34th Birthday and the Voice of The Ass Kicker

Thirty four years as a speck of dust upon one larger. ‘Round and ‘round we go. But this one feels different. It already is different — here is overcoming; here is valuable change; here, I can say with absolute confidence, is momentum.

I woke up seven months ago and decided to change. I was drinking too much (4-5 drinks every day). I was eating too much. After decades of fitness, I had let myself go. I managed to get on alright in spite of it. Work was going just fine. My marriage hadn’t seemed to suffer. In other words, things were okay. Everything, that is, except my own sense of pride, my own estimation of what I was compared to what I ought to be.

Thank God for good instincts. Thirty-four is young, but its years enough to know which voices inside one’s head to trust, and The Ass-Kicker, as I like to call one particular voice, was calling me out. The same voice has told me to withdraw myself from relationships that were no good. It’s told me that I did not want to be a professor, to depart from the academic path. It told me that I didn’t want to be a lawyer either, that law school was not the answer to the question of what to do after departing academia, to drop out of UTK Law despite a full scholarship and lack of a plan. It’s told me to leave jobs that were destined for complacency. If all of that sounds like it tells me to quit, you’re missing the point. Rather — it tells me when I have strayed from my own path, when my actions do not match my character or potential, and even when I have doubted it, in the end the results of obeying prove me wrong. In other words, I trust it.

So eight months ago, I woke up, and that voice told me I was living like a piece of shit, plain and simple. I had managed to have a successful career, a good family life, and allowed myself to half-believe that that was enough. But the voice told me I could be more than that, that I ought to be more than that, and so I listened. I gave up drinking entirely. Finito! I starting waking up early and writing every day, a good habit I had given up. I started reading hard books again. I started exercising with intent and intensity. I lost 25lbs., wrote a novella and three short-stories, bought a house, led a company to two of its best quarters in twenty years, and snowballed a nexus of healthy habits that have together led to a life of intent, purpose, presence, and intensity, one that I can relish knowing that I am on my own path … in 7 months.

Now The Ass-Kicker has moved into his ring-corner role, piping up only when I need to keep pushing through something tough — a workout, writing, getting my feet on the floor before 5am. That’s his best role: a supporter.

There is excitement in all of this, but it is not because I think I am so great. I ain’t bad, but if I were exactly who I wanted to be, then I wouldn’t be aiming for much. Rather, the excitement is that there is so much more work to do, and now I believe I can do it. It is momentum. Cheers to 34.