In Medias Res

"20 Days, 18 Hours and 26 Minutes"

Creation can be a fickle process; lightning may strike leaving a masterpiece or it may stumble through fits and starts to an elaborate gimcrack; inspiration may beget mediocrity and persistence can reveal the sublime. A craftsman cannot discriminate beforehand between the inspired lightning strike or the pedestrian trinket, but learns to pursue it to an end to find out. This is the approach I will have to take as I create my own web-log.

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At the age of 31, owner of a house, gainfully employed and recently wed my life evolved on January 18th, 2010 in a dramatic manner. The catalyst for this change is minuscule (I'll clarify momentarily) but the aftershocks may prove to be epic. Only time will tell. The "blog" (if you know me I despise, detest and deplore this word.) will be utilized to share my life leading up to my minor epiphany plus the resolutions. It is my hope that by publicly publishing my thoughts and ideas that I ingrain a certain accountability function (I'll explain this later). I also believe that a public forum creates an opportunity for competing thoughts, encouragement and support to flow freely. Consider this a 21st Century version of the "Stoa Basileios".

The epiphany: If you do the math, 20 days, 18 Hours and 26 Minutes works out to be just under 500 full hours. This corresponds to the amount of time I spent over the course of 2 years playing a video game before I reached a point I felt I could advance no further. The game: irrelevant; the end point: not important. What I will say is that once the "goal" was met, I had no sense of completion, no sense of exhilaration from seeing the product of my "labor". Shortly after, I saw an indicator on the screen displaying the indisputable fact that I had spent 20 days, 18 hours and 26 minutes in my pursuit. The ancient Greeks had a word for unhappiness, kakodaimonia* and this was my first recognition of feeling kakodaimonia.

Socrates says that an unexamined life is not worth living, so over the next few days I contemplated my "achievement" and some of my 31 years leading up to it. I came to these conclusions and related questions:

• I have essentially the same habits in life that I had 10 or even 15 years ago. Is it possible that there has been no personal growth over that time?
• I have rarely committed my self to any goal in life with the exception of all the video games I played from start to finish over the years. What could I accomplish if I did commit myself 100% to another endeavor?
• 500 hours devoted to a goal with no constructive result or benefit is not a pattern I want to repeat during the next 30 years. What can I devote time, energy and effort to so that after 500 hours I can see results?

The 3rd point intrigued me as I sought to find a challenge that I could pursue. It was during a session at Anytime Fitness that I had the following thought: "If I could devote 500 hours of my life to playing a video game, why couldn't I devote 500 hours to working out?" Weight training will provide me with a physical result that I can use to gauge development. The time commitment of 500 hours is doable as it would be approximately 5 hours a week over the course of 2 years. I've spent the last few weeks reflecting on whether I have the commitment to follow-through.

This "E-Stoa" is my public commitment that I will spend 500 hours over the next 2 years in the gym. Feel free to communicate with me and ask about my progress. In fact, as a part of the built-in accountability function of the blog, if I can't tell you exactly how many hours I have invested in my challenge when asked (verbally, in-person) than I will take you out for lunch!

More posts will come, more challenges lay ahead and the results will tell the tale.

*It is my intent to reveal the meaning of kakodaimonia and emphasize its more positive counterpart eudaimonia in future posts.