The End of the Beginning Part III: No, Really - This is Finally the End

“It is not the end. It is not the beginning of the end. It is the end of the beginning.” – Sherman the Robot (Millennium, 1989)

The above quote from a kinda whack 80’s Sci-Fi movie actually served as one of my points of inspiration when I first set out on my written catharsis. I feel it speaks volumes about how I feel at this time of my life. My life isn’t over. It’s not even close to being over; however, the first half or so of it is. What’s done is done. Time to look ahead and figure out what happens next – and so much of that is all up to me. So now all I need to do is start. How about I start with what I can control?

Once again, I have decided to take another journey down the weight loss path. I have done this multiple times. I have always had a little success only to get bored or frustrated and ultimately give up. I have been at it for five weeks and have lost five freaking pounds. WTF? A pound a week? That’s great for a person that only needs to lose ten or fifteen pounds. It’s another story for me. If I keep going at this pace, I’ll die of old age before I lose all the weight I should. 

After careful reflection, I have come to the conclusion that I may have to actually work out to get this weight loss thing going. I hate working out, and by that I mean go to the gym and work out working out. I have done it before, and I have gotten very little out of it. It’s…its…boring! It’s not that I’m lazy. I’m not! I am probably one of the most active fatties I know. I just need to actually be doing something to get a work out. To assist me in this area, I have purchased a video game system with games where I have to seriously move around in order to play them. There is also the bonus of jerking around the room like I am having a seizure in the privacy of my own home. My extreme lack of rhythm demands that I not dance in public. It’s just too damn humiliating for me and distracting for everyone else.

Then there is the question of what I want to do professionally for the rest of my life. In this day and age, I am not embarrassed to say that it has been some time since I have worked. It is, however, time to get back on the working bandwagon again. I refuse to go back to the circle of Hell known as the insurance industry. I just can’t do it again. I sacrificed 12 years of my life to that wretched industry and I have sworn I would never go back. The problem is that I don’t really know how to do anything else.

I have realized that college and graduate school didn’t prepare me for jack shit in the real world. The only thing I learned whilst getting all that education is that I can write a twenty to fifty page paper about anything. That’s when it dawned on me. I do know how to write, and I actually like doing it. I have written short stories, poems, research papers and even a novel. I have started to do some quasi-professional writing on the side for extra scratch, but TRUST ME – I’m still basically unemployed. Writing for a living can be hard, and I may not make a lot of money doing it, but it’s easier to get paid just a little to do what you love than to get paid a lot to do something you hate. I know that for a fact.

So here’s to the end of the beginning of my life, and I couldn't be more pleased.