I am on a mission to eliminate as many choices in my life as possible.
This may sound sacrilegious or counterintuitive because we have been taught to love our freedom, but I am on a most enlightened quest to redeem time. Recently, I have stolen much of it, but being greedy, I need a little bit more.
It amazes me how much time I spend thinking about what I am going to eat and how quickly this mental wrestling match ends when I face the day with prepared meals. The gap is ginormous.
What I want to eat. Where I want to eat. Why I want to eat. What it will cost.
I ask myself those questions repeatedly. Time and time again.
I question my taste buds what they think? Not to mention, I avoid visualizing what my ass will look like when it increases a few inches in circumference.
We are surrounded with too many choices. Seemingly unlimited option. Endless possibilities.
And it’s all just a bunch of wasted time.
This morning I woke up at 4:02 am. I had my breakfast replacement shake. I packed my second breakfast for later, consisting of oatmeal and four eggs.
For lunch, I brought a container of canned tuna, along with some cherry tomatoes, not to mention a banana and a peach.
At 2 o’clock, on my way home, I intend to eat a protein bar.
Somewhere in between, throughout the day, I will have a coffee, perhaps two, and maybe a tea or two as well. My throat is a bit horse, and will definitely help.
My dinner was made yesterday, so there is no need to think about that either.
My last meal will be at 8:00 pm, when the kids are in bed, and will consist of a little more oatmeal, and a couple of eggs for good measure.
That’s it.
Done.
No choices. Everything is set and made.
It is my first day back to work after a glorious working summer. Meals are preplanned. They are prepared. Decisions have been made.
I am now free to think and engage in other matters.
True freedom.
A different kind of freedom.
This may not seem like much, but I used to spend an unbelievable amount of time every day, debating what I wanted to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I enslaved my thoughts to savouring meals and fought an all-consuming battle with myself, deciding the perfect and most pleasing choices.
It wasn’t just about food. My mood and sense of being was deeply connected to those choices. If I had a tasty meal, I felt great. On many occasions when I ate too much, or felt guilty about eating out so much, I descended into self-pity and ran away from what needed to be done.
Less is more.
I have eliminated what I eat. I prepare.
I eliminated the choice of when to wake up. 4:02 am.
I no longer search a moment when I can work out. I weight train each morning, like I’m going out to dig ditches. It doesn’t matter how I feel. What the scale says. Or what else I could be doing at that moment.
I have also decided there is no writer’s block. You either write, or you do not write. In the end, you either produce good work, or not so good work.
I have made a commitment to myself.
I am breaking the bonds of choices.
I hope you will do the same.
