Responsibility

      I am a big advocate about taking responsibility for oneself. Now with that in mind, I believe responsibility is an age related thing. When you are young, it's okay to be irresponsible. Youth is a time for figuring out who you are and where you want to go in life. It is a time of exploration and having fun. As we get older though it is time to put off such childish things and take responsibility for your life. 

     Strategy doesn't work that well if you don't hold yourself responsible. Many people think that responsibility means that you are giving up your freedom, but I contend that it gives you freedom in your life because you take control of your life. There are things in this life that you can not control, but there are things you can. Nobody is going to do your life for you. If you want something done then you are going to have to do it yourself. Your life is your responsibility and no one is going to live it for you.

     One way to start gaining control of things in your life is to stop making excuses.  Having a habit of making excuses is not going to get you anywhere. 

Losing Weight

       I don't know about you but I had a scare by a doctor who said I was overweight. He said I needed to lose weight and I responded in kind by telling him that I tried to lose weight and had failed. I tried to lose weight by riding my bicycle around the neighborhood about once a week on the weekends. Well, this did not work at all. What gave me an idea on how to tackle my weight lose was when the doctor said I needed to practice portion control. This got me thinking that the reason I was still gaining weight was because I kept eating more calories than I needed on a daily basis. In other words, I was over eating, and no amount of exercise was going to make me lose weight.

       This is when I devised a strategy to tackle my weight problem. A lot of people act like losing weight is something that just can not be done. I thought so to until I started counting my calories. A very simple but effective method for losing weight. At least for me anyways. You see all you need is a notebook and a pen. Everyday you need to write down how many calories you take in and limit those calories. You could say that this is just a diet, but I don't see it as such because I still eat whatever I want, just not more than I need. A man needs about 2,500 calories a day to be satisfied and a woman would probably need around 2,000 calories. 

      When you start writing down your calorie intake you start to see just how much you have been over eating. For me, I thought that buying a burrito pack from Taco Bell was just enough for me, but come to find out one burrito is really enough for a meal because they are loaded with calories. The may seem like a no-brainer , but to someone who keeps putting on the calories it puts thing into prospective to just exactly what you need for a day and sheds light into just how you have been eating too much.   

      This method is slow, you will lose between 1 to 5 pounds every week depending on where you're at on your weight lose journey. In the beginning I lost about 4 pounds every week. Then I lost about a pound before I shrunk my calories intake by 50 and I started losing about 4 pounds every week again. I hope this helps someone out there start their weigh lose journey. I know some people say it hard to lose weight but I found by doing it this way it is very easy for me. I started out at 340 pounds and I am now at 286 pounds and have been doing this since January 25, 2022. 

         So it's been awhile since I wrote anything. I have been sitting on this thing for years now and I think I might just continue writing things for fun. The theme as always is strategy and everything related to it. I have a tweet that talks about just doing nothing and sitting on something for awhile until you decide what you want to do and if the thing you are doing is really want you want. Part of any good strategy is allowing things to happen. You have a plan and you put some thought behind what you want to do and what you want to achieve and when you actually start to do what it is you set out to do, you meet some resistance and some challenges you didn't expect to happen. 

                What alot of people don't realize is letting things simmer for a bit is a strategy unto itself. It may take a few days, a couple weeks, three months or even a decade before you are able to finally act on something. (Especially if you are thinking long term) The point is you can always come back to an idea and pick up where you left off. Case in point this here blog that a let sit for a decade and have finally come back to it. I never stopped thinking about different strategies for accomplishing my goals. I just haven't put it into writing. I may post some more or I might take another decade to post again. I don't know, but it's all for fun so there is no pressure!

Click here for the podcast on the subject.

Follow Through

       The follow through to your strategy is as important as any other step in making a good strategy. Most people will make a strategy and not follow through with it. If you plan something it is always a good idea to get in the habit of following through with what you decide to do. Here is an example, say that you put money aside to go to the movies. You found a new movie coming out that you really want to see. You put aside say $25 and you go to the ticket booth put down $8 for the matinee, leaving you with $17. You really want to use this extra money for buying beer for that night, but you told yourself that you were going to give yourself some extra money to buy a drink and some snacks for the movie. Now what should you do? You saved this money specifically for the movies, snacks and all. You could use this money for beer, but you really gave yourself some extra money to get things in the lobby. I would say with following through you would need to go ahead and buy yourself some concessions. The only way to know if your great idea to go the movies and spend some money getting snacks can only be realize buy following through with it. Now the next time you go to the movies you may decide that this was all a bad idea and go ahead and spend it on beer. The only way to learn is to follow through at least once. Then go from there and formulate another strategy or improve upon the old one.

Quick Non-Invasive Recharge

       Here is an interesting strategy for relaxing. It doesn't take up any time at all and it sets in motion a lot of things and will give you greater focus for what ever it is you are doing. The recommendation that I am making is for only 3 minutes of your time and only once a week you relax, just for a few minutes in total silence. This is best done at a time when you are most relaxed. I am talking about on one of your days of, say right before you go out or even right before bed. All you need to do is go to a place this can be your living room or on the porch or even in your car. All this requires is that like I said for 3 minutes a week find your spot kind of make this into a ritual, go to your spot turn off all distractions, the t.v, the radio, your phone, etc. and sit in total silence. You can talk to yourself for these few moments or just sit and do nothing. The point is that this will start something. I have found that when trying to conquer something that require a lot of focus and mental faculties having just a few moments to recharge can really give you the edge you need to get it done. What you do after you do this is all up to you and again all it takes is 3 minutes a week! If you like you might want to do it more often or for longer periods of time, but at least give yourself 3 minutes of peace a week to recharge your batteries and there is no telling what you can do.

Cultivating Mars

                Here's an idea, there is all this activity to investigate mars looking for life on the planet. Why don't we take life to mars? We could make progress in establishing a habit by bringing seeds of plants that are very hardy here on earth. My idea would be to bring the seeds of the hardy mesquite bush to the red planet. We have all this technology to genetically engineer things, why couldn't we engineer mesquite bush seeds to grow on mars. There thousands of plants here on earth that grow wild without any help from humans. I know this may be a long shot, but after watching some shows on YouTube about finding life on mars I got to thinking why can't we just take life to mars and let it grow and take over on its own and the plants would create an atmosphere that would allow eventual human habitation on mars. All the people out there that believe in evolution should also believe that life here on earth can grow and evolve to survive on the surface of mars. It only makes since then you would have an opportunity to prove that life does evolve no matter what kind of conditions. Really I thought this was such a good idea I had to blog about it. Just think a bunch of plants that we call weeds being genetically altered to grow on the conditions of mars then they grow "like weeds" which is what they are and they cultivate the planet for us. We don't even need to send in humans to do the gardening because the plants will grow on their own and all we have to do is wait for it to take over the planet, establish and atmosphere and when it is done then we send in humans to inhabit the land. I know this might be nothing more than science fiction but I still thought it was an idea that I must share. Knowing that I will never get in contact with scientists from NASA or anything I can still blog my ideas after all this is my blog so I can post anything I want to. Just think of the possibilities!

New Experiences

          Everything we do in life has rewards and set backs. Just because you think you should go in one direction, but then the project or goal you had in mind takes a different path doesn't mean you actually lost out. No in fact, it is actually a learning experience that you will be able to use later on in life or in fact, allow you to see things in a better light and keep things in perspective. So do not be worried if the thing you tried to do seemed to be up your alley but you later find out that it wasn't really right for you. Just chalk it up as a learning experience and keep your head held high and know that you can accomplish anything that you set your mind too. It is just not always the thing that is actually any good for you. Either at this moment or even ever. Life has a way of working itself out. You don't necessarily need to get upset about it just know that you did your best despite all odds, you took a chance,put yourself out there and learned a little something about something and you are better for having at least attempted something than not have done anything at all and left your dreams and ambitions lying on the floor never to be used or thought of ever again.