Day 174 - The Road Less Traveled By...

I went home at lunch today – after the friend bailed out on me and body pump class because of some dull important family stuff, whatever (just kidding – smooches!) – and I told myself to get on the treadmill. I turned my TV on and The Dead Poets Society was showing. Okay, I like this show, I will give myself 5 minutes on the treadmill and if my lazy-ass mood doesn’t change, I will get off and watch the movie – easy enough. Just get through 5 minutes…


Well you know what? I got through a slow walking 5 minutes and that turned into a slow walking 2 miles and 38 minutes! There was no over exertion on my part – hell, I still had my work clothes on! I just knew that after 5 minutes and on that big beautiful fluffy bed I would plop myself down and lazily watch the movie. It didn’t happen.

You know what changed? During my first 5 minutes of slow walking, the part of the movie where Robin Williams is demonstrating conformity and the boys are walking in circles came on. Robin Williams quoted Robert Frost’s poem that read something like this: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference.”

Today I took the road less traveled by and will forever more. Today for the first time I was inspired to keep walking for me and me only. I do most of the things in my life for the benefit of other people and I do not regret that in the least bit. But, today – today I chose to go down a less traveled road for MY benefit. And after everything was said and done and the 38 minutes was over, I had written this entire blog in my head.

All too often we go down the most traveled road there is in our life out of conformity, family, friends, or convenience. Very seldom do we take the road less traveled – especially in our eating habits and workouts – because you know why? It. Is. Too. Damn. Hard.

I am guilty a thousand times over taking the most traveled road because of its convenience. I have never been a conformist – and my mom will attest to this statement – but, sometimes doing the same things over and over again because the other options are too hard or inconvenient, or I am just simply lazy has to come to an end.

The road to the best body that I can realistically imagine for me has not been traveled upon. I travel upon the open highway of “hit and miss” workouts – smaller “crap food” portions or “healthier” fast foods places (if that is even possible) because it is convenient and easy and even though I am dedicated to my Building Blocks of baby steps toward longevity, I am still taking the easy way out. I know that I can do better. I know that I can triumph over any fears of the road less traveled because I now BELIEVE that I can do anything. The real question that I have to answer for myself is “do I really want it?” And my answer is “HELL YEAH!”

I have proved to myself that I can do so many things already! Why should I feel the need to keep sabotaging the ONE thing that originally started this blog!? I will do it! I will prove that the road less traveled is the road worth taking because I would expect nothing less from a person whom I was training. Period.

If you don’t see me on your road of conformity, laziness, or convenience – “know that I have taken the road less traveled by and it is making all the difference in my life!”

I challenge you to look inside and see where you are traveling down an open highway of – fill in the blank – stop and look for a road that diverges from the simplistic easy of something you desperately want and then take that road less traveled and create the miracles you know you are capable of producing.

Do not fear change or failure. Because to venture down the road less traveled takes courage and courage overcomes fear and the change itself will be the reward you truly seek. When you decide to take a chance on something you believe in and KNOW that it is going to be a bumpy road, but you keep on trucking anyway? – there is NO failure! You just learn and keep on going!

For all of you out there with negative thoughts, discouragements or “yeah right’s!” I leave you with some famous words that graciously passed my desktop this morning from President Theodore Roosevelt:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually try to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."



There is no “daring greatly” unless you take the road less traveled…and that DOES make all the difference.

So get off your ass and DO something about what it is that you really desire to have, be or do in this lifetime and make all your wildest dreams come true!