Rant

So, this week's entry is about what the Ubbt has done for me.
Well, probably the biggest thing is that the goals and journaling have given me a bit of a framework to analyze my life. I spend all week, every week, thinking about what I should write on this page. It may seem like I don't care about, and I tend to act like I don't, but I actually really do care. When I say I have nothing to write, that isn't entirely true. I always have something I wish I could write about, but it's usually stuff I don't want to write about on here.
Most of my Ubbt has been spent in introspection and I haven't liked a lot of what I've been seeing in myself. Prior to the Ubbt I had the attitude that everything will work out in the end and so it's no big deal if I it doesn't work today. I can always try again later, or just wait to try. Now though, everything is getting a sense of immediacy, so I'm always stressing about how far behind I am on my requirements. It is not a fear of failing the Ubbt which is driving this sense of immediacy, but more a sense of things needing to be done. I've flipped from wanting to leave tough things until later to wanting to go after them first. Yesterday is a past today, and tomorrow is the coming one, but the only one that actually gets things done is Today itself. If I put something off until I've burned through 10,000 tomorrows, it'll still eventually have to be done Today.
Now, as I said, my motivation is not fear of failing, I have no fear of failing since in my mind, I already have. Even if by some miracle I manage to fulfill all my requirements in time it will not be enough. I have already failed on the only scale that matters: my own. I find myself conducting my life in a symphony of mediocrity, reluctant to 'break on through' (as a friend would put it). It's a weird little wall I have. I can often use kung fu as a ram to get though it, like with the vegetarian challenge which I've caught much flak for doing. I can truck along with no real trouble because of the little angel doing push ups on my shoulder and shouting slogans about never quitting and such. This is easy, as are my other personal challenges, such as the month I went with no pop nor anything from a can. Other things lately, though, are seemingly impossible. Push ups, for example, I can't seem to get done. I should make clear, I enjoy push ups. I feel great at every stage of doing push ups. The warming up my arms and loud mental Hu-ah! I do before dropping to the floor and then the burn of trying to do the best push ups ever, and then the smooth soreness of thereafter. The past few months though, I get excited about the prospect of doing push ups but then the little devil on my other shoulder kicks the angel in the ribs and starts off lecturing me about why I shouldn't, or why I can't or blah blah blah. These don't bother me, I do a lot of things much harder than push ups for absolutely no reason other than a whim. What hits me as demotivation is the prospect that it won't change anything. I'll still just be me after I've done them, having accomplished nothing, and will still be just as depressed. On the other side of the coin, I could do an exercise in futility and try escapism; use a video game, tv show, or what not to forget how unhappy I am for a short time. This is why I say that I cannot but have failed the Ubbt. Let's be honest, folks, that there is a ridiculous reason not to do push ups. Which is exactly what I say to myself before realizing I've already started playing the game. It doesn't help me in any way to watch family guy or play Demons Souls, but it will help me to do my push ups (or what not) and will probably make me feel a lot better about myself. Yet in a quest for temporal respite, I make things worse rather than make things work.
Of course though, I can't change the things that make me unhappy. I have an odd fear that if I change myself too much then people will disapprove, and since I don't seem to be particularly well liked, that would be bad. It's odd that this would bother me though, since most of the people I might bother in some manner are generally people who are fairly mediocre and I'm not sure why I hang out with them aside from that no one else seems to want to hang out with me. Also, I think it would be really awkward to tell them I consider them to be utterly mediocre. I do my best, of course, to gain higher quality friends but I fail and all I ever seem to be to people is a friend of convenience with a quick wit and assortment of little one liners. Never seeming to be a particularly close friend, and definitely never a best friend, with the prospect of any real connection, especially of the more than friends variety, seeming as unattainable as proof of Sasquatch. The frustrating part though, is that no one ever tells me what it is that they don't like about me.
I guess I haven't really said anything about what the Ubbt has done for me so much as ranted about my general state of loneliness and self-loathing. But alas, now I must go to sleep so as to be well rested for the tomorrow, which will hopefully turn out to be a less meaningless today.

Ben Davies
Silent River Kung Fu
Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada
www.silentriverkungfu.com