My Peanut Butter and Jelly Path

This week I posted My Nerdy Goals and a spontaneous post HIVE Focused and in both cases, I'm almost trying to subliminally meld my journey towards my long-term goal.

I'm sure that I've made it a bit mucky, but I believe some folks will somewhat know where my energy is put into on a daily basis; but formulating some basic outlines, will help with my own accountability and what I feel, a clearer showcase; of who I am as an individual.

An absolute truth of mine, is that I have no sense of direction. I can walk up a street 100 times towards the same destination and still make a left or is it a right or is a left - yes, that's me.

Not sure, if most of my life was directionless; as I only equate that to having a direction that one wants to get to. The only direction in my younger days was pretty simple - "Where the party at?"

But as life starts catching up to us and we need to grow the ass up, we need to pick a lane and stay the course.

Now, truth be told; I've had early episodes of picking lanes and veering right the fuck off, rather quickly.

I pretty much straightened out a year before I met my ex-wife when I was in my thirty's and had left the hood for good and although I worked for a few years on Wall Street and a bunch of years on Madison Avenue; I was still hanging out in the streets and that just elevated to bars and clubs; when I started earning bigger paychecks.

The first episode of two in my life that made the biggest impacts and I feel strongly about saving it is:

When I looked at myself in the mirror after many consecutive days of getting wrecked, that I totally looked like a zombie. I knew that either prison or death will be in my near future. At that point, I made the decision to leave Brooklyn altogether; which was impactful enough, because BK is a huge part of my existence. To be from Brooklyn, is a badge of honor; especially the hoods.

Positive things started happening to me when I left Brooklyn. I ended up in Rego Park, Queens for a brief time and eventually found a place in Astoria, Queens and at that point; I made less trips to Brooklyn and found myself, not wanting to get wrecked as often.

I went a full year of taking care of myself, especially mentally and then along the way; met my ex-wife, bought a co-op in Yonkers then that lead to having a house built in the Poconos and ending up here in Central Florida where another set of life stories began.

Unfortunately and although, I wasn't living a party life, I wasn't taking care of myself physically and the overeating became my new vice and yes, the dreaded cigarette smoking. That complacency and abuse of my body after abusing it for so many years during my party years, was not going to bode well for me - as now I was in my forties.

The second episode that made as big, if not bigger impact in my life towards change was:

Just like the mirror impact during my partying back in the day; pushing me to make that move out of Brooklyn, a photo of a recent trip to Marco Island, was so jarring to me; that I couldn't believe how I had left myself go. I was pushing 216 pounds and it wasn't pleasing to see in a photo, but more importantly; I felt like shit.

So under 9 years ago, I went all in on my Health and Fitness and a few months into that; I found the one thing that made the most impact in my life and that was Orangetheory Fitness. When I signed up (it's not cheap) for the membership without ever taking a class, because I wanted to take advantage of the founder's rate; I was already committed to becoming a fit person. OTF, just looked like it was going to be life changing and necessary to my goals.

Fast forward over 8 years later, as an OTF member and it's been a phenomenal journey.

So now, that I'm working so hard, on average, with 6 out of 7 days a week, for many years of High Intensity Interval Training sessions; there is another player in my life that coincides nicely and that is HIVE.

I mentioned this in a replied comment to @beststart: "Hive is my long-term retirement path, OTF is to help me live long enough to enjoy it."

That says it all for me.

Yesterday's post professed, how I'm focused on HIVE and only HIVE; but it's important to always be clear, never at the expense of my health and fitness. As long as I can perform during my OTF training sessions, I'll continue going and if I had to quit one over the other. I wouldn't quit OTF. I owe OTF my life. I really believe that.

But, if I continue my Orangetheory journey, allowing me to be healthy enough to live a longer life and I can meet my future goals to live comfortably as I get older and live financially comfortable simultaneously; I believe that my daily efforts on HIVE will take care of that part for me.

So, OTF is the Peanut Butter to my HIVE Jelly.

Alive and Thriving

*HIVE Divider Courtesy of @doze

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