So I’m about halfway through day one of November and it’s going pretty well. First of all, though, I have two confessions to make:

1. On my test day (yesterday), I peed outside to avoid the restroom commitments. The extra effort and hassle of doing that means I’m going to let that stay within the rules.

2. I turned off my alarm (before it went off) and relaxed in about an hour and a half of pseudosleep before getting up. A worthwhile idea, considering today is the day after Halloween, except that pseudosleep doesn’t restore one at all. So today, I fell behind on the first of my commitments.

Also, although it’s not a problem, I delayed my run today until the sun was above the horizon. Despite getting up late, the sky outside was very dark and I did not feel particularly confident to be running around in low visibility conditions. That much aside, on to the general report:

I suspect that the body fat scale I use is inaccurate, because it reported me nine pounds heavier than the bathroom scale which I stood on after my morning snack.

I was expecting my run to be the hardest part of this project, but it was rather easy. On the other hand, because I haven’t been doing any intense running, I took a relatively easy pace, with predesignated walking zones (mostly downhills to save my knees). Overall, the entire run took about an hour and a half and was somewhere between seven and eight miles, putting my pace about between eleven and twelve minutes. That’s absolutely terrible, even with the walking zones and the hills.

On the other hand, the reason for the easy pace I’d decided to pursue was because I imagined it’d be like running with a fat guy on my back. It turned out to be just about the opposite, so next week I’ll plan with that in mind and account for that.

One thing I found interesting was that my sunglasses fogged up unless I wore them on my face. When I put them on my head for the nature expansion, they had little warmth and no wipers, so they were completely opaque when I put them back on. I was about to cross a street, too, so that wasn’t very safe. After a few experiments (running blind is rather fun), I discovered that if I squeeze my face around the glasses and project heat from my eyes, they cleared up within a minute.

I’m looking forward to the coming week and the rest of the month. I’ll try to get updates on here as often as I can. Thank you so much for all your great support!

Two days.

I’ve got two days before I undertake one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. You know, I keep saying that it’s going to be difficult, but you know, it probably won’t be.

I think each individual task will be difficult up to the point when I actually start and then it will get easier. Hopefully, by the end of the month, getting started on each one will become easier and easier. I certainly hope so.

It makes me wonder about the people who normally live like this. The people who are always doing new things and learning and growing. How do they manage?

I’m reminded of an old motto of mine, “Nothing I ever do is ever as dangerous as it looks,” which at times I’ve changed to, “Nothing I ever do is ever as hard as it looks.”

Actually, the more I think about it, the more excited I am for it to begin. Heh, this is going to be fun!

“There is no passion to be found in playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living – Nelson Mandela

Okay, so I imagine that quite a few of you are wondering why in the world you would ever want to be a freak. First of all, how about we define precisely what I mean when I say you should be a freak. It’s really very simple: just think of anyone you’ve ever heard of. Anyone at all.

For example, when Michael Jordan was in high school, he would get way early each morning and spend hours every day working on just the basics, the fundamentals. People called him a freak, people said he was weird. Now people call him the greatest ever.

Now, that is one freak! If you think about it, a freak is someone, anyone, who is different from what is normal. A freak is someone who puts so much passion into what they do that they transcend normality. Think of freaks you’ve known yourself. People who have put more into what they do; people who have gone above and beyond what was necessary. Anyone who has achieved more than what is usual among the boring hordes of normality.

Tim Ferriss works fewer hours in a week than most people do in a day and yet probably makes more money. He lives everywhere and enjoys it better than just about anyone. I’m planning to join him, but it’ll have to wait until after my mission unless I can think of some way to work zero hours in two years. That’d be pretty cool, but I wonder how to set it up…

More on being weird, Robin Sharma has a podcast entitled “Only the Weird Win” and I highly suggest you listen to it. As well as the rest of his podcasts; they’re all really good.

Besides, being weird is one of the best things you can possibly be. Somewhere, I remember reading some advice that you should always establish yourself as weird, but in a good way. The example given was about an internship, in which the new intern would arrive earlier than everyone else and stay later than everyone else. Not only that, but he would manage to perform a recordable activity (such as emailing a memo) at some absurd time (such as three in the morning). He was soon considered weird, but in a good way.

I’ve got an idea bouncing around in my head that’s probably both the hardest and the best thing I could ever possibly do. The hardest part is that I’m going to seriously regret not trying it if I don’t and also regret failing it if I do. It’s an idea that Brian Johnson would be greatly proud of me for trying. It’d also be totally worth it, even if it shatters into little pieces. What is it? I’m going to be perfect!