Hi great big world! I'm in a fine mood this evening. Thirty minutes ago I returned home after a two hour mountain bike ride on the best trails in Boise, with the most perfect weather and a stranger to accompany me. Kent, the stranger, was a fellow of around 50 years of age who was in Boise for a day or two to interview for a job. He and his wife are seriously considering moving from their home in western Kansas to Boise. Kent was the CEO of some high-tech company but resigned because, well, western Kansas sucks and he wanted to get out. At any rate, his wife informed me today at the shop that he wanted to go for a ride but was unfamiliar with the trail system here. Observing that it was a beautiful day out, I opted to seize it and invited Kent to join me after work for a ride.

But do we really care about Kent and his life? Hell no! Let's move on to a more titilating subject: Me.

I wanted to talk about that which I've alluded to in prior posts. You know, the thing about how I've discovered and implemented the secret to happiness? Uh huh, well, its simple really.

I have committed to doing what I tell myself to do. I am now a slave to myself. If on more than one occasion I tell myself that I would really like to have bigger "guns" or "pistons", then I have no other choice but to do a lot of curls on a regular basis. If I tell myself that I want to know more about current events, then I get a subscription to the newspaper and I reserve the time to read every morning. If I tell myself I'd love to have a clean apartment to come home to after work, or to spend quality time in with my girlfriend, then I allocate a certain amount of time for cleaning up every day.

Specifically, these are some of the things I've committed to doing:

1) Sleep no more than 8.5 hours a night
2) Work out 20 minutes every weekday morning
3) Clean my apartment for 20 minutes every weekday morning
4) Eat a healthy breakfast rich in protein every weekday morning (eggs/egg whites, toast n' jam or peanut butter, milk, etc)
5) Waste no time watching tv (by giving my tv away).

There are a few other guidelines that I'll try to follow, but are not as strict as 1-5.
For example:

5) I need not ride my bike more than 4 times a week. 3 rides is probably ideal. The reason for this is that I am trying to get a feeling for what it might take for me to finally work on musical and artistic projects. Given the few hours I scrap together every week for drawing, writing, or tinkering around on my piano, I'll be 70 years old before I'm producing art of the quality I want to produce. I'm tired of talking about doing it. Moreover, I almost get angry at myself whenever I talk about it since the actual doing of it is so overdue.

6) Fern and I will take 2 days off a week from our usual fun, carefree activities together. This serves more than one purpose. Most importantly, it allows me a solid block of time to work on art or music by myself. Also, I believe very strongly in the notions that a quality relationship requires 1) two people who are individuals doing things every now and then as individuals in order to bolster one's sense of individual pride and identity, and 2) time apart, or quality absences, so that those in the relationship can feel that wonderful feeling of missing a person, which only serves to make the time you have together much more enjoyable. A week and a half ago Fern had some social engagements which (along with me not feeling great) caused us to not see each other for 3 days straight. When we finally got together we had an amazing weekend, having a lot of fun for 3 days in a row. I'd rather not go so long without spending time with her, but I think this example demonstrates the point I'm trying to make.

7) I will wear my helmet every time I ride my bike.

8) Many more rules and regulations to come...

New food for thought on "Disbelief"

Tonight I recieved a very welcome endorphin boost upon riding my cross bike fast up and down steep terrain, over rough and smooth singletrack. Its always a nice surprise when one feels more fit than one expects to feel, as I did this evening. I danced on the pedals ascending, and dropped like a rock descending. The ride to the top of Sidewinder, down Redsands, and over Your Mom/Freeway/Reserve took no more than 50 minutes.

Approaching home, at the corner of Straughan and Warm Springs Ave, I ran into an ex-coworker of mine, Antonio Gonzalez. We chatted and he invited me to coffee along with another ex-coworker of mine, Keith. As I expected, the Java in Hyde Park was closed, so we met at Lucky 13 instead. There we talked about all manner of things including cute dogs, sex, the physics involved in wheel design, a guy named John, and my girlfriend's profession, among other topics. I drank a beer, which is an especially enjoyable thing to drink after an endorphin-fest.

Only a little over a week ago I was mightly depressed. Having experienced depression off and on again throughout most of my life, I knew that the current depression would eventually turn off, as it did last Monday. For me, as I suspect for a lot of people, ups and downs are a fact of life. As serious and reasonable as the things which I think are causing the downs might be at the time, I know that the actual feelings are not very well justified, and that they most certainly arise from a pseudo-natural biochemical imbalance, and that its only a matter of time until I'm feeling much better. And I've got to admit that I'm proud of the fact that I usually come out of a depression feeling better than I did before entering it. Its almost like a soul cleansing in some weird way. A great deal of productivity often happens as a reaction against depression. My hope is that the productivity or changes I make will ultimately lessen the intensity and frequency of future mini-depressions.

I'm very excited about the most recent changes I've made. They don't simply constitute a reaction against a recent low, but represent a proactive step as a direct result of thinking seriously about the broad subject of happiness for some time now. Since I'm already sounding like the author of a corny self-help book, I'll go ahead and say that it feels as though I've made a "breakthrough" of some sort, and to hear more about it, you'll have to visit my blog again in the near future. Goodnight.

I've yet to blog about a big adjustment I've recently made to my daily routine. Rather, I've yet to blog about how I've adopted something that qualifies as a routine. While I'm typing presently, I'm still pressed for time, so I'll simply copy what I managed to write in my thought journal yesterday at the M. Here you have it:

What I'm accomplishing with my new arrangement:
1. Saving 1.2 to 12.5 hours a week
2. Throughout my day, not thinking about or worrying about:
a. working out
b. cleaning the house
c. knowing current events
d. eating a quality breakfast
3. Becoming healthier, stronger, and more attractive
4. Never being in a hurry in the morning
5. Gaining more time to be creative
6. Being mentally sharper
7. Increasing the quality of my free time exponentially

I'll explain exactly what I've done to achieve all of this when I can find the time. For now, I'm off to work early to prepare for the day--to make the work day more enjoyable... Bravo Self Improvement!