First Steps

It’s been over a week since my first post, and I’m far from making significant progress.  Still, I’m encouraged by where my mind has taken me since I committed to begin this journey.  Four days ago, the transmission went out on my car.  It ended up not being a huge deal.  My dad was able to get a friend to fix it, and it actually didn’t cost me anything.  Still, in those few days without a car, those days where walking wasn’t a choice, I had to consider a lot of things.  Could I survive without a car?  I live a mile from where I work.  That one is easy, but I live about 12 miles from where I go to school.  I'm currently working with some people to try to get public transportation connected to my school, but there is no guarantee that it’s going to happen.  I’ve also considered purchasing a bicycle.  I figure I could save $1,200 or so and buy a really crappy car or a really nice bike.  It would only take me about an hour to bike to school from here.  I’m surprised that I am even considering this, but, according to Google maps, it would only take me 6 hours and 19 minutes to bike to my parents house in Zanesville.  Now, I don’t plan on making a ride like that in the immediate, but it’s a good long term goal to shoot for.

The car problems also brought my another aspect of my reality into sharp focus, my finances.  I got lucky this time.  The car was able to be fixed, and it wasn’t a major inconvenience.  I’m not going to be so lucky forever.  I need to come up with a financial plan for that.  The first place that I’ve decided to go for that is a writer that I love for all things organizational, Regina Leeds.  I think she’s great.  My problem is that I’m better at reading her books than taking her advice.  I recently purchased her book, ‘One Year to an Organized Financial Life.’  I think that this will be a good book for me to start with because, before I can begin to move forward, I need to get a clear picture of where I am and understand my financial situation.  I believe her this book will do that for me.  So far, I’ve read the introduction.  Now, it’s time for me to dive in and begin to do that actual work.  I will share some of my victories and defeats as I go.  Of course, I won’t go into great detail in the interest of preserving Ms. Leeds’ future book sales.  As someone who considers themselves to be a writer, I take that somewhat seriously.

In terms of my fitness, I’m still walking to work every day.  My weight seems to be holding at 257 lbs for the last few days.  I’d like to see it fall even more, but, for now, I’m just glad that it’s below the 260 lbs that I began this journey at.  I’m feeling better and more energetic.  I still haven’t gotten anyone to help me understand the results of my last bloodworm.  I feel like I’m making some progress though, and that is a good thing.  Well, with that, I will wrap this up, and I hope to provide you all with more frequent updates from here on out.

-Culbs

joshua.culbertson@gmail.com

© Joshua Culbertson 2014

Announcing....The Pursuit of a Better Me

My doctor, my therapist, and I all agree.  I'm a great guy, but I could be better.  This isn't about pride or vanity.  In fact, it is pride and vanity that keeps me from being better; because, I don't want people to see what a mess I am.  Well, in the spirit of my other blog, www.authenticculbs.com, I'm going to put it all out there.  There are three key areas of my life that I want to clean up: my health, my finances, and general organization.

The first arena that I want to tackle is my health.  I weigh more than I have ever weighed in my life, currently 260 lbs.  My doctor also says that my blood pressure and cholesterol or borderline.  I realize as I'm typing this that I don't even know what those numbers are.  I just checked my filing cabinet to see if I still had the test results.  I do.  I'm looking at them right now.  I still have no idea what they say.  I'm going to have to get these in front of someone with some medical training to help me understand where I am starting from.

The second area, my finances, is an area where I have shown some progress and in recent years, but I still have a long way to go before I will feel like I have stability.  Plus, I'm currently in grad school and incurring more educational debt with each passing semester.  I need to adopt more of a long-term focus in my financial planning.

As far as the literal mess of my life, I joke that when I sit down at a table in a coffee shop, I literally explode all over the table.  Within minutes, I will have a laptop out, stacks of books, my planner, magazines, and any multitude of papers all over the place.  The same holds true for my apartment, my car, and my cubicle at work.  I will be working to bring some order to the chaos.  I know, from past experience, that I have to start slowly and get one plate spinning before I move on to the next one.

These are a couple of recent photos of me while on vacation

That brings me back to my health.  That has to be the first arena that I step into.  Without my health, all other areas of opportunity are moot.  I also know that, as I get one plate spinning, it becomes that much easier to start the next one going.  I just have to begin moving forward one baby step at a time.  For this week, I'm simply adding some light exercise.  I live very close to where I work.  I am committing to walk to work every day.  It may seem small, but it's a start.  Next week, I will add another commitment.  I've used this approach with myself before.  If I throw myself into something too hard and too fast, I will become discouraged and give up.  My hope is to be able to show myself, and others, that minute lifestyle changes and produce big and lasting results.

Keep coming back as I continue this journey and share my results!

Culbs

joshua.culbertson@gmail.com

© Joshua Culbertson 2014