Max: Revelations for a Wednesday

For some time now, I have been struggling with the question of what I should do with my life. So far my somewhat itinerant career in tech support has (barely) paid the bills. At the end of the day, though, all I have is a paycheck and eight hours less to wait for the grave. I know that I enjoy research and analysis. They are the only aspects of tech support that I find enjoyable. I also love music and writing, but I have long since realized that those will be a sideline at best, a hobby. Research and analysis, learning and using that learn to diagnose and hopefully solve problems, are a more likely way to make a living.

There are many fields in which those skills would be useful. Among those that come immediately to mind are medicine, law, engineering, comp sci, math and a variety of sciences. Every now and then, I find myself surfing around various university and professional web sites researching how I could get into one of those fields and trying to figure out how I can get into and afford the appropriate schools and balance schooling with work.

Today I was researching one of the less likely of those potential careers, medicine. My lack of discipline - involuntary though it may be - along with my lack of desire to go a quarter of a million dollars into debt are somewhat discouraging. Of course, the cost of tuition is prohibitive regardless of the field I happen to be researching and is usually what leads me stop my quixotic researching. Today, however, it was the lack of discipline that comes from my defective mental state - a medical condition clinically referred to as "just plain nuts." Suddenly I had an epiphany. I realized that I have been focusing on potential long term goals at the expense of an obvious short term goal. I am overweight, hideously out of shape and depressed to the point of barest functionality. I now know that I have to deal with my health before I worry about anything else. There is new research that exercise is not only beneficial for one's physical health, but can also help in alleviating depression. That should not be so very surprising given that neurological research shows more and more that mental health is a part of physical health, that the mind-body dichotomy is false.

Now all I need to do is convince my flabby ass to exercise and eat better.