[SOC]

I've been spending a lot of time reading and researching the subjects of self-control and willpower. It is stimulating and fascinating to me. The fact is that we all have bad habits and behaviors we want to deal with. The problem is that it seems so totally impossible. It gets to be frustrating, and you just give up. The reason I never become a smoker was because of watching my parents struggle to quit and fail while growing up. I learned early on that bad habits were tough, and it was better to not start than try to quit them later.

I think habits can be your friend. I am surprised at how disciplined people can be in certain areas of their lives and be totally undisciplined in others. Watching the documentary on Lemmy Kilmister, I was struck by both the man's exceeding vices but also his virtues. Even if you don't care for the music of Motorhead, you have to like Lemmy. That guy is one of a kind and one of the nicest people you will ever meet. They asked him what the secret of survival was, and he said, "Not dying." Awesome shit.

But back to my self-discipline thing, I am always struggling with the same basic four things. I call it the Big Four, but they have remained constant throughout my life. The first is to eat healthy. This means low fat and low sugar. I eschew fried foods, sugary sodas, hamburgers, desserts, etc. When I am doing well at it, my weight drops like a motherfucker, and I feel like a million bucks. When I lapse on that shit, my weight goes back up.

My second thing is exercise. Basically, I move forward as rapidly as I can. Sometimes, this is called running. Other times, it is just walking. I do body weight exercises and martial arts practice. Being disciplined in this area is no big deal, but I find the conflict comes with my writing. Right now, I am writing this when I really should be outside getting in a few miles. I am good at keeping a blog. I am not so good at getting fit. Let's face it. I SUCK.

The third thing is cleanliness and organization and all that. I end up collecting detritus around my desk as I eat and drink while writing blog posts and reading reams of shit. As I write this, I have twenty soda cans standing at attention beside the screen. It takes about five minutes to clean this shit up because being a minimalist makes cleaning fast. But why does this stuff pile up like this? That is easy. It is because I am writing the shit you are reading now.

The fourth thing is working more. I like working lots of hours on the job, and I am still trying to implement the Gene Simmons advice to work seven days a week. If you count writing as work, I achieve that easily. But I consider it a hobby, so I am nowhere near achieving that goal. Why is this? Because I write so much.

The fact is that I don't make progress on my virtues because I have one major vice. That vice is writing. I can't keep to a fitness program, but I can keep a blog almost daily for five fucking years. If I don't write, I get irritable as fuck. I don't know why I do this, but I do it.

Ben Franklin tried to improve himself, but what he found was that as he did well on one area it would cost him on some other area. Consider Anton Krupicka who is pretty dedicated as a runner. But he is a complete slob in everything else. This is the price he pays to run for all those hours every day. On the flip side, there is Leo Babauta who seems to have all his shit together though not perfectly. This achievement comes from reducing everything to simplicity. It is a great strategy.

The thing I have learned from all three of these individuals is that there are limits to life. I write considerably more than other bloggers, but it comes at a price. The computer pile is evidence of this. The time I could have taken to clear that shit away is now on this screen. It is the words you are reading now. I had to make a choice between being a writer or having a clean desk, and I chose the writing. It sucks because I want both.

Should I give up writing? The thought has crossed my mind. During the times when I am not writing, those big four habits/goals improve considerably. I make massive progress on those things. The fact is that writing grows larger in my life. The other thing is reading since it serves as a catalyst to my writing.

I want to reconcile this conflict in my life between the writing habit and the other things. I am not sure how I am going to pull that off because I actually write less than my intentions. You wouldn't believe the list of projects I have in my notebook. But like the Big Four, it all seems to exceed my grasp. This is why Leo Babauta's dictum to simplify and go with less works so well. It is what David Allen says. You can do anything, but you can't do everything.

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