Journey

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson once considered himself to be a failure. He played football in college, and his dream was to become a professional football player. He entered the draft, but he was never picked. He pursued his dream by joining a Canadian league but was cut. In some of his inspirational speeches he talks about how he had no career and $7 in his pocket. Today, he is estimated to be worth a net of $280 million. "The Rock" was considered to be one of the most successful wrestlers in his era, but he left that career to pursue another passion to become a prosperous actor and producer. While I am not personally interested in professional wrestling or the majority of the movies Dwayne Johnson has been a part of, I admire his drive to change his life.  One of the things Dwayne Johnson talks about is that success and failure are not sudden moments in our lives. He says that we move in the direction of success or failure with each step we take, each second that ...

Almost exactly one month ago I made a plan to kill myself. I had the means necessary and had every intention of carrying that plan out. I knew the details of how effective the method usually is, how long it takes, and what the pain factor would be. I knew about how long it would be before someone would look for me. I was ready. At one o'clock in the morning I received two text messages from someone. I had sent that person a couple texts the day before but wasn't sure if they all went through. So, either one of them went through late, or the person's response came through late. Either way, when I woke up that morning at 5:25 AM, the morning I planned to commit suicide, I had two text messages from someone checking in on me. I read them but did not really process fully what they said. About 5 minutes before carrying out my plan I checked my phone. The text messages happened to still be open on my screen. I read them. "Ride the wave. The intensity will pass. Anything ...

Depression has often been talked about as though it is a dark cloud hanging over your head. The commercial I remember best was a Zoloft commercial many years ago. I perceive this cloud as preventing me from seeing the blue sky and sun, but it is not the only cloud I experience in my life relative to depression and suicide. There are several types of clouds. They may be light and wispy, thick but spaced, large and looming, or a complete covering. In my own life I have found that thinking about where I am in terms of clouds helps me determine the level of severity in my depression and suicidality. It has been a little over 15 months since my last hospitalization. I started my month-long stay in a local hospital, and I was transferred to a highly specialized facility in Washington, D.C. Things were pretty grim back then. I struggled in many ways to keep myself alive when I had no desire to live. At that time I was experiencing some dense, heavy and overwhelming clouds. I have accepte...

As I have mentioned before, I joined a gym in March of this year. It was a step toward making myself a better person. Sure, I wanted to lose weight, get fit, and build lean muscle, but more importantly I wanted to improve my emotional well-being and work toward becoming mentally tough like I used to be. It's not that I do not have mental toughness now, but I do not remember using the phrase "I can't" very often when I was younger. In the past 5 months I have accomplished much more than I anticipated. I am faster, stronger, thinner, more persistent, and mostly fearless when it comes to workouts. More importantly, sometimes I say that I cannot do something, but I suck it up and try. More often than not I am actually capable of doing what I did not think I could do. When I cannot do something I wish I could do I get frustrated, but it makes me want to work harder. Today I attempted to row 2000 meters in 7 minutes. I was not able to do it, but I plan on getting there. I k...

Back in the summer of 2014 several families in my neighborhood had a yard sale. I will never forget walking outside to help out with a 1.5 quart mixing bowl filled with Froot Loops with Marshmallows and eating the entire thing. It was pure bliss. When I graduated from high school (2000) I weighed about 135 pounds. In 20I4 I weighed the exact same. My body had a set point that maintained no matter what I ate, how much I ate, or how active I was (though I have always been pretty active). In 2015 life became stressful, and I had several maladaptive ways of dealing with it. One of those maladaptive coping mechanisms went as follows: 1. Get up in the morning and immediately work out for around 1.5 to 2 hours, skipping breakfast. This included an intensive abdominal workout, leg workout, and cardio exercises as well as a weightlifting routine. 2. Around noon I would go outside and work on building rock walls (lifting heavy rocks) for 2 to 3 hours at a time. 3. I would sit down outside wi...

In late December 2018 I talked with my brother about New Year's Resolutions vs. INTENTIONS. A resolution is something that can be broken, and honestly, it usually is. Think of all of the people you know who set an intention to work out, get into shape, or lose weight in January and keep it up for three months only to go back to eating fast food and drinking a few beers every night (this may be the reason I did not start at the gym until March). An intention is something to strive for. Someone I value described it as pointing to the moon or the North Star and heading in that direction without worrying so much about actually being there in the end. It is more about the journey, the process. It is about doing the best you can in the moment and getting better each step you take.  As many of you know, my intention for this year is to be kind to myself. Kindness has always been something I look for in others while also striving to be kind, no matter who the person is or what the sit...

Starting when I was young everything had to be done in the go hard, do NOT quit mentality. When young, the main areas of life where this showed up for me were academics and sports. I would study for hours. It wasn't always about getting the A, 100%, it was about obtaining as much knowledge as possible. Even now, I rarely read a book that does not impart massive amounts of knowledge on me. In sports I would run, HARD. It wasn't always about a medal or being first place. It was about beating my time; racing myself. Figuring out what my best could be. Playing soccer was the same. Score a goal, run faster down the field than my opponent, faster than the last time I ran down the field, bicycle kick a throw in because I could and SHOULD. There were so many things to focus on at once. I have previously discussed my all or nothing thinking and need to be perfect. This is such a high standard. What exactly is perfect? Especially when gaining knowledge or at the gym. I cannot know ev...