Operation Achieve Anything: Day Two-Hundred-Ninety-Six, Dateline 10-23-2018

Joy is the best make up.
— Anne LaMott

Good morning crickets. Welcome to day number two-hundred-ninety-six of Operation Achieve Anything. Things are getting weird as I seem to be getting healthier. As I said a while back, after my last bout with sciatica left me bedridden for a couple of months, I finally got out of bed heavier than I’ve ever been in my life. Not that I was living right and fit before weight increase, I call myself The Wicker Breaker base on my joke about not trusting my weight vs. wicker furniture.

I was finding it hard to walk for reasons beyond that sciatica pains, that still slightly affect my gate even though most of the pain has gone away. The first thing I did was dig out my Fitbit which actually did to a lot off weight loss after getting it for Christmas two years ago. It took a while, but after a few weeks I was getting around a just a little better, but my size was still out of control, so I decided to throw the Keto diet into the mix which did lead to some rapid weight loss where I lost twenty-five pounds within the first month.

Say what you want about this brand of diet, but to me, it’s been as helpful if not more in what it’s leading me not to eat over what it does have me put into my mouth. On top of the diet, I’ve been taking various suppliments that claim to help me with my sleep and mood. I’ve also started a regiment of nutritional supplements, that claim to provide any nutrients that the new diet might miss.

I don’t know what aspect of this new way of life is to credit but, since I started all this, I’ve gone from maxing out five hours a day of sleep with an actual average of four, to getting seven or eight hours on a regular basis. These aren’t “fuck the world” sleeps, like when depression sets in and I sleep twelve hours a pop just to avoid life, this is the sleep that I person needs and is the proper amount.

Where the exercise and diet are helping to get my body in shape, the sleep seems to be contributing to the healing my mind and soul. I no longer feel that constant tension in my chest that feels like I’m constantly holding my breath and ready to explode. Though not completely silent, my mind seems much calmer it’s ever been. The part that gets weird is the calmer I get the more miserable I am because it means that I have to now deal with what real and not the mind racing distractions.

Thankfully, the misery only peaks its head randomly, but it’s also the same misery that has plagued me ever since I was a little child and not the surface level frustrations that can easily be blamed on lack of sleep, or not having enough time to achieve my overambitious goals. Though this is happening, and I feel sad, at least it leaves me to deal with what’s really going on to possibly fix it, similar to the way that I’m back to actively addressing my physical health issues.

This doesn’t really have anything to do with today’s assignment that repeated the task of exploring the old adage that if you love what you do, then you’ll never have to work a day in your life. Then again, there’s nothing I love more than attempt to explore the inner workings of my own brain. Not in the narcissistic way that people like to jump to when you give any attention to self but in a way that I want to explore and share first-hand accounts of having a disorder infested head first hand, instead of having to hear how mental things feel from experts describing their patients.

So yeah the action I love to do it writing, but my less physical love is that act of exploring abnormal brains with mine as the only one available to dig into. This is kind of interesting because it also fits into today’s assignment in the same technical way with the topic being that joy is the best make-up meaning that genuine happiness will make you look better to the outside world than any effort to make literal changes to one’s own appearance.

Of course, you have to wait for tomorrow’s post to read what that connection is. Until then, it’s now time for me to sign off by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects.

Talk to you soon.

Sincerely,

The Wicker Breaker

P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.