My list of goals usually has too many things on it, and those goals change throughout the year. This year, I’m going to try and keep it simple.

Be healthier

I’m steering clear of the “get in shape” line and getting back to what’s important — health. This means I need to eat better and exercise more.

I’ve already dropped nearly 10 pounds in January by just eating better.

It’s not all about physical health. I need to get out and enjoy life more than I did last year. I spent more time than necessary behind a computer screen, and that’s not good for the ol’ social life. Just in case I’m feeling unmotivated, I’ll keep my copy of Yes Man near the TV. That movie always gears me up for a whirl out in the real world.

Become an English teacher

Last year proved to be rough in the job hunting process. I had never walked out of an interview and not gotten a job until last spring. It wasn’t the last failed interview either.

I’ve learned from my experience and have wedged my foot into a few doors over the past year. This time around, I’m going to give it everything I can and land a teaching job.

If you feel like wishing me luck, I’ll take all of it I can.

Build an online empire

Honestly, I want to blog more this year. Of course, I tell myself this a few times a week.

One of the reasons I don’t blog as much is because it becomes tiring. I sometimes spend hours working on a single blog post. Doing that on a regular basis isn’t much fun.

I need to reorganize some things around this site. The biggest change I’ll be making at some point this year will be the incorporation of a few custom post types. This will allow me to build the type of site I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of years and post content in ways that better suit my passions in life.

I’ll post more about my thoughts on this (and probably some tutorials on how I’ll be doing it) in a future post. For now, I’ll give you a preview of a possible new home page.

I also want to try my hand at a few art-directed posts, which I hope will keep my creative juices flowing.

No more goals?

Sure, I have loads of smaller goals. While the smaller goals are sometimes just as important as the larger ones, they’re usually steps that lead up to the major plans. So, I wanted to provide an overall outlook at what I want to accomplish this year.

We’re always trying to do things to simplify our lives. Why? Have our lives gotten more complicated? Let’s stop trying to make things so “Zen” or so simple. Let’s see how complicated we can make our lives.

1. Make a list: Take some time to remember why you hate life. Write down all the names of the people who bullied you in school. Google their names for phone numbers and addresses. Write those down. Make threatening phone calls to them early in the morning and late at night. You can also include your boss, your spouse’s parents, and/or your ex.
2. Add a commitment: We all have crap things we have to do. Generally, there’s only a couple that we actually do love to do—come home from work and have a beer or catch the next episode of Heroes. I’m telling you to add something else to your life that makes it worse (apart from dealing with the wife, kids, work, etc.) Today, join a chess club, start your campaign for town mayor, or start a hunting club where you are the president. Whatever, just do something that will make your life harder.
3. Start a new collection: Hit up the old flea market today for antiques or start a stamp collection. Find an empty drawer or shelf to put your new collection on. Pretend you love clutter. I suggest getting a subscription to the local paper and keeping a library of what’s happening in your town. Forty years from now, your grandchildren can see what the world was like during grandpa’s prime.
4. No limits: Go out and have a beer with your buddies or girlfriends tonight. You deserve it. In fact, you should have a few more than one. Drink until you drop—or until someone has to carry you home. Your motto for the night should be: “I’m gone get tore out da’ frame!” (That basically means you plan on getting wasted.) Tomorrow, expect to have the worst hangover you’ve ever had. That should be your goal.
5. Reconfigure your to-do list: Get all of those things you’ve been meaning to do out of the way. Wash the car. Buy Groceries. Pay those overdue bills. Explain “the birds and the bees” to your kids (it’s better to get it out of the way now that they’re 5). Get your suits dry-cleaned. Update your blog. It’s good to go ahead and knock all these problems out in one day.
6. Start a rock band: You don’t want to have an extra half hour or so a day to just be lazy. Make sure you practice at the most inconvenient time of all. Have a practice session during your regular breakfast hour. This way, you can push breakfast back a little bit so that it further complicates your day and piss off your neighbors at the same time.
7. Clutter your desk: Go to Wal-Mart and get some pictures of your loved ones (including Fluffy) developed. While you’re there, pick up a few picture frames. You’re going to need them to place across your desk. Pick up some more sticky notes, preferrably the pack with four different colors. Use them to jot down mental notes throughout the day and stick them on your desk so you won’t forget.
8. Turn off your spam-blocker: Instead of letting all those porn invites, viagra deals, and mental health ads fall into oblivion, let them rush into your inbox. Take some time to read through them. You might find some things that are interesting. Very important: make sure your computer gets some type of virus. Otherwise, you’re just having too much fun looking at porn.
9. Speed up: Sure, your life’s busy, but you can make it a little busier. Drive 60 mph in the 25 mph school zones. Make sure to grab lunch and eat while doing this. Rush through sex. There’s no point in making it last forever. Your goal is to be absolutely exhausted by the end of the day. That way, the alcohol you’ll be drinking at night will hit you quicker. Actually, make sure to shotgun or funnel all beers you drink.
10. Multi-task: Eat, play with your iPhone’s cool features, sing along with the radio, and drive at the same time. Why do all those things separately? A human brain can process all those things at once can’t it. You want to be as stressed as possible. Shout, “Get the hell outta the way!” at little kids when driving through the school zone. If possible, get arrested.

I’m sure there are many more ways to make each of lives more complicated. What would you do to accomplish this?

Today, I told myself that I wish I didn’t say that.

I’m restarting my Body for Life program. This change has been a long while coming, and I should’ve started back months ago. But, there’s nothing I can do about the past.

For those of you who don’t know how I transformed my body last year, here’s a few things I changed:

• Dropped from 240 pounds to 214 pounds in 3 months (26-pound loss).
• Lost 2-3 inches off my waist size.
• Felt healthier than I ever have before.
• Felt comfortable enough to wear a “wife beater” in public (though I didn’t do that much because it’s kind of a tacky look).
• I had more energy throughout the day.
• I slept more comfortably.

It felt great. The energy I had every day helped me not only in physical terms, but mental. My mind was always fresh. I could get up every morning and fly through homework.

Now, I want that back. Of course, Spring is coming upon us (if you’re in Alabama, it’s already Spring), so there is the obvious need to look good when it’s time to go to the beach. I won’t lie about it. Most of us are vain enough to want that.

However, I don’t want to feel tired anymore. I’m ready to get back on track, and accomplish more than I did for the first Body for Life Challenge. At the rate I was going the first time, I have no doubt that I would have my ideal Body for Life right now. That’s at least enough of a motivational factor for me.

So, why did I say I wish I didn’t decide to change my life today? It’s just because I’m tired and sore. It’s going to be this way for about a week. I’ll have to suck it up. I worked out my chest, biceps, and shoulders a little over 24 hours ago; the real soreness hasn’t kicked in yet. Two days after the workout is when it gets bad. I also ran a half mile today, and walked back. I know, it’s not much, but it’s a start. Cardio is always my weakest part.

Tomorrow, I’ll do my lower body workout. The soreness resulting from that will make today feel like heaven. Wish me luck on my new adventure. Or, better yet, give me motivation. That’s the most important thing.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have enjoyed relaxing at night. It’s been a nice break. I did keep up with my Body For Life program. I actually lost 26 pounds and 7% body fat since April 3, 2006. That was in the 12 weeks of Challenge 1. I took a few weeks off, and now I’ve completed my first week of Challenge 2. If have desired anything at all this summer, it is my desire to have that rock-hard frame that most men dream of but are too lazy to actually do something about. Of course, I still need to lose another 7%-8% body fat. But, I’ll get there.

The thing is, is that I want to desire again. I want to want again. Maybe that’s why I’m posting tonight. Maybe that’s why I spent a few hours tonight hashing out a new design for the site. Maybe we sometimes have to make ourselves desire.

I did make some summer plans, or goals, whichever you prefer.

• Read a book every week starting May 8. Continue for at least 12 weeks. So, I’ll have read 12 books by summer’s end.
• Write 1000 words toward a novel every day or at least 5000 a week for 12 weeks, which is 60,000 words.
• Blog every day, or at least 5 times a week. Now, that’ll be a feat with the way things have been going.
• Finish Literacy Website Project.
• Shoot/Edit/Produce at least 3 episodes of A Day In The Life: The Justin Tadlock Story.
• Finish documentary-type music project for my dad by June 29, his birthday.
• Finish my first 12 weeks of Body For Life. Then I would like to start on a new challenge. (Each challenge has its own subset of goals that I’m not going to take the time to list right now.)

There they are, my summer plans. I hope I can find it somewhere deep inside myself, the power or motivation or whatever, to finish these goals. I think they’re all reasonable enough to complete, especially since I don’t think I’m getting that internship with Channel 2 Public Broadcasting in Montgomery.

One final note: I’m down to 232 pounds. That’s an 8 pound loss so far. Now it’s time for bed.

Let me start two days ago. All of sudden on Monday night my I-can’t-live-without-it Nokia (I’m not sure what model) cell phone shut off randomly. No keys were touched, no toilet water broke its shell (another long story altogether), no direct sunlight burnt its organs. It just shut off. All by itself. I figured it needed a break. It has been working extra hard lately.

Two days pass. Mr. Nokia (I see my phone as a male, so no sexist comments here, that’s just the way it is) keeps taking breaks. Why? I don’t know. I gave it a few good hours of rest by letting it sleep at times during those two days. And today, of all days (why?), he decided to die. And when I say die, I don’t mean pretend die. I don’t mean it’s life source (battery) ran out, or that he needed yet another break. I mean he literally died.

He broke down and died, like an old mule who’s been over-worked through 20 years of field-tilling and laying it down to produce numerous muling-crumb-snatchers. He fell over in the heat of the day and just layed there.

Okay, is that enough metaphors and analogies for ya’? I guess so. So, I took Mr. Nokia (I still want to call the cell phone that now for some reason) to the vet (oh gosh, I’m still doing it). I took the phone to Cingular to see what the problem was. Of course, they told me what I just told you. The cell phone is dead. I had two options: buy a new one from them (the cheapest one was $219) or get a cheap $50 phone from Wal-Mart and switch the SIM card. I chose the latter. The reason I had to do this was because I wasn’t eligible for an upgrade for another three months. Therefore, they weren’t willing to work with me. They couldn’t bother helping out a broke college student who can’t afford the $4/month insurance fee. Cell phone companies, Blah!

I got a new phone from Wal-Mart. A Sony Ericsson something or another. Cheap Plastic. Cheap Parts. Cheaply Made. Fifty-three dollars after tax. It does have a decent ringer on it though. I might actually consider just getting myself a new phone whenever I feel like it and replacing the SIM card for now on. It would keep me from having to sign a two-year contract to get a cheap phone that won’t last from Cingular. Just keep their service and get whatever phone I want from Wal-Mart or wherever else I can find Cingular phones. Not a bad idea if you ask me. Of course, I would have never found all this out if it wasn’t for the guy at Cingular who felt it wasn’t worth the money to buy one of their phones for three months. I’m sure if it was longer he wouldn’t have let me in on this little secret.

One other point of interest and I will be off of this whole cell phone subject, save your phone book to your SIM card. I never knew you could do this. So, now I have to get all of my numbers back, some of which will be lost forever, probably. Remember, save your phone book and whatever else you want to keep to your SIM card.

Anyway, there was a little hope and promise in this awful day; something that brightened my spirits while dealing with the cell phone debacle. Moments after my phone died forever, while I was working at the library, I found half a sheet of paper with quotes on it. Here’s what it read

Flesh goes on pleasuring us, and humiliating us, right to the end. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966

Few of us have lost our minds, but most of us have long ago lost our bodies. ~Ken Wilbur

Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.

“We turn skeletons into godesses and look up to them as if they might teach us not to need.”

X Futura Condensed

That’s exactly how it looked on the sheet of paper, except the “X” is a little bigger. I can’t reproduce that here with text.

But, it was sort of an omen, a prophetic sign to let me know that life will get better. The reasoning behind this is that I’m doing Body For Life again. I think the quotes were given to me by divine intervention in some way. And I’m a fairly big skeptic when it comes to divine intervention. I’m not the type of guy who will tell you everything happens for a reason. I’m more along the lines of getting what you put into things. There’s no such thing as predestination kind of guy. That’s not to say I’m not religious or spiritual, I just have a slightly different take on some things. I’m getting off subject now.

The paper was there, wedged between a bookshelf and a book. I found it while I was placing books on the shelf in the monotonous cycle that is my job. I have to take into account what is meant by finding this. I can’t just throw it out the window without giving it so much as a second look. It means something, though that last quote is a little distant from the other three. But they are all interrelated, and I found them. I found them in only my second week of the Body For Life program.

The quotes definitely lightened the load for the day. It renewed that bit of lost motivation I had gained from the death of my cell phone. I almost didn’t work out today because I had to run around town and get a new phone, but those quotes stood in my mind. And I’m still on track because of them. Whether it was fate laying her hand down on me or just a freak coincidence, it did something for me.

If that sheet of paper plays no larger role by existing in this universe other than its role today, it motivated me to do my lower body work out, it restored some of my faith in the unknown, and it made me a better person, if only for the few measly hours left in the day.