Well, it’s September and now approaching my birthday. And of course, as a middle-aged man, I can predictably start getting those little pangs of anxiety at another year’s passing which lead many down the dark path of impulse sports car purchases or hair plugs. To be honest, I’m actually in a very good place in my life and have little to push me towards these darker parts of men’s hearts. I have a job that is rewarding, a loving family, a nice house and a relatively tolerable dog. All in all, things are looking bright. However, I suspect, that my experience is not uncommon with those suddenly finding themselves wrestling with how to make a payment on their new Corvette. I suspect, most midlife crises have more to do with the sense of time’s rapidity than with legitimate complaints with one’s station, and in that, I’m certainly feeling the results of accelerating decrepitude.

The hardest part is that it is getting harder for me to see progress in my life in some very key area where I desperately need some. Most critically, my health since the great ankle break has seriously declined. The slightly decreased mobility after the accident has allowed me to put on a dangerous amount of weight. In response, I have made resolution after resolution to get my weight back into a healthy range all with the same effectiveness as millions of New Year’s resolutions before me.

This year, my darling wife, as if to tempt fate, found me a copy of English translation Bernard Moitessier’s memoir, The Long Way. This along with Jonathan Slocum’s Sailing Along Around the World has probably started a few thousand disastrous yacht midlife crises. For those who don’t know his story, Moitessier was an avid yachtsman who had already completed a previous circumnavigation when he participated win the Sunday Time’s Golden Globe Race in 1968 which was the first non-stop round-the-world single handed yacht race. Nine sailors participated in this grueling race and Moitessier was leading as the race came into the final stage, some 300 days after it was started. Fame and glory was just within his reach when he made a much different decision that his trip was not really ready to come to an end. Instead, he abandoned the race and continued sailing onward, completing another two thirds of a circumnavigation non-stop and single handed until putting in at Tahiti.

Admittedly I’ve just started the book, but I’ve known Moitessier’s story for a long time. It’s gotten me thinking a bit about not only the futility of grand resolutions but the danger in them too. Putting too much focus on the destination is a great recipe for declaring defeat at the first setback because the path seems too far out of reach and unobtainable.

So for this year, I’m giving up on resolutions. Instead, I’m going to be working on a little self-improvement writing project to measure results in terms of the journey and not in terms of the destination. The areas I’m most intrested in working on this year are:

1. My health, specifically weight.
2. My family, namely making sure that I make them my focus and not on easy distractions.
3. Relationships. I’ve become pretty close to a recluse over the last few years, maintaining very few relationships with old friends. Hoping to start rekindling some of these relationships.
4. The house and garden. I’ve let my slightly limited mobility let me really keep me from helping keep the house repairs up-to-date or help with the garden, both of which I actually do enjoy.
5. As a stretch goal, I would like to get some time to play music in earnest again.

These markers of progress may be little things or big things, I’m not really concerned with the scope of the change, namely that some progress can be recorded. My hope is though, that by measuring progress over time, I can allay those pangs of regret and worry that we all face from time to time.

So for the first short entry, today was a pretty good Labor Day. I spent the day getting the yard into some sort of shape after being ignored during the last week’s horrible heat wave. This was enough for me to get my rings closed for the day. Going to spend as much time as I can this week getting the garden in shape with a week of cooler weather coming up.

My daughter has recently rediscovered her obsession with fairies. Yesterday, she redecorated her fairy house and put it out with notes to hopeful fairy residents. This has now turned into a serious correspondence between her and her new tenants, Deborah Dragonfly and Melody Mantis. Tonight’s creative writing assignment was to come up with plausibly exciting jobs for her fairies. I feel like this may get beyond my creative skills quickly, but it’s fun so far!

Stats

Weight: 376.8

Rings Progress:

See also

• Progress Journal: Setting Baselines