On Priorities

Current Reading: Adler is still the focus. I’m starting to realize just how short my attention span has become from years of doom scrolling. Also how difficult it is with a busy family life to find time to sit down and knock out chunks of the book. But, I’m greasing the groove. I spent a good amount of time reading it out loud to my 8 year old today.

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My current state in life means that I have to prioritize differently to allow myself to accomplish my goals, without sacrificing the things that matter most.

Way back, when I was just married and still hadn’t had kids yet, doing the things I wanted to do was much easier. It didn’t matter if I got off work and spent two and a half hours in the gym. My wife could come hang out with me if she wanted to. Maybe do a workout of her own, or simply spend some time doing what she wanted to do at home. I could get done, get home, shower and eat, and still have time to relax with her before getting to bed at a decent time.

It also didn't matter if I spent an entire Saturday lounging around with my nose in a book…or two or three. I’ve always been a very eclectic reader, sometimes to a fault. I’ve got a lot of books with one dogeared page right in the middle and I generally make no apologies for it. I remember Scott Hahn talking about how he mines books. He has a vast personal library and I think he admits that often he’s only reading parts of the books that are relevant to what he’s researching. But none-the-less I could spend a whole day just plowing through my reading list.

All that went out the window when we had our first child. Suddenly, when I got home, there was this little person who I couldn’t wait to be around. Also a big person who desperately needed a break from said little person. Not only that, but things like lack of sleep, feeding schedules, bed time routines and extra dishes (seriously we used to keep 10 bottles for our daughter when she was first born instead of just washing one and letting it dry after it was used) all led down the same road. Less time to do the things I wanted to do because this tiny human depended on me for things she couldn’t do herself. I felt the need to be more present with my family, and honestly it was the right call. Pretty soon baby #2 came and that added a whole other layer of complexity. But we managed, and the weight room stayed dark. So did my book shelf.

It’s not like I stopped reading and lifting altogether. Just the selection of books became more… nursery themed. And workouts became how often we went for walks. I don’t regret it at all. But, by the end of most nights if we weren’t passing out immediately after getting all the chores done, I just wanted to stare blankly at the wall or numb my mind and let some show or feed do my thinking for me.

Then BOOM! Babies #3 and #4. And yes I’m quite aware of how they are made.

I’m not making excuses, well…maybe I am. And I’m sure there are lots of well disciplined people who manage to stay sharp while raising lots of little humans, but I’m not one of them. The struggle is real.

All that to say, I’m being more conscious of it now. Figuring out how to do the things that make me better. Still keeping priorities straight, just adding to the list the habits that took a proverbial back seat to the little things in the actual back seat.

JOURNAL 8 août 2026

Ce soir nos copains nous ont invitées à l’izakaya un menu surprise pour nous recevoir dans la bande, on est les seules filles ils sont super fiers et super contents de nous. Ils disent qu’on est faites pour le #surf 😄😄

Distance makes me feel abandoned, but true closeness makes me feel terrified that I will mess up. So I hold myself to impossible standards believing I have to be perfect to find love.

Oops! We hit the moon with rocket junk accidentally... again. lol. Those headlines made me envision the chainsaw wielding idiot owning hoards of loyal minions who have dedicated every waking second of their lives to fabricating and releasing lies about the activities of his stupid failure of a space company.

I didn't believe it at first. I treated the stories as though coming from an attention starved weirdo with too much money buying his way into the spotlight. I thought it was as fake as his trillionaire status was. But it turns out that some of their space junk actually did hit the moon. It wasn't a planned impact. Maybe they should never be allowed to launch anything into space ever again. Like what are they going to 'accidentally' hit next?

The leader of the department of health changed his stance on MMR vaccinations. The only reason he would do such a thing would be that he learned things about how they work. Perhaps in the future people in his position should already know things like that before taking on the job.

But hey, he now has a cooking show. I wonder if he will point out (with that almost angelic magical voice of his) that if he was doing his fucking job instead of trying get likes on Youtube maybe the salad he wants you to make wouldn't give you diarrhea. Omg I wish someone would make a song, or at least a montage, with him saying diarrhea.

The elderly hypocrite suddenly became mad at how oil companies are profiting too much from the war that he shouldn't have started and now can't stop. Was saying things about how it is effecting the price at the pumps. Does he even know what a gas pump is? I have doubts. I have no doubt that his soft little hands have never touched a gas pump. Oil companies have been robbing nearly everyone on the entire planet for decades. Seems weird that he is suddenly pretending to care about it.

What about all the other corporations and billionaires (himself included) that are stealing from the poor for their own profit every second of every day, and have been for decades?

Him suddenly noticing the price of gas could be just more evidence that the dementia is getting closer to the point where they will no longer be able to stuff his gelatinous tired old body into a chair, and then prop the whole mess up behind a desk in front of the cameras. The shit that spews out of his miserable old face has been hovering around 80-90% incoherent for a decade or more. There will come a tipping point when the unstoppable progression of dementia causes that typical (mostly incoherent) to become 100% gibberish. But the race is still close? He and his incompetent regime could still have total control after November?