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Forward

I feel that for the past few months in a few aspects of my life I was struggling to make progress, and was sort of sliding rather than moving forward. I would maybe make a little progress and then be set back repeatedly. This is the first period in a week where I feel at least mentally that I have started to move forward. 

Personal Life Updates

I think the most measurable area of my progress is my physical well-being. I have been struggling with a slew of minor injuries since November, and have yet to fully recover. I had the mindset that I would take it easy for a bit and then get back, and each time I would attempt to get back I would just hurt myself and basically reset, wasting a week of rest. It took a while for me to realize that it would be best for me to take an extended break and try to let my body heal and focus more on the things I was able to do, rather than the few things that were holding me back. 

Even though I have not benched in 4 months, I am still able to stretch, I can still do other exercises, and I can work on different aspects of my physical strength. Once I realized that I would not be able to do the few things that I had been doing, it helped me to work on other areas that I normally neglect. Even with that slowdown, this past week I have been able to do 100 pushups consistently each day for the first time since I hurt my chest. Normally, after a day or two of this I would get back under the bar thinking that I was healed, and just reset me to the point where pushups would be painful. I have learned my lesson and I think will try to do 200 pushups a day next week and see how that goes before I get back under a bar. I will give an update on that next week. 

Additionally, after taking some trips the past few weeks and eating a less restrictive diet, I have been able to return to a healthier routine of eating, sleeping, and working out which I believe has made me more productive. I am now at a point where I can focus my diet and train very hard, and have added in additional rest days so that I do not reset my problems once they have been taken care of. 

Regarding work, I have started to think about my options for this summer, and I believe I have some tough decisions to make coming up about what exactly I want to do. I am not sure what my ultimate career path will be, but I think this summer is an important stepping stone and could potentially be very valuable for me. I am looking forward to seeing how this summer goes between work, workouts, reading, and potential thesis work, but I know that I will definitely be in a better place at the start of the season than I would have been had COVID not happened. I think already this year has proven to give me a lot of benefits and opportunities that I would not have had otherwise, and for that, I am definitely grateful and will continue working hard to make sure that persists.

Books/Podcasts

I have actually put a halt on my podcast listening temporarily. I have found a few that I would like to listen to that I have added to my library on Spotify, but have not listened to any in the past week or so. I think this is mainly because I have been going through a lot of audiobooks lately which I have listened to on car rides which were mainly when I would listen to podcasts. As I start to read more books on my kindle I think that I will start listening to podcasts as I am driving/cooking/doing tasks around the house again, and for that, I am thankful to have a bit of a backup of episodes.

Regarding books, I have been on an absolute tear since coming home from Puerto Rico and if my math is correct, I have gone through 1 book a day since that flight home on the 17th, with no plans of slowing down. I think it would be a feat if I could go a month straight reading 1 book every day, which would also put me over my goal of 50. I would go through and list the books, but it has been all of the books in the "Books I've Read," section since Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I have been enjoying going through these books and I am excited to continue learning and narrow a group of books that I can go back and read more thoroughly once I get to a point where I have less free time available.

Gratitude

This week for my gratitude post I am grateful for my mind. Not in a pompous way, or trying to brag, but I have realized in talking to friends that it is not that easy to be able to consume a lot of different books and sources and be able to digest the information. I have always had a good memory and have been able to recall information I have learned fairly easily, and I know that not everyone is able to do that. I think that this is a unique opportunity that I can take time off and can read a lot of books from different categories and try to apply the different concepts to my life and in different conversations. 

I don't want to take this fact for granted. It is something that I have always had a knack for, for example, in school growing up I was able to get by without too much studying. This was definitely not the case as I moved on to high school and now in college, but I at least can use these retention skills now for reading these books. I think it is a big advantage to be able to understand and remember a lot of information at once, and while there are other areas where I am less proficient, it is important for me to take notice of an area where I do have an advantage.
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