Don't F-ck Up the Rotation

I started this one back in November while at a training class in Austin.  Finally finished it up this week.

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Puff, Puff, Give

This may seem a little off topic for the ride blog, but stick with me.  I’ll tie it up at the end

My daily schedule is a pretty regimented thing: Wake up, get ready, drive to work, go to lunch, work, drive home, play with the kids, do baths and bedtimes, fight with the kids to go to sleep, visit with my wife.  Go to bed.

Looks kind of boring written out but there is a nice kind of symmetry to the whole thing and all of the time spent is pretty meaningful.

There never seems to be time for anything else.  You tend to wonder what it might be like to have lots more time for hobbies and entertainment.  I’ve been out of town for training all this week.  The training starts at 9 and ends at 4:30.  I also have a 5 minute commute from the hotel to the classroom.  This leaves my evenings completely, frighteningly free.

Here is what I have done with all that time:

• Bought a t-shirt
• Played over 10 hours of Borderlands 2 (Of course I brought the Playstation)

No blog entries, no ride planning, no ride prep.  No desperately needed budget/financial planning work, no writing.  What the hell is wrong with me.  I’m always bitching about a lack of free time.  It’s why I can’t get anything done on the bike or house.  Apparently not.

When you have the time to do something, do you have the passion?  The energy? Doesn’t seem like I do this week.  So what is the real problem here?  Maybe the training is really taxing  (It is a bit dry and hard to concentrate).  Maybe I just don’t do well in Hotels.  Maybe it’s just suburban Austin (crowded as shit and less comfortable than home).

Nah.  It’s a fucked-up rotation thing.  Messing up my routine depresses the hell out of me. Depression = 0 motivation. I miss my kids, I miss wife.  All I want to do is glut myself on sleep and blow shit up on the playstation.

It all boils down to the Chi you get from a meaningful, well balanced schedule.  Even if it seems cumbersome at times.  At the risk of sounding boring, I like having everything regular and well oiled.  I get all cagey if you move things around.

Or maybe it’s just that regular life is just that nice.  Think about it, I started this whole blog out by talking about how good things are.  Maybe that’s why changing the schedule is depressing.  Because life really is pretty damn good.

So what happens when I radically change my schedule to ride across the country?  I can’t afford to go all dark.  I’ve got some 450-mile days and I really need to keep the schedule.  This shit is a stretch.  I need to be up and peppy with a badass outlook on life.  Here is the beautifully conventional way I’ll do it:  Create routine.

I’ll even write it all down.  “Here is the list for arriving at camp.  Here is the list for packing up in the morning.”  One of my favorite parts of flight training was the lists.  There are friggin’ lists for everything.  There is even a goddamn list of all the lists you are supposed to have with you whenever you fly. 

Will checklists be enough to cure “routine-interruption sickness”?  I’m not sure but it is certainly worth a shot.