EPTThey buy their gym memberships, plan their diets, pack their duffelbags and march to the gym for a few weeks with the solid determination that this will be "the year" it happens. A few weeks later, they decide to miss one workout, then another and eventually the cycle breaks. In a way, I feel like I'm one of them. Except coming back to the gym is harder than it seems. I'm still standing in the lobby of the gym, trying to tie my shoes on once more.
While i was still one of the hard working people out there, yearning for a six pack of my own i started to realize something. I went to sleep obsessing about it and woke up every day finding myself thinking about the exact same thing. In the end, I narrowed down my choices to pursuing it into two options. To make an honest efffort, succeed and see it become a reality. Or discard it, descend the plan into nothingness and claim it was never important to me otherwise i'd have done it. In the end, my mind made up a third option that, not only was a prelude to my failure but it also served the single purpose of protecting my ego when i failed. As one might imagine, after a few weeks I ultimately quit gaming and decided to reshift my focus on something more healthy. I went rock-climbing.
During the entire beta of Heart of The Swarm I ignored StarCraft like a plague. I never read about it, never spoke about it and made my best efforts never to think about it. Eventually, my mind complied, receded the idea into the back of my mind and there it waited. During this period i happily indulged in rock climbing, made new friends and started living a healthy, normal and in many ways fantastic life. I was more confident, started dressing better and I felt less stressed out than before. While climbing I started recognizing patterns from my StarCraft days regarding practice and improvement. At times, I was climbing with stagnant results for weeks. I was hitting the same skill plateaus, having the same feelings of indifference and lack of motivation that had ultimately caused me to quit. But i powered through them. The same reasons that made me quit the game wasn't causing me to quit climbing and i finally discovered why. There are other things in the climbing gym that makes me keep coming back in the same way there are other things in StarCraft that kept me playing it as long as i did. I just couldn't acknowledge them and let them help me.
The months rolled along, the 13th of March some genius friend of mine decided to bring up the release of a certain expansion. I smirked at the idea, thought about it and finished my exams the next week. Afterwards, i walked straight to the store and bought my own pair of gym shoes.
And two days later, here I am, tying my shoes once more.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6FQvA3j.png)
1. My Mental Six Pack
2. My Mental Six Pack - The First Challenge
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