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Vision Challenge

Byjack

Today I got a formal eye exam. The results are to be expected. I started using the computer a lot more, and I am very tired (from staying up late). My prescription is about half a diopter than 2-3 years ago.

My plan is to buy from Zenni optical (1.5 diopters lower) and if I am able to improve my vision from there, I will reach out to a bunch of eyewear boutiques to see if they will give me a deal for lots of lenses I want to buy.

My measurements are 143 mm for frame width, 15 mm bridge width, 132 mm temple arm, my PD is 64 mm.

I’m trying out these frames: https://www.zennioptical.com/p/unisex-fullrim-acetate-plastic-square-eyeglass-frames/2067?skuId=206725

Total came out to be about $52 dollars. I really need a better option if I get my vision better.

Measurement today is 11 cm. 100/11 = 9 diopters

So figures that the prescription came out higher today.

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The Trifecta of Growth and Progression Down the Path of Truth

Byjack

There was a big journey I went down in terms of working on myself, becoming more mature and being able to live a free and meaningful life.

  • I started by thinking that you needed to meet your own needs
  • Then I thought you needed to be good at asking for your needs
  • And finally, I thought you needed to process traumas and emotions

But I realized that they are all part of the same things and have different parts to play.

In a way, everything is about not abandoning yourself and taking care of yourself. You surround yourself with people who you can talk about what is on your mind truthfully and emotionally. They help you understand what you need. You are able to then give yourself what you need and walk down further along the path of understanding different parts of yourself that are in pain.

From processing emotions, we can truly love ourselves, and the people around us, and be present in the moment.

There is a sense that being with people who don’t accept us, don’t allow us to feel safe speaking our truth is self abandoment. In a way, even if someone meets some of our needs (for example is attractive enough to make us feel special), if we settle for someone who doesn’t love us or allow us to be ourselves, we are putting ourselves down.

Not allowing ourselves to meet our own needs (for example, asking for validation from others because we refuse to give it to ourselves) is self abandonment.

Refusing to look deeper, and shielding parts of ourselves from the world (for example, keeping a confident outward appearance when we feel anxious) is abandoning parts of ourselves and placing the outside world’s comfort above our own.

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Knee Rehabilitation: Rediscovery

Byjack

As I look at my jiujitsu challenge, I realize that knee rehabilitation must be an essential component to my strategy because strengthening my knee, healing it, and making it less prone to injury will probably be the most important factor for how successful the challenge is.

In looking into it further, I also realized that I completely forgot about my last post about my knee in which I outlined three goals:

  • 1 month goal – be able to sleep, walk, stand and light exercise with zero discomfort. I will call this goal little freedom.
  • 1 year goal – to get back to preinjury levels
  • 2 year goal – the ability to practice martial arts, parkour gymnastics and skiing. My goal isn’t to go too hard in any of these areas, just to be able to do them safely.

It’s funny because it’s been 5 months since that last post and I pretty much immediately dived into the 2 year goal because I lost motivation for the 1 month goal.

I also realized that my first post with two exercises for massaging the knee are extremely effective, especially the one that lifts and relaxes the knee joint.

I also rediscovered this video about tendon strength:

With these key takeaways:

  • do concentric-focused movements, a lot of volume with lower weight, do them explosively, fast eccentric
  • reversing the direction very fast (eccentric to concentric), challenges the tendon
  • if you lower the weight slowly you will favour the muscle, if you jerk it you will favour the tendon
  • larger range of motion challenges the tendon, but you can train them with short range and high weight and high speed
  • progress all of these slowly: weight, range of motion, speed

Bottom line though, I don’t really know what to do next.

My main blocker is just this feeling that in order to achieve the level of strength in my knee that I want. I will have to literally work out every day for a significant period of time and I don’t have the strength and the interest in doing that. It also seems really hard to get that done while also juggling work, jiujitsu and sleep.

However, now that I write that out, maybe I’m thinking about it all wrong. Maybe I don’t need to work out every day at all. Maybe I just need to work out once a week intensely. I know that even that low frequency over a long period of time will be at least enough to sustain strength in my knee. I might even be able to get away with once every other week!

I also really want my workouts to help with one very important thing for me, stress relief. I have so many mentally rigorous tasks from doing work at my job, thinking about youtube, and playing Valorant that I need an outlet for my stress. I guess I haven’t quite figured out how to do that yet, how to integrate it into my day that doesn’t feel like it is going to take a huge amount of time.

Perhaps it isn’t about taking a huge amount of time. Maybe it is like my posture challenge. Since I had some very simple exercises for that, maybe I need to simplify my workouts to be much more simple. I tried my warmup playlists, but they feel a little too slow and stagnant. This playlist seems really good to stop and start at any time:

I think what will be most effective is to slowly work through the video, only doing it for as long as I want to, for short periods of time. So always pick up where I left off, but never feel the need to go for a certain period of time. Hell, I could do 10 second intervals throughout the day. I can handle 10 seconds no?

Also, in the meantime, I think I need to find a way to do more of the knee over toes workout every single day, except the weekends.

The months I am not doing jiujitsu, I will need to organize my own conditioning and physical therapy workouts.

I think overall, I work too hard when I’m already exercising and too little when I’m not. For instance, right now I’m doing jiujitsu at least 3 times per week so I don’t need so many conditioning exercises, probably just more soothing massage, warmth, meditation etc.

When I take time off of jiujitsu though, I would like to go a bit harder.

Finally, I want to remind myself of a couple of truths when it comes to my knee:

  1. Allowing tissues to slide and glide will remove pain, its not the scar that is the issue, it is when it sticks
  2. Building up strength in muscles help protect against injury even with weak tendons and ligaments by absorbing shock
  3. Building up tendons and ligaments will protect cartilage and bones by absorbing shock
  4. Increasing range of motion help make muscles and tendons more efficient

The Attractiveness Challenge

Byjack

I’m working on discovering and developing my own attractiveness. Just to clarify:

  • Attractiveness is not about finding faults, it’s about understanding your most beautiful self and letting yourself grow into that version of yourself. It’s not about imagining other people and wishing you were like them.
  • Attractiveness is very personal. It should be how you want to look to feel like yourself and feel confident. It can match societal versions of beauty but does not have to.

I discovered an exercise that can help:

  1. Stand in front of a full-length mirror
  2. Remove as much clothing as possible, naked if possible
  3. Stand straight and adjust your body to find the most attractive posture
  4. Note any other areas that need adjusting, skin, hair etc. in order to reach peak attractiveness
  5. Once you find your baseline (just standing straight), try different poses
  6. This is PARTICULARLY good at detecting problems with posture
  7. You can take this practice into ordinary life by imagining you are naked, it’s a more natural mentality for intuitively good posture and can make you feel more open and confident

This is an interesting idea, to be naked first because I think it follows the idea that I have with learning in general. You should always start with the basics and move upward. In attractiveness, you must first find your attractive yourself naked before finding your attractive self with clothes on. Just like with any other learning technique, clothes and other accessories (like makeup) actually distract from you seeing the lowest most basic level of yourself. You are the MOST natural and yourself when naked, so it makes sense to start there.

My initial thoughts:

  • The MAIN area that is keeping me from being my most attractive self is the posture of my neck and shoulders. My head is jutted forward making my chin weak and shoulders rounded forward, making my stomach stick out.
  • I may need to cut my hair since it is too much for the features of my face and makes my features look duller.
  • I have other minor areas of posture that need to be adjusted and other grooming things I may want to do.
  • This exercise is GREAT for feeling confident in your own skin, I noticed when I focus on improving my own posture, I open up my body instead of hunching and feel more confident.
  • I don’t actually need to get more fit and muscular like I always think I do. I just need to strengthen my back and core so I can naturally maintain a better posture.

This seems to work mostly for your body though, and not with your face. My intuition tells me that the biggest tool for facial symmetry is just finding ways to relax your face but I’m pretty lost in that area.

Onwards to a better-looking future!

The Sales Conference Health Challenge

Byjack

I’m headed to Orlando, Florida today for a big sales event and I have created a challenge for myself.

I want to not only stay well (and avoid sickness) but also feel better after the conference.

Right now I’m suffering from the following symptoms:

  • Fatigue
  • Dry eyes
  • Low energy
  • Sore back
  • Tight and sore shoulders

In order to avoid sickness (which will be the hardest part of this challenge). I am planning on focusing on the following challenges:

  • Social
    • Keeping a distance from people
    • Avoiding contact
    • Using eye contact and projection to still connect with people
  • Physical
    • Mask up at close events
    • Distance when eating food
    • Hand sanitize at intervals
    • Reduce facial touching

The biggest part of this challenge is keeping in touch with my emotions and my body as well as being able to set boundaries. It’s a sales event so it is a very externally orientated event meaning that it is hard to maintain boundaries while connecting with people and easy to eat mindlessly, push past exhausting instead of sleeping, etc.

In order to boost my health, I am focusing on the following areas:

  • Emotional
    • Feel the feelings
    • Take risks
    • Slow down
  • Physical
    • Exercise
    • Sleep
    • Mindful eating