Honor the change

Reflections on the summer of 2024.

#personal

My wife and I left home for about 2.5 months.

First, I drove up to visit family. Then, we traveled to Japan for 2 weeks1. We came back and stayed for my mother-in-law’s birthday.

It was a long time! 2.5 continuous months is probably the longest time I’ve been “away from home” since I’ve rented my first apartment, about twelve or thirteen years ago.

It’s a mega context switch. My entire routine was changed. Literally every single second of my entire day, for two and a half months. We had people sleeping above us, around us, cities, trains, bus rides, flights, the ocean, the mountains, family we haven’t seen for a while, different climate2.

The context switch was tricky, but I took advantage of it to read. To think about a ton of stuff. I was still go-go-go when needed, but I spent a ton of time digesting information, thinking about myself, where I’m at, where I should go, etc.

Then, yesterday: we’re home!

It was really strange to come back. Things around the house aren’t working. I’m turning the shower dials the wrong way to make the water hotter. Besides that, the house hasn’t changed that much. All my old stuff is still here - thankfully! All the junk I left around before we packed up our clothes, our dog, our car - it’s all still here too. But I’ve changed a lot, I think. A really big 2.5 month growth period.3

I’ve been back for a day and a half now, and I’m feeling the slide. Slide back to routines. Eat junk food. Don’t work out. Scroll 𝕏 for hours. And the temptation is there to just. relax. i’ll get to… all the things… i was supposed to do… eventually…

But I had all this stuff I’ve been planning to do when I get home, or when I’m back in my space. But I’m not gonna do it! I’m going to start implementing all the things I’ve been planning. Keep chewing on the big meaty problems that I’ve been digging into the past few weeks.

Sounds intense, but I’m going to honor the change that happened. It would be a waste to throw away everything I’ve learned because of a lack of discipline. Let’s go!

Footnotes

  1. Japan was awesome. Tokyo is easily the best big city I’ve ever been to. Our schedule was Tokyo => Yokohama => Takayama => Kyoto => Osaka. We’re already planning our next trip back. ↩

  2. From Texas weather to Pacific Northwest. Sunny this time of the year, but still down to 50-60° at night time. Japan, surprisingly, was 95° every day! I sweat a lot. ↩

  3. What changed? Well, a lot of it is private, so that isn’t the point of this post. One thing I did read a lot about in the health and nutrition space: Bioenergetics and the work of Ray Peat. I’ll probably write more on that soon! ↩