Do you remember the blog post I published at the start of the year where I outlined a handful of goals for 2024? The second month of the year is almost over, so who would like to hazard a guess as to the progress I’ve made? Fuck all is the answer.
I’m somehow a pound heavier than when I stepped onto the scales on January 1, the only stretching I’ve done is when my shoulders or back muscles have felt as tight as violin strings, and the only gambling of any type was placing a losing £10 bet on the San Francisco 49ers to beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl. Oh, and the battery on my Kindle is flat, so no reading has occurred, either.
No Motivation Sapping Alcohol
What has caused the total lack of progress? It’s not boozing because aside from nipping out for a few pints over the past couple of Sundays, no amber nectar has passed my lips. Work isn’t too busy either; it’s been steady away since the turn of the year. A lack of motivation is central to it all.
The year didn’t get off to the best of starts because the Mrs hasn’t been well. I am usually open and honest with what I put on these pages, but this blog is not the forum for discussing the underlying cause of the Mrs’ illness. Long story short, her mental health hasn’t been the best, and she’s been off work for the best part of six weeks. Thankfully, the mental (literally) midget is getting back into the groove and has returned to work.
Motivating yourself to do something constructive is challenging when those around you are hurting, not that I’m using the Mrs’ problems as a reason for my laziness, although it must have contributed.
Motivated to Sleep!
My sleep has been all over the shop, too. Six hours is a good night’s sleep for me, and I can function relatively well on as little as 4.5 hours. Anything over seven hours kip, and I’m that full of beans that I do everyone’s head in.
Throughout January, I had six nights where I was asleep for 7.5 hours, two of over eight hours, and three where I was in the Land of Nod for at least nine hours, which is unheard of. I’d not felt unwell, just mentally tired and my body must have needed the sleep. February has been more normal. Perhaps whatever it was is now out of my system.
The wank weather hasn’t helped my cause either. Waking up to grey skies and monsoon-like conditions is bullshit. I don’t mind going for a walk and getting my step count up when it is cold, but I swear it pissed it down for a month, then we had snow, and now it’s just back to being miserable. I did get my fat arse off the sofa today and walked into the town centre and back. It’s almost two months too late, but it’s a start.
No Motivation to Play Poker
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) released its 2024 schedule recently, which motivated me to hit the online poker streets again; I’ve still not played since the week before jetting off to Las Vegas in December. However, my motivation to laze around and play on the PlayStation 5 has been much stronger, winning the war for my attention.
Since returning from “Sin City,” I’ve finished Assassin’s Creed Origins, completed Mafia, and the main story of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. That’s not all because I’m only four trophies away from the platinum in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, spent far too long completing the story of A Plague Tale: Requiem, and have so far racked up almost 60 hours on Ghost of Tsushima and its DLC. Oh, and a heavily discounted EA FC24 may have also found its way onto my trusty PS5. Oops!
Here’s hoping I can motivate myself to swap the gaming grind for some poker grinding over the next few days and weeks.