Author: Matthew Groff

I have the hardest time committing to working out. I got two good days in this week, but for the past two days, I just cannot get myself motivated. I’m trying to work with myself, but I don’t seem to be a willing partner.

I have a very limited window, which is the first hour of my day. After that hour, I have too many things to do; getting the kid up, making breakfast, and getting myself to work. Also, being that I pick the kid up from school, that pretty much kills the ability to work out after work. Very narrow window.

I have lots of reasons to get in shape, but there is the part of me that really just hates working out. There is no work out high or runner’s high, and when I see people get really psyched about what a great work out they had, it makes me a little uneasy. It’s like people wanting to talk to me about Jesus. I’m glad you’re happy about it, but I just don’t care.

Yup, I am the kid that won’t eat their vegetables.

I also have this thought that if I really knuckle down, and start working out, that I’ll become some gym rat, and work exercise in every conversation, and will just get filled up with glam muscles, and say “Gains” at the end of sentences.

I had no hot water this morning in my apartment when I woke up. In fact, the hot water when out the night before, and I went to bed hoping that it would be back in the morning. Yes, it was a form of magical thinking; believing that the super would magically fix something the moment it broke.

After I work up and checked that the water would not get hot, I made the difficult choice that I would take a cold shower. I had the thought that as it was Summer, and rather warm in the apartment even with the window a/c running, that this cold show might feel refreshing.

Not even close.

What it did was make me appreciate living in the modern world.

It was cold and painful, and did get my day started off on the wrong foot.

Watching the morning news didn’t make me feel any better…

And this is when I had to ask myself, is happiness a choice?

What makes a day good or bad is only perception? Is that right? If I stay comfortable and unchallenged is that a good day? The uncomfortable act of moving beyond what is known and understood, does that make a day bad?

Has anyone heard what the President said yesterday?

What makes me SAD about the above sentence is that it could have been used every day since January 2017.

If no one else will say it; the country has become numb to the dumb shit that comes out of Trump’s mouth. One side is outraged, the other side claims that it’s not that bad. Thus, the cycle will repeat and nothing changes. I mean, we cannot even agree on the fact that another country attacked our election process. It shouldn’t be up for debate… yet here we are.

I am worn out from it all.

And that might be the point… just get everyone tired so they won’t put up a fight.

I wish I had some insight, some new piece of information that would make a difference. That there was something that would make it better. The Blue Wave, is there a Blue Wave, the countercurrent Red Wave?

No one is open to have their mind changed, and where does that leave us?

I am beginning to think that the best to hope for is the Trump side will be so ashamed that they won’t show up to vote at all. Clear, asking someone to vote for the other party is just too much to ask.

Is there such a thing as the right place to be? Is everything just luck and happenstance?

There are many ways to look at the world and I wonder how, and why I have found myself in the place that I am at? Joseph Campbell would tell me that if I have followed my bliss, then I will see at the end of my life, a grand design was being executed without my knowledge. That makes me wonder if there is still magic in the world, or if we make our opportunities? What if it is a matter of survival, and that what we see laid out before us?

I have always believed that life was more about perception, and point of view than reality. Some people hate stress, others thrive on it. Some want to take the final shot at the buzzer, others want to pass the ball to the guy who takes the shot. Things are only as bad as you allow yourself to believe that they are. (Clearly, there is an exception to this rule. If you are on a sinking ship without a lifeboat, there is no point of view that will make it okay.) It’s the old interview rule, don’t tell your new boss it was a “problem,” instead call it a “challenge.”

We are all just making it up as we go, and some us enjoy the game of improv that is underway.

My oldest nephew is 19 now and a college sophomore. We have always had an open an honest relationship, about books and life, and whatever the guy wants to talk about. I have always tried to tell him the truth, even to the chagrin of my brother and sister-in-law. “Weird” Uncle Matt had given way to “No BS” Uncle Matt.

The last time I saw him, he wanted to speak to me alone, and the big question on his mind was, “What’s it like being a parent? Be honest.” And I was. I told him that it was great, I loved it, but it was also lost of hard work. “If you’re not willing to work hard, then don’t do it,” was my advice. Then I followed with, “That also applies to marriage.”

There was a look of disappointment from him. I think he wanted me to say that it was awful, or that I had a 50/50 love and hatred of it.

That seems to be the expectation of everything now a day; nothing can be all wonderful, there has to be a downside that no one talks about, right? That everything has to have a hole poked through it so the bubble will burst.

I sort of understand where my nephew is coming from, or I guess I should say, I remember when I did this type of thing. Being of the age to now fully question the world that I am a part of and too see if I want to take part in it. The luxury of questioning the world around you.