Fear

As I am about to embark on what promises to be a lifelong journey into my personal goals, I feel I need to pause and assess the fears that have been cropping up on the outskirts of my mind. What better time than Halloween to air out the scary skeletons in my closet?

Fear of Failure

I am afraid of failing at something I have worked at with honest and concentrated effort. This is why I hold back a lot in my life. I am blessed in that most of the things I attempt half-heartedly seem to work out for the best. Few projects I've worked on have met my high expectations, but there are few that I have given my full energy and dedication. If I don't put my all into a project, and it falls short of my hopes, I never feel too bad because I always know I can do better work if I really put my mind to it. But how can I know if I never do? This is my time to find out.

I want to have a better sense of who I am and what I am capable of by the time I am 30, and I have under three years to accomplish that goal. Without shooting for the stars—my stars—I will never know who I can be. And if I do fail, I still have two options: I can try again a different way, or I can give up. Giving up without trying is no longer a decision I want to make.

Fear of Success

The coin of judgement has a flip side. Achieving all my goals will make me a different person. I have no idea what person that is. I think I've balanced things out so I'll be able to look back and thank my past self for taking the risks I'm about to undertake. But what if I reach for these goals, reach (or exceed) them, and still feel unhappy and unfulfilled?

If that happens, and three months (or three years) from now I'm still miserable and am not happy about my accomplishments, at least I'll have crossed a whole bunch of options off my list and can keep searching for what will make my life fulfilling and happy. So I guess in this particular case, my fear of success is really a disguised fear of failure. My overall goal is happiness and fulfillment, and it may take a lifetime to meet that goal.

Fear of Loneliness

Largely, this is a journey that I am going to be taking alone, or at least without any direct support from people in my current social/familial network. I'm worried that I'm going to do to reach my own personal goals is going to estrange me from people who matter to me now like my boyfriend and my family. I'm also worried that a lot of friends and people I care about are going to think this is a very selfish or self-involved journey I'm attempting.

I honestly feel I haven't been able to function at the top of my game because of the problems I'm attempting to address. I feel like I owe it to myself and those around me to be the best that I can be, defined by my own compass. If I lose people on my journey, I am sure I will pick up others. And if not, at least I will be able to find some solace in the strength I find along the way.

No More Fear

I banish these fears. And if they ever approach again, I will draw strength from my goals and my vision of a potential future in which I am happy with my appearance, feel strong and athletic, understand and control my sexuality, have a strong relationship, and have made leaps and bounds on my career goals. Once I accomplish these goals and manage to find a center in them, I will be in a better position to help others on their journeys. It's going to be a long road to that point, but if I'm ever going to start, the time is now.

All the best,

j

Treading Water

So I couldn't sleep last night even though I wanted to again. And I didn't do any of the work I needed to do. Luckily none of that bit me in the ass today. The lightning designer on the show is further behind than I am—he couldn't make the space safe for the actors before their rehearsal tonight. We're starting tech tomorrow instead, and I'll be even better prepared then, theoretically. Though in all likelihood I won't be able to focus on that work tonight. My boyfriend has hinted (well, said pretty directly) that he wants to have sex tonight, so I have a feeling I won't get much work done at all.

On the plus side, the director is very happy with how things sound so far, and my system is much better than the lighting system, so it's really a win for me all around today.

Sorry to keep a short entry for this evening, but my head is all fuzzy from hunger and sleep deprivation. I'm honestly just treading water until Halloween is over. I can't wait to get my life back. I have so much planned for it!

All the best,

j

Setting Sexy Goals

I couldn't sleep last night of course. It's something from this Halloween work that I still haven't gotten used to. I cannot wait until I get back on a normal life schedule. I really hate how far from equilibrium work like this takes me I get home and I'm all riled up and just can't turn off my brain to sleep. I know it's going to take me another week or so to get back onto a normal sleep schedule.

I'm starting to think about what I'm going to have to do to stop myself from masturbating so much. I think for my plan to work, a drastic drop in my masturbation is a necessary step. Some of it should stop naturally after this super late night work is done. I should be able to return to a normal sleep schedule, and I know that historically I masturbate less when Wes and I spend more time together.

I think it would be better this time around to do an incentive plan. I want to stop using these social networking sites completely. They're a waste of time, and I need to refocus my energy on my work for the next few months. I'm also hoping to do some significant improvements to my body over the next few months. So my plan right now is to completely quit the hookup sites cold turkey for three months.

So how about this: If I am able to meet my goals as stated with not a single significant stumble, I will get professional pictures taken and post them on my blog, my hookup accounts, and I will open a dudesnude (and possibly bigmuscle) account. And I'll begin to publicize this journey I'm on. If I fail to meet my stated performance goals, but manage to establish and follow my habits, I'll have my boyfriend take the pictures, but I'll still reactivate my hookup accounts. If I just fail to meet either set of goals, I'll have to reevaluate down the road.

I'm gaining more and more confidence in my ability to pull this off. The plan I'm working on is so obviously for my personal improvement that I should have a hard time finding mental tricks to delay my progress. Secondly, the habits I'm trying to form are (for the most part) ones that I've already established in some phase of my life. I've already successfully followed an exercise regimen. And I have in my past practiced the piano religiously, and I've held a meditation routine as well. The new activites (PE and imrpoving my sex life) are things I'm starting to do in reasonable steps, and I'm using them both as replacement activities for masturbation.

I've used the Joe's Goals tracking site in the past to track my progress. Maybe it's time to do so again. I'll be sure to link it into this blog.

I think that's all I have to report on today. Next week I'll focus on setting my three month plan down on here for the record, and then I'll take my baseline pictures for tracking my progress.

I know I don't have many (probably any) readers at this point, but I'm very interested in hearing about what people think about this plan that I'm working on. Comments and questions are always welcome!

All the best,

j

Arousing Fears

Yesterday I had some trouble sleeping in the evening. I got home from work by 3:15 a.m. and had to be up today at 9:30 a.m. so I could make it to the run through I was supposed to attend on time. My goal was to go to bed at 4 a.m., but I got horny again and was still wide awake so ended up tiring myself out with masturbation (again) until around 4:45 a.m. when I was finally tired enough to sleep.

The sad thing is that I didn't want to jack off again at first. I was just out of control horny and knew from experience that it wouldn't go down even if I wanted it to.

The first time I masturbated last night, what really got me rock hard was thinking about how I was hoping to look in the future, and what kind of doors that would open for me. I was on adam4adam looking at all the hot, exclusive sex parties in the Los Angeles area that I would be laughed out of now. Apparently it's a bit of an L.A. phenomenon, and I've even seen some of them billed as celebrity/athlete sex parties. Think the hottest guys in L.A. under one roof. I was imagining how hot it would be to be one of them.

The second time I masturbated, it was after doing some research about skin tightening. I've had this fear for years that no matter how hard I try, I will not be able to lose enough fat to look toned without plastic surgery.

My exercise backstory

Let me explain a bit about how I became the person I am today. When I was very little I was skinny and a picky eater. Apparently all I would eat reliably was cottage cheese. My parents were worried about how thin I was, and over several years trained me to always finish the food on my plate, regardless of whether I was hungry or not. However, they didn't provide me an incredibly healthy diet (I remember a lot of fast food in my youth) and as I got older, especially in my teens, I would sneak a lot of sweets and cookies without them knowing.

I was on swim teams in the winter and summer, and did no exercise in between. I was an average swimmer; usually got second or third place in most of my races, and very rarely placed first. I never made it to the higher levels of competition than the local meets. I was taunted by the other swimmers a lot because I was so different (I was a shy boy who went to a private school, so I didn't know my teammates as well as they knew each other) and was beaten up a lot. Needless to say, when an opportunity to work a job instead of swimming popped up, I took it with little hesitation.

I never really did much else than that. I was forced to play soccer one spring by my dad, who was the stereotypical "yelling father" on the sidelines. I was bad at the sport and was miserable being yelled at the whole time, so my parents never tried to make me do it again.

A turning point in my body image came when I was 13. I was made fun of by one of the swim team members for the rolls of fat around my gut when I sat down. I never really looked at myself as overweight or unattractive until this point. I never spoke to anyone about it, and I was really anxious about it. My release valve for anxiety at this point was overeating, and I honestly never put my weight and my eating habits together. I kept ballooning up over the next four and a half years, peaking at just over 200 lbs of fat before my 18th birthday.

I started losing weight fairly rapidly immediately after coming out. I did nothing to lose the weight, it just started coming off. I came out to myself around April 2000 when I was 200lbs, and by the following November when I came back from college for the first time, I was at 135. I put on no muscle, and my skin was still loose everywhere. I still thought I was fat even though none of my clothes fit anymore. But when I got home and went to a party with many of my former classmates, so many people had no idea who I was. And their new first opinions of me were much more favorable than they were in the past. That hurt me a lot, and it drove home the unfortunate bias towards attractiveness in all areas of life.

I've exercised on and off since then. The month before I met my boyfriend I was in the gym twice a day, cardio in the morning for 30-45 mins and lifting at night for an hour or two. It was really intense, and I toned up quite a bit. After we met, I stopped that intense regiment, and then stopped going at all for well over a year.

While I was unemployed this summer, I started working out again, and really cemented a nice workout routine at the local Y. I saw some slow progress, but after three months I decided I was hooked. I haven't had time to work out a lot this month because of my job, but that's why I'm starting this new plan when my contract ends.

While I'm in the best shape of my life, I'm still not toned the way I want to be. I think the only way for me to get toned, fortunately or unfortunately, will be to add a lot of muscle.

Here's the thing: I want to be hot. I'm sick of looking in the mirror and not liking what I see. Sure, I'm attractive enough, but I want to feel like my body is something nice to look at as well. With all this extra skin, I still feel fat. Lately I've been taking to grabbing a fistful of skin around my waist, legs and ass and stretching it taught to get some sort of idea of what I'll eventually look like.

I've felt like my weight problem is going to be a cross I'll have to bear for my entire life. But the thing I've been trying to wrap my head around is that it doesn't really matter all that much that I used to be fat. I don't look fat in clothes now. And while I'm not the hottest guy out there, what does it matter? Well, even though it matters to me, here's the deal: it's not like I can afford liposuction right now anyway. So I just need to keep moving forward with my fitness plan. Maybe my skin will firm up, maybe it won't. But it definitely won't if I do nothing, and I know my overall health level will improve the more I exercise and eat right. So I'll keep doing the right thing, and if I don't get the results I want after years and years of work, I feel like I deserve the surgery.

I know it's superficial, but is it too much to ask to look at myself in the mirror and like what I see? If so, it's something I'll have to work through over the years to come. However, in working backstage with many mostly naked actors, most of whom are much hotter than I am, I have to say that when analyzed closely, each one has some sort of body flaw. So one of the things I'm going to have to come to terms with is that I will never be 100% happy with how I look; there will always be something I want to improve. And I think that's what will keep me fit for years to come. I need to make this about the journey and not the destination.

All the best,

j

Back to the Present

Yesterday was mostly successful. I had a moment where I acted immaturely toward my boyfriend because he was rude to me, so basically perpetuating the bad karma in that interaction instead of stopping it. I also really wanted to hookup, and really attempted to, but ended up not finding anyone I was interested in who was interested in me and free at the time, so it didn't work out.

I know the desire to hook up will only go away with time and focus. But, like most times in my life when I begin large projects, I want to be at the end and not doing all the work to get to my goal.

This is a large problem for me. I coasted through life for many years without having to study or work very hard at the problems in front of me. When things began to get difficult and time consuming in college and even in grad school, my methods of procrastination worked fine, and I still got good grades and accolades, but I never got as good at the things that I do that I feel I should have.

Now, I don't work on long-term projects very well. If I can't see the results easily, I get discouraged. This isn't to say I never worked hard on long-term projects. I learned the Grieg piano concerto in a minor and played it with the orchestra when I was in undergrad. I practiced it, hard, for at least a year. And yes, I did get very good at playing it, but I never got it to the level I wanted to, which was very discouraging. I did not at the time see and hear the progress I was making. Even now, looking back, I don't see a clear path of improvement in my playing during undergrad that I wanted. I know I didn't dedicate time to practicing that my colleagues did, so that could definitely be the reason. I never set concrete technical goals, only "learn and memorize this song," and that was not motivation enough for me to really dig in to the work.

I've been doing a lot of backstage work lately, and for the most part, I've found it very satisfying. I have clearly defined goals, I accomplish them, and then I'm done. It's the same thing that got me hooked on World of Warcraft: you're presented with goals that gradually get harder, and you complete them in the order that makes sense to you for a usually well-defined reward. There are few questions, and the obstacles are mostly not much more than you can handle. In other words, not like life at all.

So my larger goal with this new life plan is to change the way I work fundamentally. I've defined very clear goals for myself over a long time period, and I can say unequivocally that I do want to accomplish these goals, at least the body goals. The body goals are latent, unstated goals that I have held since puberty; my goal is to become the physical manifestation of the man I have always wanted to be, to the best of my ability.

I think that's why I'm hitting the body goals very hard at the beginning and still letting the creative goals remain fairly undefined except for setting myself up to do good work on the creative projects that are crossing my plate. I'm hoping that if I get my body image in line with what I want it to be, my self-esteem will continue to rise in other areas of my life, provided I'm working on them at the same time.

I guess what I'm experiencing is an overarching uncertainty about the direction I've taken my life. I've overemphasized academic and creative pursuits while not doing anything at all to take care of myself physically or spiritually. I've had waves of this kind of self-neglect since I was in high school.

So looking at my history as something that I can learn from and change for the future, I still have to say that my overall plan is a good one, and I'm fixing things with the right priority (i.e. I'm not working too much on my body while neglecting the rest). So I'm just going to take heart, relax, and go forward.

All the best,

j

Early Difficulties

One of the ways I'm going to make this work is by reporting on my difficulties in the process. I am acknowledging at the top of my pursuits, even before officially starting, that what I am going to undertake is going to be incredibly difficult, especially at the beginning.

My goal is to start this lifetime transformation on November 1st. I'm using this remaining week to fully develop the first three months of my plan so that I can avoid any pitfalls. So recording my temptations and failures and successes at containing those temptations is going to be extremely important to my progress.

Yesterday, I typed up my manifesto for the first part of the day, after doing my morning routine of yoga, physical therapy, and meditation. I ran some errands quickly and then left to go surfing, which I ended up doing for an hour/hour and a half (after being stuck in traffic for just as long). Then I just relaxed at my surfing buddy's place until my boyfriend got off work. I picked him up, from work, and we got home and relaxed for a bit, and started to do some more brainstorming work on our musical. Then we watched the Simpsons for a bit and he went to bed. I "couldn't sleep" again and ended uo staying up until 4 jacking off at least 3 times. But one of the things I jacked off to was thinking about my goals, where I wanted to be as opposed to jacking off simply to the images of other guys. Not that this is better, since I did break a rule.

So, what could I have done better yesterday? Well, I have a bunch of design work that's coming due that I'm not prepared for. I have to load in a system at the Alexandria, and I haven't even acquired all the pieces and parts to do that. I used surfing as my workout for the day, and I did manage to start the day with my morning routine. However, after surfing I pretty much crashed and let the rest of the day fail. But the thing that perpetuated it was the realization that I should never have gone surfing in the first place. I didn't have the time to spend on it, but I did it anyway. I also shouldn't have gone to bed so late, there was no reason, and it set up today for failure as well.

So it seems that, upon examination, my fault for yesterday was a lack of mindfulness. I did not have my obligations for the week clearly in my mind, so when it came to making decisions about how to spend my day, I ignored my obligations and I'm going to pay for it with a lack of focus this weekend.

A lot of this is residual problems from overbooking myself, so this mindfulness is going to have be total awareness of my schedule and obligations to myself and to my work. The reason I'm starting this self-improvement process on November 2nd is that is a day sufficiently far in the future and it's the first day the craziness of this October schedule clears up (I intended to start November 1st, but that day is very packed, and I'll be at Halloween Horror Nights until early in the morning.

So it seems that the most useful thing for me to be doing to finish out this month is to begin practicing mindfulness as it concerns my planning and actions. For instance: be mindful and care enough about myself to make sure I go to bed on time each night, and to make sure I spend the time I need to on my work so I don't go crazy and lose focus later. It's going to be a painful process at first, but when I start moving smoothly after a few weeks, all the things I perceive as sacrifices begin to pay off as strengths.

I'm working on some specific goals going forward, but I think for the next two weeks I'm going to principally focus on sleep and whatever regularity I can manage with my crappy schedule.

All the best,

j

Turning Point

Yesterday feels like a major turning point for my life, and I'm determined to use its momentum to carry me forward. I got really high (arguably the best state of mind to be in when making major life decisions) and set out specific goals for myself to accomplish in each of four areas of my life through the next 23-28 years. Basically, I've decided on the state of being I'd like to exist in when I am twice my current age. The four areas are: mind, body, spirit, and my relationship.

Goal Summary

In general, I've wanted similar things through my entire life, I just haven't acted on them. I've always wanted to be athletic, strong, and more muscular than average. I've always wanted to feel more sexually confident and masculine. I've always wanted to feel like an accomplished musician/composer. And I've always wanted to feel spiritually in tune with my environment so that I am capable of helping others find peace (in hopes that I can find it myself). Part of my recent realization is that these are not overnight goals, these are lifetime goals that will take a lifetime of work and focus to accomplish, but I will have to start now on the ground floor if I am ever able to achieve them.

In planning these goals, I started out imagining where I would like to be by 45 with my body, spirit, career/mind and with Wes, and then worked backward to plan large milestones at 30, 35, 40, and 45. The next step of the plan is to figure out what steps I can take now in each area of my life to accomplish my ultimate goals. So basically every three months I'll be creating three month goals, evaluate my progress, and then changing directions as needed to continue forward.

Body Goals

I have always been ashamed of my body. That is, until recently. You see, I have always been overweight. I have had a roll of fat (baby fat, even) around my stomach, and a bit of a bosom (not pecs). I thought for my entire adult life that this was something I would have to make peace with and live with for the rest of my life. After working out (not even that hard) for three months, and seeing very noticeable progress, my thinking is changing. My body is something I can take control of, and I can get the body I want. So in light of that, I'm shooting for the stars. I want to be big--bodybuilder big. But I also want the core strength, flexibility, and skills to compete in solo athletics like swimming, martial arts, yoga, surfing, rock climbing, etc. So while gaining muscle is going to principally important, I'm making sure to spend a significant amount of time on athletic activities outside bodybuilding/weightlifting.

That being said, here are my ultimate goals, starting with where I am now:

Age	27 (now)	30	35	40	45
Motivation	Pics soon	tomathletic24cgn	bhar031972	SFmuscl	Gman
Weight (lb)	153	160	185	210	225
Bodyfat	16%	8%	8%	10%	10%
Chest (in)	38.5	42	46	48	50
Waist (in)	33.5	30	30	30	30
Arms (in)	13	15	17	19	20
Thigh (in)	21.5	23	26	28	30
Calf (in)	15	16	18	19	20

I realize that my end goals are incredibly ambitious and may not be physically possible giving my frame and genetics. That's fine. The purpose of this is to shoot for ambitious goals in hopes that I will better understand my natural limitations on this journey with the understanding that anything I'm working towards is better than what I would have had otherwise. The end goal is only meant as the proverbial carrot at the end of the stick. Besides, after age 30, I'll have to put on 5 lbs per year to reach my goals, which is within all measures of healthy growth that I've read.

In addition to these concrete weight and muscle goals, I intend to keep up on improving my personal grooming and hygiene. What this means for me is that I will begin grooming body and facial hair regularly, will continue using the skin products I have, and will continue to take care of my teeth, will stop biting my fingernails and ripping off my toenails, etc. Basically, I am intending to make my personal care habits match the level of which I am working to improve my body so I can more fully enjoy my accomplishments.

Sexuality Goals

In many ways, this is tied up into body goals. My theory is that as I continue to build my body, I will become more comfortable in the bedroom. However, my dick is one part of my body I have had a love/hate relationship for the majority of my life, and I intend to focus some of my attention on its care. I recently purchased the eBook Exercising the Penis and intend to follow its recommendations to the letter.

I've already started reading the book, and I've learned enough to realize that I am simply not taking care of my dick or sex drive. I normally do not have morning erections. Almost 100% of the time I climax is due to masturbation. And I masturbate many times per day.

While I have a large dick, especially for my body size, I have always wanted bigger. Natural penis enhancement through exercises has become more and more mainstream as I've grown up, and I'm ready to work towards a bigger dick. From what I gather in Exercising the Penis, I will need to stop masturbating so frequently so my penis has time to recover from the prescribed exercises and grow. Whether or not I reach the size I want to be, the book guarantees a healthier sex life, which is the ultimate goal, after all.

Here's what I'm aiming for with exercising alone:

Age	27 (now)	30	35	40	45
Erect, BP	7.5	9	9.5	10	10
Erect, NBP	6.5				10
Erect, Girth	5.5	6.5	7	7.5	8
Flaccid, BP	6.5
Flaccid, NBP	5.5				8
Flaccid, Girth	4.75				6

I realize that this chart is on the extreme side, but why not? I don't intend to do anything to deform my dick like injections or anything like that, and the gradual growth that I'm hoping for is within line of the possibilities laid out in Exercising the Penis (though admittedly they are on the high end of what is supposed to be possible. Whether or not I reach the ultimate wize of 10x8, I would settle for a rock hard 7.5x6, though I should say I have no plan on discontinuing exercises down the road.

Work/Mind

I have honestly spent more time considering what I want to accomplish with my body by 45, but I have significant work goals I'd like to see pass too. While I've been thinking what I really want is a house job, that doesn't seem to be in the cards for me, and I think I'd honestly be very miserable working for a house when I'd rather be working on my own projects on my own terms.

That being said, here's the rough outline of my goals:

55	Retire to academia
50	Complete my grand masterpiece work and have it tour and perform internationally
45	Get grant(s) to begin work on the grand masterpiece
40	Tour cutting edge theater internationally, begin to lay groundwork for grand masterpiece
35	Have completed and performed 4 musicals.
30	Finish and perform the musical I've started work on with my boyfriend.
27 (now)	One musical is heading toward production in January, the second is in conceptual phases. I'm developing my musical language with my sound design and composing projects.

Again, ambitious. But I have an exit plan; I've always known I'd end up in academia, but I've wanted to accomplish something big in my lifetime before then. Might as well aim for that, and I'm excited to conceive of this grand masterpiece. I already have an inkling of what I want it to be, but a lot of time will pass before I start to cement it into reality. I want to be ready for it.

This is going to take a lot of work, and it's going to require that I buckle down and become the best that I can be in a lot of fields that I have been afraid to participate in fully. Now is the time to start this work and get over the fear of inadequacy that has been holding me back. I starting to realize I'm as talented as I've always feared I'd be, since projects I'm not putting a lot of effort in are meeting acclaim in small circles. I want to really put effort into my work so it can shine on the larger stage.

Spirituality

An aspect of my life that I have let go for a long time is my spirituality. I was raised in the Moravian Church and attended regularly until I left home for college in 2000. I only attended Christmas services until 2005, when I started to study meditation in the Shambhala Buddhism school of thinking. I meditated regularly for about a year before giving it up almost completely. In the past few months I've tried to resume a sitting practice but have had significant pitfalls. Enough of that! Spirituality is principal in my plan for self-development and keeping on track, and I am going to continue to explore the Shambhala tradition.

Here's how I intend to do it:

45	Teach Shambhala classes and lead meditation regularly
40	Complete Shambhala teacher training
35	Complete dathün and warrior training
30	Become active at local meditation center
27 (now)	Start daily meditation practice. Extend mindfulness into my daily life.

Again, this is an ambitious spiritual path, but I am seeing dangers of ego and arrogance with my other pursuits and I am hoping spiritual discovery and practice will continue to make me a humble person who is willing to serve others with my gifts. I am just intending to grow my gifts with this program to better serve others, and to show others what is possible in life.

Life with my boyfriend

Initially, I thought I was complete with my goals when I finished mind, body, and spirit. However, my life has been tied with my boyfriend's, for better or worse. I've been attempting to hook up a lot the past few months, and I haven't found any guys I like who like me who come anywhere close to being a better match than my boyfriend. So even though he's not perfect and he drives me crazy a lot of the time, I'm planning on spending the rest of my life with him. My plans need to reflect that:

50	Help my boyfriend start a nonprofit to take care of abandoned/unwanted Great Danes. (his dream)
45	Buy the property to use for the Great Dane nonprofit.
40	Buy a house/condo together
35	Pay back both his student loans and mine fully
30	Complete our musical collaboration; pay off all our credit debt

Again, fairly ambitious, but I want to make sure we're both taken care of in the future and continue to strengthen our relationship. Of course, we will be taking a lot of vacations and traveling together with our work, but I wanted to set out some concrete relationship milestones for us to work toward.

And that's the plan!

So this is what I hope to accomplish. This long term goal list has me very excited. I'm looking forward to 45 now: Imagine it. Me: a huge muscular man with a big dick who is a musical theater composer and spends a large portion of his life meditating and working on outreach. A real catch. The best I can be. That's what I want for myself.

Later tonight or tomorrow I will post my goals and plan for the next three months which will be the first few steps of this lifelong journey. I will also post baseline pictures by which I can mark my progress.

I feel more energized about my life than I ever have before. This is it!

All the best,

j

Watch This Space

I have finally figured out the reason I started this blog and how I'm going to use it to further my path of self-discovery and self-improvement. I've been thinking over my life in detail lately. I've examined my patterns and I've found dozens of supposedly "pivotal moments" through my life when multiple decisions presented themselves to me, and I have very often taken what I now have determined is the wrong one. Here are a few examples (in no particular order):

• I quit the swim team at 14 and started working with computers instead. I stopped exercising completely.
• I almost rejoined the swim team in high school, but decided to take the advanced choir instead. I did no exercise.
• I faked an injury during the timed mile run in middle school because I was embarrassed at how physically unfit I was.
• I enjoyed lifting weights in middle school (and high school) but was too shy and embarrassed to tell anyone or pursue it on my own.
• I was beat up a lot on sports teams and in locker rooms as a kid, and was too embarrassed to seek help from adults. When I wrote a journal about getting beat up in 6th grade and a teacher asked if she could help, I refused her assistance.
• I was so desperate for peers that I ended up hanging out with a fat kid that beat me up. I started intentionally gaining weight so that I could be more like him in hopes that he would like me more. All the weight was fat, not muscle.
• I have been embarrassed and ashamed of my appearance since puberty, yet have done very little to make myself feel good about my looks.

I've tried to conquer these problems through psychotherapy, meditation, and self-medication with medical marijuana. Each of these tools has been partially effective, but my goal in each of them has been (for the most part) to understand why I am the way I am, not how to become who I want to be. The time to switch from passivity to activity is here.

I have now lived enough to look back and see how my choices at 14 have rippled through and changed my life almost 14 years later. And I can also see how three months ago, I started to make different decisions, and the changes have already started I'm talking about working out mostly regularly for three months, combined with a mostly careful diet. My body already looks different in the mirror, and I feel healthier than I ever have. I want to continue this progress forward. Looking backward is counterproductive.

At the top of the month, I attempted to stop masturbating with a multi-step plan, since I'd identified my unending masturbation as one of the things that's holding me back in my life. I'm now starting to think that it's merely a symptom of a larger problem in my self-perceptions. A lot of the time, I imagine goals for the future that I don't believe are attainable and masturbate holding that mental image. Mostly, it's a hot guy online that I'd like to sleep with. Other times it's when I look at pictures of men I want to look like. I get hard, masturbate, and then don't make any progress toward sleeping with that guy or looking like the other hot guy.

So over the next 11 days, I'm going to work up a comprehensive plan that will be a three-pronged approach to improving my life. I'm going to focus on specific things to improve my mind, body, and spirit. I will write out concrete goals for who I want to become over the next 10 years, and then I will break out separate concrete goals for 30, 35, and 40. Then I'll plan what steps I will take over the next three months to start me on my journey. In another three months I will reassess and plan. And daily, I will take note of any difficulties I experience, no matter how trivial, and how I overcame them.

The most important part of this for me is that I am going to be embracing my dreams. I am going to embrace all the things I want to be but I am afraid of, all the talents I am am scared to unleash, and all the desires I have repressed. I cannot go through my life being unhappy any longer; it's killing me. I want to be a fully realized person, and the only way to do that is to embrace all the things about myself I am afraid of. I will finally get what I want, and that scares me, but it's the only way worth going forward.

I am going to live my life without shame for the first time, and I'm going to live being excited about the future.

All the best,

j

Not quite succes... but not quite failure

It's no surprise to anyone who's read this that masturbation is going to be one of my continual struggles. Especially when I'm not happy about my current situation. I'm mostly pissed off about how my life is going, but have very little ability to change my direction right now. Every time I try to stop masturbating, it forces all my larger life problems into focus since masturbation is one of my main coping mechanisms.

Over the last week, while trying (and failing) to stop masturbating, I've become more and more aware of my pervasive unhappiness. I'm just not happy with how my life is going. I'm drowning in work I don't care much about, and if I spent all the time on that work that it deserves, I have none left for myself. So I need to find a new way to balance all these conflicting desires.

My proposal right now is this: I'm going to wake up every morning and try to stick to my morning routine of yoga, physical therapy exercises, meditation, breakfast, one hour to let things digest, a trip to the gym, and then a shower. After all that stuff to keep myself happy and healthy, I should be able to focus on my work for the rest of the day, provided I can promise myself that when the evening swings around and I am done with rehearsals, I will allow myself whatever leisure time I want. I'm going to be trying this out this week to see how it goes. My hope is that I have enough self control to last through the day and that my evening relaxation will be enough to keep my desires in balance and my discouragement in check.

Best,

j