The Science of Self-Help

View Original

Day 860 & Barcelona Biking

Day 860 Record Keeping
Day 832 Fixed Meditation (30 min)
Day 706 Writing (3 rounds of 30 min)
Day 246 Rowing (30 min biking, 30 min walking)
—–
Eating
Day 84 Pantry Check
Day 82 Recording

Early to Rise
Day 15 Bacon & Water 71
Day 15 Sleep Recording 70 (11:50|12:15|11:30|12:30)


Great sleep, good wakeup. Woke up at 7:30, then fell back asleep. Should have just woke up anyways, but it worked out. 

Barcelona Biking

Since it was such a gorgeous day, I decided to go to the beach and walk and bike instead of sticking to my strict habit of rowing.

The city bike share is really handy. Got my card which allows me to take a bike from one of the bike stands and cycle for 30 minutes.

It’s super handy because I don’t have to worry about having my bike stolen or finding a good place to chain my bike up.

I used to bike a lot when I was younger. It was one of the few things that was my go to for complete relaxation. The last 8 years I really haven’t gotten back into it - the last 2 years it was mostly because I was bouncing through cities and countries that often didn’t have such a bike programs and for some reason I didn’t feel like the short period of time justified purchasing a bike. I had a bike in Korea, but only at the very end of my time there, and it wasn’t the greatest city to bike through.

Since there’s also a great beach nearby with great accessibility, bike lanes, a boardwalk, etc, and it’s summer, the siren song of the outdoors is once again calling to me like it did so long ago. I want to be an outdoors person again - it’s one of the big identity changes I want to make with this project - so it makes sense to change up my long slow cardio days once in a while.

Slavish devotion to routines is very compelling to me because it works, and deviations have often resulted in extreme disruptions to my self improvement. For someone who has struggled for so long to make changes, and is finally doing it because of that devotion, the fear messing it all up is understandable. 

But this project isn’t just about ruthlessly accomplishing skills and changes robotically; it’s also about using productivity to live life more fully.

I think both sides - adaptability to take advantage of opportunities like this and extreme regularity are needed for true success. It will be interesting to see where that balance lies.

Either way I had a fantastic time completing my “rowing” habit today (I’ll have to rename that again!).