I can’t believe I let the bald spot post rest atop my blog for so long. Wow.

I’m busy. As always. I write a lot, but now it’s not on here, it’s on Twitter and on ManaNation. That being said, I’m going to be revamping this blog to still be about me, but also a lot about my travels and life. I had a realization that I live a charmed life and it merits using it for purposes of entertainment.

I’ll be sharing stories from the road as I travel for Magic tournaments, in fact I’ll be explaining just what it is I do, because to people who don’t play Magic: the Gathering, I just travel a lot – I’m like an international Man of Mystery. And as awesome as it is to have people think that of you, unless you carry a license to kill, it’s best to dispel confusion and explain. Usually.

I’ll be reviewing restaurants as I get to eat at a lot of unique places and, taking a lesson from my bosses, one of the joys of travelling is finding the delicious places to eat and be social with others.

As a gadget-geek I’ll be sharing whatever doodads and gizmos I’m playing with, whether they be physical gadgets or online websites I might be beta testing.

I’ll be philosophizing, theorizing and verbalizing thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.

And with that, I declare the new era of TrickJarrett.com, officially underway!

You’ll notice that I’ve moved the blog to http://www.trickjarrett.com/blog/ — Don’t worry, if you subscribe to my RSS, then nothing is going to change. I just took the opportunity to make trickjarrett.com a landing page that linked out to my various presences online.

I regret it every time I get a haircut, but it’s there. No, it’s not on top of my head. As Rite the stylist said this weekend, “Boy you’ve got four heads of hair on one head.” Indeed it’s true. I was born with a full head of hair, and I’m showing all the signs of taking it to my grave.

But I do have a bald spot.

It’s man made too, that’s the worst part!

Out of stress and nervousness, at my old jobs, I plucked at longer-than-desired sideburn hairs until one day I realized I had created a miniature bald spot. Stress invaded me. It inhabited my mind.

And the worst part? It wasn’t all distress, some of it was eustress that I simply didn’t know how to process.

If no one has ever taught you to drink water or swim in water, all you know how to do is drown in it.

Learn how to process, analyze and accept stress. I’m still learning, but I’ve got it 95% licked.

Life is easy. Really.

Stop and think about it. Look how easy it has become to survive in developed countries.

Compared to Haiti or Uganda or some other third world country our lives take monumental effort, idiocy or bad luck to truly screw up beyond repair.

What isn’t easy is excelling. Whether financially or socially or professionally, being above the curve requires either sustained hard work, one time greatness or knocking it out of the park on that one critical time when it mattered most and where so many have failed before.

I’m not going to lie. And it’s all stuff I’ve said before, but I’m overweight. I’m fat. This post is going to be a string of consciousness post laden with pop culture references and quotes. Buckle up.

Go home, take a paper bag, cut some eyeholes out of it. Put it over your head, get undressed and look at yourself in the mirror. Really evaluate where your strengths and weaknesses are. And be honest. – Joan on Mad Men

The sentiment here is clear, you have to be objective. If you look at yourself, you see you, but when we look at others – people we don’t know, we judge them. We judge them based on how they look. The bag on our head, even the metaphorical bag, enhances your ability to disassociate yourself with your body and look at your flaws, and your strengths.

The key to my exercise program is this one simple truth: I hate my body. You understand that the second you look in the mirror and you’re happy with what you see, baby, you just lost the battle. – Perry Cox on Scrubs

Change only happens when we have become so dissatisfied with the current state of things that we must change. I left the comedy club due to a single staff member who made my working there unbearable. And thanks to him I doubled my salary, then doubled it again the next year. All because I worked with a class-A raging asshole. Now, I must find that equivalent in my body and use it as leverage to cause change.

Here is the thing though, you cannot take a leap of faith without knowing where you’re aiming to land. Otherwise you end up being one of the characters in Super Smash Brothers where you fall to your death, fall forever and never reach your goal.

A goal is akin to a dream. Separated by a thin veil. Dreams require we admit to what they are, and risk to ourselves that we may not realize this dream. Like asking a woman out on a date, chasing a dream exposes ourselves to danger.

I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
- W. B. Yeats

I first heard this in the movie Equilibrium, and then I looked up the poem. Powerful stuff. It finds another risk in admitting our dreams, that others will crush them. Children dream of Santa, and it falls to parents to one day tread on that dream to educate them about the world. If my dream is to have six pack abs and a body of a god, then there are hundreds of people who will tell me it’s impossible, I’d never get there. And here is where my resolve, determination and bullheadedness come in. To them I say: Fuck off. It’s my damn dream so get off my cloud! This post is what happens when I stay up late watching Fight Club and coding PHP.

Earn your body.

I do not know where I heard this quote, I apologize to whoever said it and came up with this great truth. In so many ways I’ve spent my life taking the “free demo” of my body. Even during high school sports I struggled to push myself and earn it. For a short while after college I was earning my body. Daily workouts. Eating well. And I was earning it, seeing the pounds slip off. Then I didn’t fall of the wagon, the wagon exploded around me and my body slid backwards to the worst shape of my life. Here is a simple truth: Your body wants to be fat. Fat = sustenance and in famine it means you can live longer. But unfortunately for your body, your goal is not to survive famine, it is to survive time. And science shows that time is conquered by not accumulating that fat. And so it’s time I begin earning my body again.

This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time. – Narrator, Fight Club

The time is now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. I need to start earning my body. Tonight. Aside from the desire to look appealing, it has become more and more apparent that my future requires I make these changes. Both of my parents have fought disease, my dad is a cancer survivor and my mom died from her disease (forgive me for not going into more detail, I don’t need to delve deeper than I already am.) My family has history of heart disease, diabetes, alcoholism, and more. A clear sign that I should get moving and stop wasting time. So what stops me? Fear.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Fuck fear. Simply. I’m able to do this if I become dedicated and stop cheating.

I’m going to earn my body.

It’s not a secret, and yet when it comes up I am met with any variety between shock and amusement. It’s true: I don’t watch scary movies. Almost ever. I walked out on the Scream movies. I avoid haunted houses. And generally I find no desire to see what I’m missing.

photo credit: DanielaNob

Why? Simple. I can’t find any enjoyment in being scared. I don’t like being scared in real life so why would I want to put myself into a situation designed to scare me? Further more, I have an active and imaginative mind, and scary movies stay with me. I go home and I see things in the shadows. I hear things in the night. And I see them when I close my eyes. And it all comes back to fear.

In the end, I face the fear, logic my way through it and come out clean on the other side. This is how I deal with fear. Face it. Address it. Progress past it.

Sort of like a super hero. You know. Christian Bale, as Batman, faces the bears in the cave to eventually become the superhero we love. Superman has to face his ultra-rare Kryptonite weakness nearly every week. Blade faces his vampire desires in every movie, reminding himself of his origin. They all have a weakness that they are forced to face.

photo credit: donbuciak

I’m… well I’m not a super hero. But I do have a consistent shortcoming. And it is nothing new, it is my arch-nemesis with whom I have battled countless times: time management. From my school days, to my professional life and on into my personal life; each are rife with examples where this has been a major problem for me.

During college, when my grades were on the chopping block I had multiple mirror chats, face to face with myself, growling out drill sergeant style curses and disparaging remarks designed to motivate me into getting my ass in gear. And each time, I get going, get on top, decide I’m too awesome, and proceed to stop trying so hard. And so, just like our caped crusaders, my weakness rears its ugly head and reminds my readers that I am not an infallible deity, but instead a common man seeking and striving to be something more.

Meanwhile, in the hall of justice…

So here I am again, reminded of a major shortcoming in myself, and this time this blog is my mirror where I stare myself square in the face and question what I need to do to change my behaviors to avoid having yet another of these chats.

And then I go into the deeper understanding mode, looking to find my motivation. What will drive me to make these changes? Not frustration, frustration arises from the inability to instill the desired change. Not joy, clearly I’m not happy – happiness is the antithesis of change. Only when we become thoroughly dissatisfied with our current condition will change happen. Dissatisfaction! Yes that’s it! I am dissatisfied. I seek to be better than I am. Always looking to come out one iota better than I was going in. And then to grab onto that improvement and embody it. Make it not a coat I wear but a piece of the internal machinery.

But most importantly, I realize that my changes are not driven by fear. I am who I am, no matter how I act. And so I advance beyond the fear and step past it into daylight and begin the steps further into the future.

photo credit: James Bowe