This week has been an eye opening experience for me. Being around the high caliber of men that I was, the conversations that I had and the talks and events I participated in was unbelievable. I truly belong to the best mens group out there and it has only energized me to be better myself.

But what does that mean exactly? What is a better man? What is the better man that I wish to become? This weekend showed a lot of problems I have in my life, some known (and shown to be worse than I had hoped), some unknown and alarming. But the men that showed me these things all did so from a place of love and desire to see me improve. Men that I had only met maybe the day or two before. But each of those men showed me a sliver of what I could become, of what I will become.

I could go on and create a laundry list of items that I wish to achieve. I could go at length at the goals I now have in various aspects of my life but it really doesn’t matter. I don’t need to be able to bench x weight or be able to do y amount of laps around the track to be a better man, but those things will help lead me to that man. I could list off the virtues that i will live by, but the list will always be incomplete and not make much of a difference in my life. Yet they will lead me to my vision. Much as the Tao cannot be defined nor fully understood, so too I feel is the man that I will become. I can’t see the whole picture yet, and I may never see it all even at the end.

I have a fire under my ass right now to inflict change upon my life and environment. An exercise early into the Maine event was to list what was important to me and to list what i can strip away to ensure I have the time to do them. The first list I won’t share, but the first item to strip away is video games. I’m canceling my video came accounts, and once I return home I will be uninstalling or deleting almost every game on my computer (I will keep Rocksmith as it is educational and I plan on using it for my battle plan in the near future/destress a bit from time to time). I’ll also be giving up comic book collecting with maybe 1 exception.

I will also be adjusting my diet and exercise program. I have a contact in the mens group now that was willing to help get me started on recovery from my back injury and I will be taking him up on that next week. I have a renewed purpose as well as a goal or two for next year’s Maine event. I want to have a better showing at PT and I want to be able to do the BJJ without fear of back injury. I have a year to get there and I have the starts of a plan on how to get there now.

There is more to it of course and I will rewrite my vision statement again after I decompress a bit and get back home. Or I might do it on the plane. Depends on how the flight goes I suppose.

For now I have a flight to catch, a love at home to embrace, and start doing the work that I need to do to achieve my goals.