At this point, every single pound has a hard won quality about it. It’s difficult to say why I suddenly re-gained almost 1.5 pounds over the past two days. I’ve been very well behaved eating wise. This weight gain equates to nearly 1.5 pints of water retention. And that’s probably what it is, but I’m not certain.
To better understand the impact of water retention on my weight, I’m adding the Water % measurement that my bathroom scale provides to my Health ROS. Knowing whether I’m retaining extra water will help guide my efforts and keep my morale high since water weight is comparatively easy to deal with.
2x Zero+ ; Quartet & Nickel ; M: 143 ; C: 104 ; P/U: 2x 70 ; W : 2x 5 mi
Health R.O.S.
- Weight: 205.5
- BMI: 27.8
- Fat %: 21.1
- Water %: 57.5
I’m writing today’s journal entry during my lunch break at work. And I have to say, I’m fighting off a pretty strong urge to pick up some beer on my commute home. I’m gonna RAIN it away since I’ve only gotten to a Nickel and it feels too soon to drink again. I really am trying to keep the beer drinking to a couple times a month, and certainly no more than once a week.
For, as we’ll discuss today, the intervals of my drinking affect the quality of my sobriety.
The Quality of Intervals
During my morning meditation, and on the heels of completing a Coursera music theory course, it occured to me that absolutely everything, like musical notes, is comprised of intervals. And, just as in music, the intervals determine the quality of the experience.
In music theory, intervals describe the distance(s) between tones and are often used to describe scales (e.g. major scale vs minor scale, etc). These note intervals and their patterns determine the ‘quality’ of the note or scale. In other words, does the music make you feel a certain way? Happy, sad, energetic, suspenseful patriotic, nostalgic? If so, you can thank the quality or feeling of the intervals and their patterns.
The Quality of Everything
As I meditated on the quality of emotion produced by the patterns of intervals in music, it came to me that the same is true for all things we experience in our lives. Consider these extremes and the intervals between them:
- Gradations of light and darkness
- Silence and deafening noise (cacophony)
- Consonance and dissonance
- Love and hate
- In and out
- Here and there, up and down
- Hard and soft
- Smooth and rough
- Etc, etc, etc
As I dug in a little, I considered the intervals of light and darkness in relation to dawn and dusk. Dawn moves toward light. Dusk moves away from light. The intervals of light and the quality of emotion they produce are influenced by clouds, wind, weather, seasons, moon cycles, temperature, and whether you are standing in the shade of a forest or are exposed out on the burning hot sands of a desert.
But at their most fundamental levels, dawn and dusk have very different qualities even though the light itself and its colors are very similar. Dawn’s inherent quality is that it speaks to the day ahead. Alternatively, dusk leaves the day behind and welcomes the night. These qualities have no baked in emotional elements, but are rather determined by your personal perspective.
A morning person embraces the dawn while the night owl abhors it, drawing the shades and pulling his pillow over his tired eyes to shut it out.
The Seasons, They Go ‘Round and ‘Round
Each season brings with it a special quality. There are intervals of wet and dry, hot and cold, windy and calm, hazy and clear. Depending on where you live, you may experience the qualities of changing colors, the comings and goings of seasonal song birds, the smells of spring rain and autumn leaves, and the feelings of oppressive heat and bitter cold.
I’m coming to find that sobriety, too, comes with intervals that ultimately determine its quality. For me, I’m working to permanently change the interval of my drinking (from virtually nightly to occasionally). As I do this, I am experiencing a noticable and positive difference in the quality of my sleep, productivity, outlook, interpersonal relationships, weight, and focus.
The longer the intervals of sobriety, the higher the quality of my life.
Intervals and Outlook
I believe that it is through your own interpretation of life’s intervals that you shape the quality of your life. To put it quite simply, a glass half empty and one half full have an identical quality. They both contain identical quantities of liquid.
Yet, depending on your perspective, via the lense of your mind, the very same glass can possess diametrically opposed qualities.
The glass half empty implies scarcity while the glass half full speaks to abundance. Therefore, it’s your perspective, not the quantity, that determines the quality.
And yet slight variations of intervals can dramatically influence the perceived quality of a thing. For example, if you take a take one more sip or top the glass off with an equal amount of liquid, how does that change your perspective of the glass and its quality? What if you are very thirsty vs not so much? Tired vs rested?
Small Changes Can Be Huge
Let’s close the loop on quality and intervals by bringing us back to music theory. You’ve probably heard of major and minor chords. If you haven’t, you certainly would know the difference if they were played for you. One sounds happy while the other is sad.
Take an A chord for instance. A Major is comprised of the notes A (1st), C# (3rd), and E (5th) and it sounds happy. But make one small change, like flattening the 3rd from a C# to a C, and suddenly you have a sad feeling A minor. You’ve changed one note by a half step and suddenly you’re in a whole new world!
Small changes can equate to big differences in the quality of a thing!
Think about how these small changes might influence the quality of your life:
- Getting an extra hour of sleep every night
- Spend 10 minutes each morning meditating
- Eating 100 fewer calories a day
- Walking an extra 15 minutes every day
- Reading 10 pages of a book every morning
- Saving an extra $50 a week
- Spending one fewer hour a day on your smartphone or social media
- Investing 30 minutes each day to learn a new skill
- Spending 30 minutes a day pursuing your passion
Doing any one of these consistently could change your life. Doing all of them? This would completely remake your life for the better! But who has time? Nobody.
That’s why you make time by taking it away from things that don’t matter, things that don’t improve the QUALITY of your life. This is a choice we all must make if we are to live our best lives.
