Utterly Useless Knowledge

Start. It really is as simple as that. Problem is, I tend to put about 75 thoughts and conclusions in front of the actual start. I've been doing this since I was old enough to acknowledge that I was consciously choosing not to start something (or finish something, for that matter)....around 4th grade, I think. Over my formative years, this manifested itself into me becoming a world-class procrastinator, of which I reaped the benefits early and often. Benefits such as skipping out on chores around the house (and feeling the wrath fo such decisions later), failing classes for no apparent reason, missing assignments, and a general apathy for anything homework-related. This ultimately led to me missing out on things I actually loved to do, such as sports, because I was ineligible for periods at a time due to poor grades. When it came to college, it was a tougher task to just slack off, but I found ways. Ultimately, during my senoir year, when I had been coasting along, then suddenly l...

As many of you may already know (as if there were many of you to begin with), I recently put a stake in the ground, proclaiming that I have registered for this year's Des Moines Dam-to-Dam 20k road race. When I posted this information on "The Devil's Social Networking Site", there were many that assumed (falsely) that I had been doing some semblance of running for some time. Well, no. I suppose I need to explain my rationale a bit. I think we all reach a breaking point with ourselves, whether it be from bad habits, how we feel, how we look, something. It varies with everyone. No doubt, there is a certain threshold out there that when we cross it, intuitively our brains say that it's time for action. Granted, that action may last all but a week. But the trigger was pulled. Maybe it just resets that threshold at some higher tolerance level, to be hit somewhere down the line. Sometimes this trigger can be another look in the mirror, or maybe something worse, like an...