I worked a full day today. I certainly wasn't lacking in things to do. I was pretty dang tired when I got home. But after my workout and dinner I spent another two hours typing an email for work, because it was fun. I must be going nuts or perhaps I need to redefine my definition of fun. Or get out in the fresh air more. Probably all three.

Sometimes, when I'm by myself my mind begins to wander. My mind is almost always wandering, but I do keep it on a short leash. But there are roads that need to be traveled, and if you are unwilling to actively pursue them eventually I think the forces at work will nudge you along in that direction, no matter how much you may try to resist it. This weekend was one such one for me. Stemming from the departure of a friend who has decided, in the name of love and adventure, to leave the country and move to the other side of the world. Oddly he's going to place that I had already been and am well familiar with, but ultimately I chose to come back. He's going for who knows how long, quite possibly for good. I admire that kind of courage, diving into a world far from all he knows including family, friends, country, even common language. And he seems nothing but excited about it. Upon receiving that news my initial reaction was "Wow, I could never do something like that." But upon further reflection, I realized that in a certain sense I'd already had, twice.

The first time came right after I graduated from high school, and all I wanted to do was escape. And I did. I chose to go to college in a city many times larger than the one I grew up in. I had never once been there. I knew nothing about it. I didn't know a single soul. And to top it off I wasn't exactly the happiest of people when I went. It was hard, but in the end I think it was worth it. Then a few short years later I left that world to go down to South America. And for eight straight months I had no home and couldn't communicate as well I'd been accustomed to all my life. Parts of it were hard, but so much of it was absolutely incredible. And in the end I think it was worth it.

Well those stages of life are over and I have entered into adulthood. So much has happened, and I'm not even twenty-four. But time has passed and things have happened. And things haven't happened, and I feel at the edge of an impasse. In the past year I've been feeling like my internal values have been changing. Situations and people have forced me to ask questions, questions with answers that are not easy. But my own internal values are important to me, and if they lead me in a direction that I originally had not anticipated it would be a betrayal not to honor them.

But the path never seems to be truly clear. There are very few things I can be completely certain of in this world. But there must be more. I've been spending this last year many times saying "Someday..." Well someday is not here yet, and how many times do I have to think "Someday I will..." before "someday" becomes "today"?

Sometimes I need to rest. I'm not the most dynamic of personalities and my weekends are often rather uneventful. Right now I appreciate that. I may leave the house today, but it probably won't be much more than a simple walk. I have pretty much all the time I want to be alone and to have quiet and to think, and right now that feels like Heaven on Earth to me. Work is always busy. This week I there were two days where I came to work and spent the full eight hours knee deep in work without much more than a five minute break, and that's if you consider going to the bathroom a break. Now I shall sit back and let whatever happens happens. I am in neutral. I am going nowhere.

Humans by nature are creatures of habit. No matter how different our views and situations may be from one another, day by day most of us have firmly set routines that we deviate from only rarely. Some of us need that sense of security and familiarity. New options present excitement but also present risk. But even in the simplest of daily activities change can be discouraging, even if we understand that if we are ever to advance to the next level something must change. And sometimes change just seems like too much work.

Take one of the most obvious examples: our health particularly in the form of how we take care of our bodies. While we may not all be expert nutritionists or personal trainers there are a few things that we all generally know and accept as true. Example: regular exercise is good for our bodies and dining on pizza and beer every night is bad for us. Sure many of us can afford to be rather lax in our younger years. But as time goes on our lifestyles catch up with us, and all those hours in the office chair and the Ben & Jerry's start to show.

Now even with all the drugs and machines and other miracle cures that claim to take you from couch potato to incredible hunk in 30 days but are clearly bunk, it's still a multi-billion dollar industry. People want to be thin and attractive and healthy, but mostly thin and attractive. Let's be honest: there is not a person who goes to the gym regularly that doesn't on some small level do so because they want to look more attractive. It's only natural and I tell you truly there is nothing wrong with that. Of course your sense of self-confidence should stem from who you are as a person, but a self-confident person ultimately should look good because people with good self-esteem want to take care of their physical appearance. Why? Because caring for yourself means you do so both on the inside and the outside. It's not that you care what the scale reads or what size clothing you can fit into, but more that you know you're taking care of yourself. And when you take care of yourself properly you DO look good, and you will think so when you look in the mirror, even in spite of the supposed little imperfections that you know are there.

And yet obesity is at record highs in the United States and our country isn't the only one it's becoming a growing (quite literally) problem. I can think of loads of people I see regularly at the gym or even on my daily bus commute who aren't just ten or fifteen pounds overweight but easily three, four, or even five times that. They sit around in their free time and will use an elevator to go up one flight of stairs. Now I know that I personally can feel pretty bad if I got too many days without working out or eat too much junk, so how can these people who live their whole lives this way possibly feel? Wouldn't you just hate feeling that way all the time? I know they do, and yet they stay the same year after year.

Deep down we all know how to fix it. We get more active and eat more healthy foods. That's it. There is no huge secret. Most of us may not have the genes to be Victoria Secret models but that is no excuse to turn into the living blob. But still so many never try, often times because they think it's too hard. Well the truth is that it is hard. There is no denying that. But it's also true that anything worth having is worth striving for. Learning to love yourself means loving ALL of yourself, faults and all. But the day you surrender to the "it's too hard" mentality is the day you give it all up, because you really are just waiting for death at that point.

Yet I've firmly ensconced in all of my current ruts. I've been trying to figure out a interest or passion I could pursue to take me outside a little more. I do have interests but most of them don't require me to leave the house. As for passions...well...I don't think I've ever been really excited over something and not had it fizzle out after a few weeks. Eh, maybe I'm just boring. That could be.