My heart is pretty damn full today.
This 2nd post was originally going to be much different, and I had it all mostly brainstormed. But life intervened over the last week, I got busy as hell, and I set it on the back burner. And then today turned out to be just a really good day, so I’m not in the mood to write about that other stuff.
It’s been raining WITH A VENGEANCE (said in booming voice with thunder strike) in southern California all day, and I love it. I know it makes for a lousy commute and other frustrations, but hey, I love me some rain. I was glad that I just happened to shower last night (usually a morning shower person) because I found myself with extra time to sit on our balcony and enjoy it for a while before getting ready for work. If you’re at all cynical, you might be annoyed by the parade of people on Instagram telling you to start your day with meditation and yoga and avocado toast or something to cure all your ails. But you know what? Something as easy as sitting on a balcony, setting the smartphone down, and watching the rain for ten minutes? That’s meditation.
So what else is on my mind? Part of that original post was going to be diving into what’s been driving my “early midlife crisis” (which I’ve half-jokingly dubbed it), but there were too many good vibes in the air today and I just didn’t feel like sullying it. Yes, yes, I’m fine and I’m getting my shit together, but here’s what I really want to share at the moment: things that made me exceedingly happy and grateful in the last two weeks or so.
-Reconnecting with several friends
-A weekend trip to Sacramento last week with some of those friends. Art museums, board games, and actual winter weather!
-All this rain that we’ve been getting lately. I guess it followed us back!
-Seeing/hearing of people close to me getting their lives in order (like you do in your thirties, or so I’m told)
-Friends accomplishing amazing creative/entrepreneurial goals (more in another post soon)
-Quality time with the wife. Taking time out and working on relationship stuff, and going on romantic IKEA dates together like the disgusting married folk we are. She’s my lobster.
-Having my faith in humanity replenished with stories of people helping people. If that’s the kind of thing you enjoy, I highly recommend checking out @tanksgoodnews
Yes I am fully aware how sappy and saccharine and rambling in vague detail that this post is. Regardless of whatever I’m blabbing about on this blog, what I’d like to do is give you guys a little something special with every post. A life hack, a cool nugget of knowledge/wisdom. Today is simply just a bunch of warm and fuzzy feelings, but I WILL LEAVE YOU WITH THIS:
Part of this journey through my previously mentioned “early midlife crisis” (should we shorten that to EMC?) has included an obsession with optimizing as much of my life as I can. I work 40-60 hours a week and have limited time to accomplish everything I want/need to accomplish. Staying healthy is a major one of those things. Because without your health, everything suffers. So here’s something I started doing every workday morning to stay healthy AND optimize my time getting ready for work:
PROTEIN SHAKES. Every. Damn. Day. I’ll usually have one on the weekends too as an easy afternoon snack. My favorite recipe that I’ve been doing for a while now is as follows:
-10oz unsweetened cashew milk
-1 scoop of protein powder (I use Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey)
-handful of frozen spinach
-handful of frozen blueberries
-1 banana
-scoop of peanut butter
Blend that up and drink it on the road to work for quick, healthy deliciousness. (EXTRA PRO TIP: sometimes that chopped frozen spinach turns into giant bricks that are hard for your blender to break down. Buy the fresh bags of leaves instead and freeze them at home. Much easier.)
There you have it! A nugget of wisdom and a preview of the madness to come. Next time, I’m going to spill my guts on my PILLARS OF LIFE (working title), which include the health stuff and more, and which I believe are the keys to my leading a happy and fulfilled existence.
Cheers,
Tony
P.S.: The Austin Powers trilogy Blu-ray set came in the mail today. So yeah, it’s a good day.