Outcome: "Win"
Record: 27-0
Streak: 27

Summary: Spent the morning with Eva, went shopping, bought my own copy of How To Read A Book, unpacked groceries, cleaned, did laundry, worked on the novel for an hour, and for the rest of the night I'm reading. 3 things.
1. Last night, when I went to hang out with Christian, I had an unexpected meeting with a tutor from Santa Fe, who was here for the board meeting. It was great talking to him. He was encouraging and made me feel like even last year, during a time when I basically felt like a piece of garbage, I was doing good things. We talked about a lot of stuff, and it was refreshing to have conversation of that quality again.
2. How to Read a Book is fucking awesome. I'm a few pages away from the end, but as soon as I finish, I'm going to read it again and create a wall chart based on the method in the book. I can recognize the merits of their method, and I will use it whenever I can.
3. I was so stressed out while shopping today. Mentally I was just freaking out. Everything was fucking with me. I ate a piece of chocolate and felt like I ruined my good work up until now, and when I bought the book, I felt guilty about spending the money. I was guilty and angry the whole time. People moving too slow at the store made me want to scream. My lack of mental composure almost made me give myself a loss. Fortunately I was able to work very hard to counteract my freak out, drank lots of water and took a flaxseed oil pill, and eventually I calmed down. I feel like I overcame whatever that was. One day when money isn't an issue, I think I'll check out therapy. I can recognize better and worse overall states of mental health in my own past and theraputic things that I've done for myself, like reading and thinking. Still, I'm curious about clinical psychology and whether it might be able to better my life. We'll see. For right now I feel good about my situation.

Outcome: "Win"
Record: 26-0
Streak: 26

Summary: Friday's are tough because often I have a big chunk of time where I'm just sitting by myself in my house with the intention of writing or doing research. If there's ever a situation where I'm prone to fucking up, that's it right there. But I kept up my effort. I put in my time at work, even getting a half hour extra for next week, finished a long lesson 6 in French (I've been working on that every day even if I don't write about it), wrote to admissions at Penn about one of their programs, contacted the Department of Natural Resources in Maryland to see about internships, took down some information about classes, and wrote two chapters in the book. After posting I will probably order a printer and write a thank-you note to my granddad.
Yeah, being fat is morally shameful, unless it is caused by an actual illness or some other unavoidable condition. There was a day when I was sitting on a bench in one of the busiest sections of Annapolis, and for about 30 seconds there wasn't a single, non-fat person in my field of vision. I was totally shocked. I don't know what made me think about it, but when I did, I was blown away by the fact that out of probably hundreds of people in front of me, 100% of them were fat.
I understand the temptation of food and the difficulty of exercise, and I even felt like I might have been able to consider myself fat for a little while last year, but it's still shameful. Addressing that has been one of the focal points of my new program. Speaking of which, I weighed myself today and I dropped another pound, so I'm down to 178 after starting at above 200. And that weight loss is just from eating better, not necessarily from going to the gym. I jog sometimes and ride my bike, and I also try to scale this wall by my apartment every time I pass it, but I don't go to the gym.

Outcome: "Win"
Record: 25-0
Streak: 25

Summary: I used my two-fold strategy effectively again today--my preferred tact was to try to think about my situation and my tasks in a way that motivates me to do them. This worked some of the time, and when it did, it was a pleasure to be working. When it failed, my iron-fisted half took over and basically operated with pure will and reason. I find that even when I'm in mode #2, after I start a thing, I get into it and can switch into mode #1, but I need that initial jumpstart.

Outcome: "Win"
Record: 24-0
Streak: 24

Summary: Today was an easy win. I racked up two and a quarter hours of overtime, so I won't see the work that I would have done today until Friday. I have faith that I'll do what I need to do.
I had a nice inspiration this afternoon. Of course it's inspiration, so it'll go away soon, but in the meantime it's been good. I transcended the anxiety caused by the feeling that The State of Worthiness is somewhere that I am presently not. I was able to take pleasure and pride in ethical living fundamentally and trust that the things I plan for will come. This is the main lesson I take from Self-Reliance. I'm being vague, I know, but I only wanted to sketch the feeling.

Outcome: "Win"
Record: 23-0
Streak: 23

Summary: One way we can motivate ourselves is through inspiration. I'm including changing the way you think about something in the term inspiration. When inspiration is available, it can be a powerful force. The problem with it is that it isn't always available, and when it's not, you must have a strong willpower and a clear rational grasp of what you're doing. In moments like that you simply must power through your tasks. Today was a good example of this. During the day I meditated on some principles that made me feel great about my situation, and thus I worked very hard without difficulty. At night the feeling stopped, and I couldn't bring it back, but I still had stuff to do. I basically accepted my shitty feeling and said to it that I don't care if it's there, because either way I'm going to get done what I want to get done. And I did, just powering through. Having that power is largely based on sleep, exercise, and nutrition, as far as I can tell.
Worked well, wrote for an hour, got an hour overtime, and spent 45 so-so minutes on plan b. That isn't a huge deal because I'll get that hour later this week.

Outcome for 10/22: "Win"
Record: 21-0
Streak: 21

Summary: Chilled out at my house, watched the Eagles tragedy unfold, got hoagies, got coffee, picked up a whole Lorenzo's for everyone for dinner, drove back to Annapolis, had some cake, and went to bed.

Week in Review: Philly was fun as always. I did a good job this week (I genuinely avoided a loss). There are three key areas I want to focus on for next week. 1)I want to continue my 1 hour per day minimum writing. This worked gloriously last week, and I want to keep it up. 2) I want to make more of a push on plan b. I've already allotted at least an hour a day to it, but I need to be more aggressive. 3) Last week I could have made a more sincere effort at work, especially Friday. Not that I was straight up negligent, but perhaps I got too relaxed for a moment. Next week I want to go back to putting in impecable days (this will be a huge challenge since I'm very restless and want to be doing all writing and plan b).

Outcome for 10/23: "Win"
Record: 22-0
Streak: 22

Summary: I basically fasted today and just drank water to clear myself out. Hoagies, pizza, candy, cheesesteaks, cake, etc. will fuck you up. It fucked me up. I also didn't get enough sleep, so I'm going to bed very early tonight.
I put in a 95% solid effort at work, better than last Friday, but could have been slightly better. I just felt so crappy all day.
I spent a very good hour writing. I almost skipped it today because I was so tired, which, of course, would have warranted an automatic loss, so I powered through my tiredness.
I spent an hour working on Plan B. I contacted the director of an environmental design/"green" architecture firm in Baltimore to see about the possibly of talking to someone there about my interests.
Yeah, fucking Eagles. I don't know, in a way I feel less concerned about wins and losses after Sunday. I think if they're doing really well and obviously on track for the Super Bowl, it's like they're keeping up a perfect volley and it's crushing to drop it/lose. If they start losing a lot, and it seems like they might still make it to the Superbowl, but maybe not, losses are not as hard to bare, at least for me. I'm not saying that I've given up on this season--far from it, but it's more like I won't be super dissapointed if they don't make it to the post season. If they do, it'll b a pleasant surprise, something I didn't see coming or take for granted.

Outcome for 10/21: "Win"
Record: 20-0
Streak: 20

Summary: Went to Philly, hell yeah. Stopped at Tony Luke's for cheese steaks for the meat eaters, while I got an Uncle Mike's with cheese. It was delicious but too spicy. The place was South Philly par excellence. Before leaving the area we got pretzels at the Philly Soft Pretzel factory at 3 for 1$. Ben said this was the best pretzel he'd ever had. It was one of the best I'd ever had. Then we drove into Center City, dropped Ada off at the subway to go meet her friend at Temple, and afterward the rest of us went to the Rittenhouse area. We got delicious cappucinos at La Colombe, walked around, hung out at the Barnes and Noble, picked up Ada, walked up Broad through City Hall and went back to Rittenhouse. The girls went to some stores, while Ben and I watched skaters at City Hall/Love Park. For dinner we met my family at Charles Plaza in Chinatown, which was lovely. Finally, we went to South Street to finish off the night. By the way, Ada, who is from north Jersey, and Ben, from San Francisco, both said, almost upon first taste, that Lorenzo's was the best pizza that they'd ever had in their lives, hands down.