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Father's Day

Another day another dollar. This week felt pretty slow, but I am enjoying the time that I have left at home and trying to see some friends because I really only have about a week and a half left here until I move down to Princeton for the summer.

Personal Updates

Regarding the daily challenge that I made for myself last week, I have been keeping up with it pretty solidly, although I took Sunday the 20th, father's day off. It was not really intentional but I think it was needed. I had weirdly tweaked something in my shoulder while stretching the day before and was still feeling some shoulder pain into Sunday and it was exacerbated by the pullups and pushups. I also crushed some hip bridges on Friday after my workout doing over 60 reps and so my glutes were still very sore. I was still able to my meditation and calf raises though. I think I will hold myself to completing the challenges each day for the remaining week and a half.

I have also continued to improve in strength over the past week after sliding for a while specifically on bench. I am feeling good and I think that my body composition is definitely better than it was when I was previously at this weight, although I am still not back to where I was at my strongest. I am creeping back up there week by week and I think I am getting into a rhythm with my meals, supplements, training, and recovery that is sustainable and I still feel enthusiastic about each component. Hoping to finish this week out strong and maybe make up for my miss on Sunday with my daily challenges.

My trying to decrease screen time this past week was an absolute fail. I tell myself I do not want to get caught in a scrolling spiral or want to not look at stories but then I end up seeing something that catches my eye and the next thing I know 5 or 10 minutes have passed me by. I think that being aware of it is the first step so hopefully this week I can at least keep working to try to minimize and catch myself when I start to slip. I was also able to get sushi with one of my good friends this week which has become a monthly or semi-monthly tradition and I consumed a hearty 4.6 lbs which was electric. I am still waiting on hearing back from the job in wealth management that an alum may or not offer me in the coming days so stay tuned.

Update: I am adding this section because my dad pointed out that I did not really talk about him on my Father's day which was a bit of an oversight. I am incredibly grateful for all that my dad has done for me throughout my life and he is a role model for me in a lot of ways. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him and how he has handled parenthood given the fact that he did not have a father to set an example for him. From coaching different sports teams growing up, to being around and setting examples at family dinners, to supporting me in everything that I do. I do not think that I could have asked for a better father and I am glad that I have such a good example and I hope that I am able to set the bar even higher for my children one day.

Books/Other

This week I completed Infinitesimal, One Up on Wall Street, Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, The Challenger Sale, and The Art of Learning. Definitely was a big jump after not really reading a lot of books for a while, but I am happy to get back into the swing of things. I really do enjoy all of the knowledge that is out there to be gained by reading or listening to books. I think that as I try to minimize screentime, it is a helpful alternative to be able to use my phone for audiobooks or articles etc. I am not sure what point I will get to where I slow down and tackle the bigger challenge of going back and annotating a book that I have already read, or the biggest obstacle- reading the bible, but we will see how this summer goes.

I also have been keeping up with the two main podcasts that I have been listening to which has been nice and I feel like they continue to teach me things and make my life better, so I plan on keeping them in my routine. I also found a podcast that is more health/fitness oriented where a doctor goes through the current medical literature surrounding different aspects of health and wellness which I find very interesting as I am training and trying to optimize my performance and body composition. I think that I will continue to seek out other episodes of this podcast that have topics that seem interesting because I feel like there is a lot to be learned.

Outside of books and podcasts, I was also able to watch some movies and TV this past week or so which has been nice to sort of unload from the mental attention that books or podcasts demand. I have been trying recently to go and watch some of the more classic movies that people talk about and reference because I feel like there are so many that I just never have gotten around to seeing because I will usually just opt for a comedy I have already seen. This week, due to a recommendation from my boss, I watched It's a Wonderful Life for the first time which was pretty good. Also, I started watching the show Loki which has new weekly episodes, and the second season of Dave which also has weekly episodes. I think limiting my TV watching to just those shows will help me with my discipline and time management.

Gratitude

For this week's gratitude, I want to say that I am thankful for my ability to learn and absorb things. Being relatively isolated for the past year and a half left me without a ton of contact with other people that would lend itself to engaging in intelligent and thoughtful conversation outside of some select times. This past weekend, on fathers day, I was able to go down the shore for the day and have a nice dinner near the beach with my neighbors and family. I really have not had the chance to be in that type of a situation with my peers outside of parties or nights out at bars and it was good to have more intelligent types of conversation, not to sound like a nerd.

I actually recognized books that were around the house, and was curious to see who was reading what and what books or authors people recommended, because there are so many options out there that it can be easy to have a list that just grows and grows and just gets to the point where it is almost too intimidating to tackle. I was able to learn some new things and also put a friend on to books and podcasts and ideas which is something that I really have never done in my life. I felt that I was able to hold an intelligent conversation for over an hour about several subjects that I had pretty much zero knowledge about a year ago, and I am glad to see that all of the time that I have spent learning about things and reading different books has somewhat stuck and allowed me to participate in an engaging conversation. 

This makes me excited to go back to school and get into a groove where all I am worried about is school and football where I can really get into the zone and be the best version of myself that I can be. I am still excited to go back and get into a classroom and have reading assignments, homework, and make new friends in my classes. I think that all of the learning that I have done in the past year or so has put me way ahead of where I would have been had I not been able to take the year off, and so this gratitude post is really an offshoot of that larger thankfulness for the ability to step back, but still it is nice that I have capitalized on the opportunity and have beem able to learn so much.
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