Here’s a funny/not funny quagmire I found myself in recently. I quit drinking for 30 days. That’s not the dilemma. No, the dilemma was, how do I celebrate the milestone once I get there? Initially, during week one of not drinking, I had it planned that on Day 30 I would uncork a nice Ripasso and celebrate: by getting totally inebriated. My train of thought was that I’d drag my ass through 30 miserable days of teetotaling, hating every moment I had to deny myself a nice glass of wine to unwind in …
Operation Darwin, A Pandemic Battle Plan for Sanity
Well this is it, the second wave is officially upon us. It's time to suit up in your best leisure wear, tie your hair up in a scrunchie and cue up Ride of the Valkries. We are heading into the final months of 2020 and if this year has taught us anything, it’s that if it can get worse, it will. As I mentioned previously, we need to treat our mental health like a full time job this year because it is. This hasn't been just another run of the mill year after all. Between the pandemic, …
Chasing Happy When You’re Sad
Finding happiness when life is running smoothly is easy. Being happy when you're sad, or when life is treating you like excrement on the bottom of it's giant cosmic shoe, is an entirely different story. It also begs the question, why on earth would you want to be happy when you're sad? Aren't you just suppressing your emotions by pretending your life doesn't suck a million lemons right now? The answer, as you might expect, is not black and white. Happiness is an emotion, and like all …
When is a Race Not a Race? When It’s Fun!
This post is brought to you by the makers of MOTRIN® This past weekend, I joined 10,300 of my closest friends in Ottawa to run a 5K race. Obviously, I don’t really have that many friends, but since running is largely a solitary pursuit, it always feels good to join a community of runners all chasing down a common goal. I play a lot of head games to motivate myself to keep running, but when I’m in a race I rely on the people I’m with to push me through. Sometimes it’s friends, sometimes it’s …
Headgames to Play When Running
This post is brought to you by the makers of MOTRIN® I don’t love running. I talk, nay, coerce myself through the entire process; from tying up my shoes to putting one foot in front of the other for what always feels like an agonizingly long time. The truth is I’ve never been an athletic person, so running fits the fitness bill for me. Running isn’t a team sport, I only compete against myself, it doesn’t require a huge investment and I can do it anywhere. It also comes with one huge, and …