My Journal

I have felt the need for a while to use journal writing as an outlet for the stress, pain, and emotion I have been enjoying over the past many months. It is so hard to start something with any real commitment. I have had the ability in my life for periods, to be incredibly committed to certain routines or accomplishing certian goals. I decided in the MTC after seeing another missionaries journal, to keep a daily journal of my whole mission. I was able to keep that commitment amid all of the many responisbilities and fatigue that beset me as I served the Lord. I am grateful for my stubborn determination. I noticed it again at BYU after seeing Adam Ward unworldly focus on grades. I wanted to get the best grades possible and after my freshmen year, I did not get below an A- in any class the rest of my time and I graduated Cum Laude. A couple of years ago, I determined to get myself healthy before my 30th birthday. With the same focus, determination, and dogged commitment to the goal, I worked out vigorsouly and with purpose 6 days a week and even more impressive, I ate much more healthily that I ever had in my life and lost over 100lbs. I even signed up for, trained for, and completed a 1/2 marathon last year. As impressive as these accomplishments are, I have had many more equally disappointing failures in trying to make a change or accomplish a goal. I have no idea, or at least I can't pinpoint, the reason that I have done so well and been so committed at times and seen that commitment be so weak and fleeting at others. I hope that as I try and write with some frequency in this, my blog/journal, I can begin to dissect and analyze my life and find answers. These answers are crucial to help me overcome the trials and challenges I have recently faced. Even more, they are essential to help me reach my ultimate goal of being worthy of the spirit of the Lord and to one day return with honor to His presence.

The past few weeks have been full of stress from issue at work and from a frustration with my health. I think I sometime blur the line between things that I can control and things that I cannnot. Also, there is a misinterpretation of the cause and effect of issue in my life. For example, my knee hurts and often I don't feel like working out because my knee hurts. If I step back however, I know that the only I can do about the pain in my knee is work my tail off at the gym to rebuild strenth and endurance and to get my knee healthy. I don't work out because of pain but the pain is acutally a result of me not working out. The same issue is the case with my thyroid hormone levels. I have felt fatigue and blame it on my thyroid. That might be the case but I cannot let myself become enslaved by my thyroid issues. I need to fight to be the person I want to be. Its the same at work. I have been frustrated with issue at work and often think, "if only..." What I need to do is systematically make the changes and improvements that will lower my stress and improve our business.

I have ideas and desires, goals and aspirations. I am a smart man and I know that I can accomplish anything I am completely committed to. So, how to I completlely commit myself?