on a walk just about every morning (unless I have to get to work early to take care of stuff I didn’t get done the day before), and they have loved it. 

I feel like I have more time and being tired at the end of the day is not nearly as detrimental to my goals. 

It does get in the way of my Japanese, at times, but I’ve been consistent there as well. 

I’ve been doing Wanikani everyday and cycling Bunpro in. Admittedly, I am more behind on Bunpro than I’d like to be, but I am progressing and recognizing more grammatical structures. 

Quick proof:

I am also finding it much easier to recognize these grammatical structures in anime. 

I’m not sure what’s going on recently, but it’s become significantly easier to parse words and phrases in both shows and audiobooks. This comes with me not increasing my listening inputs significantly but having significantly increased my vocabulary review. 

That’s not to say I haven’t had significant immersion time - I’ve watched MHA at least 3x though, Black Clover 1.5x through, AoT 1.5x through, One Piece 1x through, all of the HP books in Japanese, Demon Slayer 1x through, JJK, Chainsaw Man 2x, HunterxHunter 1x, Sakamoto Days, and many podcasts - all in Japanese but dominantly passively. 

One Piece was the first show I tried to watch after committing to learn Japanese and I will never forget it all sounding like a bunch of gibberish. Now, at the bare minimum, I can understand words or phrases when I’m not paying any attention. 

That doesn’t mean I have any idea what’s going on when I understand those bits and pieces but if I hear joudan, I know a joke likely just happened. 

As I think about the consistency in Japanese and consistency in the gym, I think a lot about where I am and where I am going. I love the idea of being the random 6’9” 250lb shredded white guy that randomly can speak natural Japanese. 

With my neighbor commenting that I look like a runner - I clearly still have quite a way to go… 

While those goals will take me years to achieve, I recognize that there’s still a lot I want to accomplish in life. 

I heard the framing recently of living multiple lives in one life and I found that idea very intriguing. 

In essence, that’s what I am trying to do and what I’m trying to document. 

The lives that you can live with consistent effort. 

I have lots of interests. I love the idea of having perfectly trained dogs and being the one to get them there. Having a beautifully landscaped yard, the perfect basement gym, and a perfect garage where I can work on my cars. Being more well traveled. Getting good at calisthenics (how crazy would it be to see a behemoth of a human whip out a series of hand stand push ups at the gym?). I’d love to write a fantasy novel. I’d love to know how to drift cars (yeah, Tokyo Drift parking garage—wait—mountain pass style—yeah, way cooler). 

I am also not ignorant that all of those skills take time to develop and progress with and I am not capable of doing all of that at once and there’s likely a lot that I won’t accomplish. 

But isn’t it pretty damn cool to try? 

When I say cool, I mean inwardly cool. 

I know what I want and I care about impressing myself, not others.

That said, I still find myself very conscious of judgement from others. It’s annoying, quite honestly. It’s annoying to know that in my own bubble, I’m content as me. But I know that a lot of what I want to accomplish (extrinsically and intrinsically) requires me to put myself in a position to be criticised. 

I don’t mind criticism—especially when it’s constructive—but I can’t stand when it’s harsh. I’m harsh to myself and am well aware when I am lacking so I think I just want to proactively defend myself. 

The problem is, that also destines me to not accomplish everything I want. 

Ultimately, it’s not my job to worry about what others think and I recognize that but it’s so much easier said than done. 

But the only way to break free of that burden is to subject myself to it until I am ultimately numb to it. At least, that’s the path of least resistance that I currently see. 

We’ll get there. 

As for memorable events the last couple of weeks - we looked at the BMW X7 and it was less spacious than I expected, especially in the driver’s seat. 

More of a me problem than anything but I found that interesting. 

We also looked at a Rivian and a handful of other vehicles. The search led me back to the Tahoe/Yukon/Escalade chassis. 

But I hate the idea of becoming a top consumer of gas and have always loved the idea of driving an EV so I think I may just see how long my trusty Outback can hold out before I can get something like the R1S, a Scout, or the iX7 in a few years. 

Who knows, maybe sitting in more cars will shatter my reality again but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. 

If I hold off on the car, I think we’ll end up getting a Tempurpedic since we love them and get everything we need for a solid gym set up. It’d be pretty simple and I think I will model it after Brody Lang/Lang Athletics’ setup. 

His setup is definitely a buy once cry once approach and stylistically matches what I’d be going for as well. 

We’ll see what we decide in time but it’s been fun to entertain at the least.