Day #17 of 21

What is so wonderful about each day are the amazing surprises that occur around the planet. With that in mind, here are some of today’s observations.

I just finished watching Michael Phelps win two more gold medals in Beijing and thought about how much pressure there must be to win. “Winning isn’t everything,” the great Vince Lombardi once said, “it’s the only thing.” Although I have never had that kind of competitive drive, I could imagine how using chemicals to win must be so tempting. In a way, it’s the reverse reason for overindulging with alcohol, blow or weed.

Some argue, and most of the time they are right (although at times overindulgence is simply because you have had a great day!), that overindulgence occurs when one is trying to take the edge off of a particularly mediocre day. So maybe today’s performance wasn’t one of those gold medal moments; I imagine even Phelps has those days. But for most of the world, mediocrity is the norm. The problem is that most people want to medal in something… so when they can’t, when life is a struggle and they get discouraged, they drink. Consistent overindulgence simply means something isn’t right in your life. That certainly rings true for me quite often. 

I look back on my reasons for partying too much and most of the time it is because I can’t seem to reach my goals; I procrastinate. Here’s the ironic part: drinking or snorting or smoking —whatever the poison— will guarantee I will never have a chance at a medal! So it’s a catch-22. I indulge because I am not where I thought I’d be by now, and my overindulging will make certain I will never get there. And the spiraling down continues. Thank goodness for 21 days.

What do Olympic and professional athletes do? For them, they can’t afford a mediocre day. If they are seen as mediocre, they are likely to fall from grace and lose their positions, jobs, and prestige. To avoid that, they drink before the pain. Their drinks are performance enhancers to elevate their position and keep them in the race. For the rest of us, we overindulge because often, the pain is daily and the results are the same each day. Mediocre.

Ideally, we should look at each day as an Olympic event. Whatever it is we do —like keystroking data into a database— pretend there is a Russian, French, Chinese and Canadian judge watching your every move. Go for the gold each time you key in one more set of data. You get the picture.

This brings me closer to my evil diabolical plan. It actually fits in nicely with my new 21 day mission, which will be announced soon to great fanfare.

It is past one in the morning. I am pretty tired. And it is the 17th day of my exile from indulgence. Although I didn’t win any medals today, I know tomorrow I have another event. In fact, several. And the judges are family, friends, clients, acquaintances, pets and creditors. So I’m in the hunt for a medal… and I know I’ll be up for it.

Everyday is an event… so go for it.

4 more days… can’t wait.

Day #10 of 21

The definition of achievement is a result gained by effort.

So it is with great pride that I declare an official achievement. The last time I went this long without smoking pot or having an alcoholic beverage was when I was around 3 years old. About 50 years.

‘So what?’ one may ask.

For me, it’s an acknowledgment that I can actually say ‘no’ and really mean it. More important, it proves that my partying really did have an effect on my performance… that’s kind of scary.

Nothing really important to say tonight…

Stay tuned to day #11.

Day #3 of 21

So today was also full of the typical reasons to indulge… but overall a very good day. My work went well, my youngest daughter solved some of her challenges, my oldest daughter had a great day with her freelance writing, my son was preparing for his last trip before fatherhood and my wife had a great day at work… which gave me a great reason to celebrate, so we went out to dinner.

‘Can I get you anything to drink?’ asked the waiter.

‘Wow,’ I thought to myself, and a few seconds later said, ‘lemonade please’. And that was that. Although a glass of red wine would have gone down nice with a steak, lemonade was just fine.

And then we watched a special on Randy Pausch, one of the finest humans ever to grace this planet, and between tears, reached for a cold one. But I stopped long enough to think about it and instead grabbed a glass of water, which was just as satisfying.

So here I am for the third night in a row without having ingested any happy stuff. For me, quite an accomplishment, really.