Ah, what a great week. I flew down to Florida to Bonita Springs to spend the weekend with my aunt and uncle at their beautiful riverfront house. I got to go boating up a beautiful river and see Evergladesy environments, eat amazing seafood, gaze upon dozens of alligators and other Florida creatures and plants in a nature preserve, and took a Segway tour of the beautiful Myers Beach, the only beach I’ve ever seen with white sand.

I also burned through two books (The Watchmen by Alan Moore and The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester) and started a third (The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell).

It’s been a great week. Very relaxing. Been chilling at home, cleaning up my apartment, selling off more of my life, and working out harder than ever. I started going to my apartment complex’s gym today instead of doing my usual body weight exercises and I discovered that I’d built a truly surprising amount of strength through the body weight exercises, and I’m already maxing out the weights on some of the machines! I’m also steadily losing inches off my waist (almost 5 full inches so far) and building muscle and strength.

I’d highly recommend referring to this Combat Fitness training reference for body weight exercises if you don’t want to go to a gym or buy any equipment. They’re incredibly effective. :)

The most exciting thing I’ve been doing this week is living like I’m still in the Eastern time zone. I’ve been going to bed between 8 and 9 and getting up between 4 and 5 every morning this week. I get SO much done in the morning before distractions can overtake me, I sleep like a baby and I feel absolutely amazing. I’m going to do this from now on.

I’m also learning to get a grasp on the things I care about. By throwing out everything that used to mean something to me I’ve been trying a lot of new things and getting a better appreciation for the things I’ve got but may have taken for granted. And it took a complete self-mind-fucking to make it happen, but I’m really getting my shit together now and becoming less of a self-Nazi about it.

And that brings me to my point:

Try shaking up your routine.

  • Have something you love? Stop using it for a week.
  • Go to bed late? Get up early.
  • Have a bad habit? Cut it out of your life.
  • Play too many games? Read a book.
  • Read too many books? Play a game.
  • Never made time to learn something? Make time.
  • Drink too much? Stop drinking.
  • Don’t drink enough? Don’t start. :)

    There are a million little things you can do to shake up your life and your routine, and really give you a whole new appreciation for what really matters in life. Since I started getting in the habit of not buying useless crap, I’ve realized that my quality of life has dramatically increased, and I actually have freaking money left over now. I stopped watching 95% of TV, almost all of my DVDs are gone and I only rarely watch NetFlix, and I’ve been finding other things to do.

    Just look for stuff that’s NEW and DIFFERENT. Destroy your routine. Shake up your life. Question everything. Look into alternatives. Such as:

  • Learn something new.
  • Go to an art gallery.
  • Do some spring cleaning.
  • Learn the guitar.
  • Watch the History Channel for a day.
  • Listen to a new type of music.
  • Trawl through WikiPedia and learn everything there is to know about something at random.
  • Take a weekend to fly somewhere you’ve never been, and talk to as many people as you can.
  • Spend more time with your family.
  • Call up a few old friends you haven’t talked to lately.
  • Do some volunteer work, ya selfish bastard.
  • Donate old clothes to the Salvation Army.

    There are a billion things you can do. You can’t lose. You broaden your field of experience, and you can find new things you enjoy, or come to appreciate the things you already had even more. Shake things up!