Today, at 816 days in recovery, I have discovered so many new hobbies at bring me quality joy and happiness. To name a few: gardening, ancestry.com, blogging, tracking our net worth, growing businesses, cooking wholesome and healthy foods, and reading. All of these without the assistance or distractions of any mind altering drugs…including no alcohol. By the grace of God and the help of my friends in recovery and through working the 12 steps, I have found freedom from many toxic barriers that held me back. Now I have time and the ability to enjoy the hobbies now.
Gardening has been a form of therapy for me since I was a kid. It truly makes me happy to bring a sick plant back to health, or clean up a corner of our yard that needs some attention. The things that I do around the yard are impulsive, instinctive and are done practically unconsciously now because I know what I’m doing these days. I have failed and killed enough to know what to do and not to do in my own yard. Not too many of the task that I do in my yard today are experiments. I know the outcome and can see how they will look in my head before I do it. I can be on the phone and totally involved in a conversation, but yet do gardening task that are at such an advanced level. It makes me so happy to my core to walk around the yard with a water hose put the perfect amount of water on each square inch of my yard when there is a stretch of dryness and the plants are thursty.
Ancestry.com has been such a fun and rewarding hobby. I have been acquiring family history and facts about my heritage and get a real kick out of putting the information into the Ancestry website. Uncle Gary, my wife’s uncle, gave me the DNA kit for Christmas in 2018. I was excited, but reluctant on taking the test for some reason. Long story short, I get a kick out of finding accurate facts about people who have gone before me and putting it into this software. My daughter will have something of so much value for years to come. The past two days while at the beach with my family, I have enjoyed my spare time by putting in to ancestry.com three pages of information that my mom’s aunt, Aunt Frances, sent me. It is really fun and makes me happy.
Blogging has become so fun to me. Creating this website and making it go live, I have done something that I have never done before. Writing like no one is writing has been monumental transformation for me. Whatever is on my mind that day, I write about it and put it in one of the categories. It might not be perfect or grammatically exact but it is from my heart and is a wonderful outlet for me. This is going to be a major part of my legacy. I am planning to continue putting out quality content that will one day be a platform to help so many people to come. This makes me happy and makes me feel like I am making my contribution each day.
Tracking my Net Worth, wow really…it is fun. I have created a spreadsheet over the last year and a half to track our net worth. I was so far in debt and my finances were so vague that I was lost. Filled with shame and guilt over how I was spending and the lack of income to offset it, on a daily basis. I didn’t know how to get out of the hamster wheel, as dad said. When you are running on a hamster wheel and “just spinning,” you have to get out of center. You have to step out of the middle of the wheel that has you running and running and not getting any where. I made major changes. The way to know on a daily basis what you are worth, is to fill out a personal financial statement. That one number, the number of Assets – Liabilities number is the net worth. I track it DAILY! That is right, DAILY. I will elaborate more about this in future blogs, for sure. It is truly fun and makes me so happy to know to the penny exactly where each and every account is today. I track that number on a graph an so each day I can see the increase toward my goal.
Growing businesses is something I absolutely love to do. Working on that next big idea and figuring out the wording or graphics or who to target as a customer. This is so fun to me. Being okay with failure but knowing that one of those plates that I am spinning will work makes me happy. Today, I feel like I am making my contribution by helping my dad’s forensic engineering business, my accountability partner’s restaurant business, my wife’s wedding planning business, and any one else in my circle of influence.
Cooking wholesome and healthy foods is not a chore today. It is something that my wife and I enjoy doing. I am so grateful for having a wife who enjoys cooking and is really good as it. Reading also makes me happy today. I cherish so much my quiet time first thing in the morning. from 4-6am each morning, I pray, meditate and read. I like to keep about 10-11 books going at one time. I have a goal of reading just one page a day in each of these books. Normally, if I am feeling the book, that one page will roll over to two or even three. To be someone who during middle school and high school who was a B or C student, I despised reading. Today, I can’t wait to jump into the books that are in my que. I remember mom used to say growing up, “I don’t care what you read as long as you are reading. Just read something that you find interesting and enjoy.” Thanks mom
