There is not a lot of time left. About 14 years from now, I will be turning 60. You might think that is a chunk of time, but half of that is how long this site's domain has existed, April 2017. That does not seem so far ago. There is a characteristic of time that I lament: everything starts out slow, grade school, summer breaks, high school jobs...months felt like years. Then somewhere along the way, life rockets forward. Seasons whip by so fast that I am never sure if I am in a spring or an autumn.

Clearly, this puts things into perspective, that which matters and that which does not. We usually get those two flipped the wrong way. There is ore of wisdom to be mined, but we like our rock candy. Admittedly, I live a life as if I will just keep on being in this realm, that I am not journeying closer to my world of wonder and adventure. Yes, instead, I live like I am on a long work vacation, and I will be back to the regularly scheduled 90s shortly.

Sadly, largely my 2024 goals have no relevance. Look at that list:

1. Don't eat carbs.
2. Passively get a smaller waistline.
3. Actively get bigger shoulders.
4. Actively get bigger arms.
5. Benchmark and encourage results.
6. Encourage a smaller frame by running.
7. Passively get a bigger beard.

That's it in a nutshell. So what?

I have to be careful here. Last summer in the highly effective HFC #1, after 237 days and approaching a weigh-in, existential malaise left me "adrift at sea."

And where I am now with HFC #2? Day 232. Gimme less than a week and the next score to break is...*gulp*...795 days.

I am sure a year ago I was where I am now, not a care in the world for a carb. Donuts and pizza are consumed around me today; last week, my favorite cereal was eaten, a cinnamon crunch. I am not drawn to them. I've got half the mind to get back to my breadmaking in the mornings as the baking bread aroma of fails to fell me.

My New Year's Resolutions are inadequate because they are aesthetics-driven. Yes, the underlying health benefits are key and I suspect the obviousness of that intent is why I did not list them. And yet, there is value in a clear, defined message, ESPECIALLY if the original intent seems to have been lost along the way.

That is the value of a shaved beard. I see clearly how my face has changed, how its contours point to the next stage of my life. While I hope my eyes forever shine brightly, youthful vitality is left behind in the yellowed pages of photo albums.

But, I do not eat a carnivore diet to look better. My appearance interested me in 1997 when my good buddy David and I would go up to Wolfchase in '97 and '98 for its target-rich environment. These days, I grow it long just to shave it off. No, I have handed looking good off to the next generation. And rightfully so—what value does it bring?

I still have my sights set on beating that 10-9-2044 expiration date of my father's.

No, fitness is a longevity play. Namely, I want to be there for my kids, to gift them something when they come seeking answers. To recall what I can of what my father used to tell me.

I remain deficient in wisdom. Regardless of how its study has been a core tenet of mine, that is what I need to focus on in the back half of my life as I eagerly await the world I know and have longed for my entire life.

Thus, I am retiring these New Year Resolutions. I want something in its stead. So, what do I do?

I want something that means something. I want to think in terms of legacy and destination, what I leave behind and what to take with me to the world across the divide. How joyful I feel when I think there will come a day when dreams beyond my wildest expectations will come true! Just think about that for moment: I imagine my perfect day, the perfect setting...well, it is gonna be even better than that!

I want to live like I did at age 23-24, falling in love with God for the first time in my life. I was up at the Ugly Mug with my haggard Bible, the one I could not afford ($157 adjusted for inflation!), that 5-lb tome laid out on one of those wooden tables that would otherwise host Mahjong and chess games of my "where everybody knows your name" folks. A bottomless cup of Seattle's Best Coffee was at my side as I pored through Scripture.

There was a free spirit in those days with so many questions and few answers. It was a time that absolutely required trust. I graduated in August 2001 and this journey began. I can still see that time with my eyes: the Memphis alumni sticker above my truck's rearview mirror, the citrus smell of the car air freshener, the snap of pushing in its 12-CD disc changer with albums like Weezer's green album (2001), Benjamin Gate's self-titled (2001), the Counting Crows' This Desert Life (1999), and Skillet's Alien Youth (2001).

If I had known that full-time work would come on 1/2/03, perhaps I might have been disheartened! OK, devastated! All those temp gigs with Pfizer, Memphis Grizzlies...I've literally forgotten who else...and then the part-time work supporting Germantown Baptist Church's servers and users put a few bucks in my pocket.

But that time in my life was about trust and change, not money. It was learning what it was to follow the God of Monday Mornings and Saturday Nights, and turning into the man who worshipped such a deity. No longer was God relegated to Sundays and Wednesday nights; He was no longer painted poorly as a stern disciplinarian.

It was an incredible time. Something I needed so much in my life, though at the time, I sent prayer after prayer for a career. I recognize that a career would have easily become my god.

Even the short time I put in at Sitka at my last IT professional stint, I voluntarily put in 60 hours a week. To be fair, a one-man IT department just HAD TO in that godforsaken Wild West saloon of a university. And I was alone there sans the friendship I had with the HVAC guy. Perhaps it was the power of an imported-from-Costco bag of pistachios that his office kept which kept me coming back! Seriously, folks would fly to Juneau for their monthly shopping trip. I reckon my HVAC buddy / retired Coast Guard just took his boat for pistachios since he regularly offered fishing tours.

I am over a decade removed from Sitka and over two decades from that time drinking coffee deep into the night at the corner of Poplar and Highland next to the home of my countless Chinese takeouts at A-Tan's. Those two periods of my life were especially emotionally vivid. For both environments, I immediately entered them after leaving far different studies and thematic elements at university.

I know which one I would gladly do over again if I could:

Last night, I drank a cup of Seattle's Best Portside blend for the first time in over two decades.