Road to Right: Justin’s accountability tour

Well, I’m 33 now. Thanks all for the happy birthdays and the gifts, I’ve equally spent my free time playing the shit out of assassins creed and sharpening my knives with the tumbler (which works, really fucking good, ask my thumb). As far as birthdays go it was pretty standard for the last few years, spent a lot of it with the dogs and a little with some buddies. I did do a pretty cool thing in taking a golf lesson…like a no bullshit appointment with a PGA pro giving me some cues and pointers in an effort to build an iron/wedge swing from the ground up. For one thing, my swing wasn’t too far away from the ideal swing and for the other my therapist thought it was really cool to invest in improving a hobby. My whole thing is if I can move the ball down the fairway better I’d probably like it more, thus going more. So yeah, been practicing the swing and it’s going well. Assassins creed shadows is straight fuckin gas too: you are a ninja or a samurai so either being sneaky like traditional...

Does anyone else feel like the month of April has lasted approximately 75 years? For the most part it seems like this year is flying by with the exception of April which has lasted since Reagan was in office. Man, what an adventure it’s been this past week. We started out the week going to the dentist because, apparently, I’m stressfully grinding my teeth down to smooth river rocks (yeah that tracks) which kinda put a damper on the week. Spent most of the week doing the ole “look for jobs and kill some time” thing then dedicated the weekend to helping people out and making sure I wasn’t hermitted up in the house alone. Thursday for “work” we had a golf tournament which truly motivated me to actually take my golf game seriously and sign up for lessons. My theory is that I’d probably enjoy the game more if I could reliably move the ball down the fairway and to do that i should try and develop a solid and replicable swing. But those details will be in next weeks edition. Spent Friday help...

Ive hit on it extensively in the last paragraph of most of my entries: be nice to yourself and be nice to others. While the former is important for things like resilience and perseverance, the power of those who help out others around them is almost indescribable which is nuts because often, you never really know the impact you have on your friends/family/community members. I can comfortably say i would not be anywhere near my current position without the love and support of many many many people. Let’s get in to it. Ok so last week wasn’t that spectacular. Not to say that it was bad, it just wasn’t out of the norm. Most lifts were just kinda normal, i restarted my programming at higher working weights so easing in to that was like slowly getting my ass kicked over the course of 60-70 minutes each day. On top of that, i went to BJJ more than i had being going in a long time (about 5 classes across the week) which is great for rebuilding my comfort on the mats and understanding of the s...

Let’s talk about the toxic side of humility. Much like Oreos, Diet Coke, and lemon pepper too much of a good thing is often a bad thing. In an excess of humility you start teetering towards a decrease in self esteem, almost to the point of self-abuse and antagonizing where you beat yourself bloody when you aren’t operating perfectly. I had a counselor once refer to this as “should-ing yourself” and “don’t should yourself in my office.” It’s funny but all too often i find myself in a bad way and then beating myself up because I’m in a bad way and not just getting over it and moving on. That brings me to the title, the delineation between excuses and reasons. See, constantly i find myself in a bad way. Whether I’ve hurt myself from excessive lifting or i woke up in an anxious downward spiral or the stressors have built up to paralysis by analysis, something like that results in me curling up on the couch alone in a ball and just trying to survive the day. It’s important in times like tha...