Don Kowalewski
Writer. Ad Sales and Marketing. Social Media Content Creator. Aeropress Coffee. Makes the best salsa in the world.
#22Kill 22-Day Push-Up Challenge, Day 5
I’m a little envious of my man H.F. who’s not only doing the #22Kill 22-Day Push-Up challenge, he’s doing it in a much more entertaining way than I am. He’s doing push-ups in the back of a moving pick-up truck. On the roof of a Ferrari. He’s on top of a wall. He’s doing it while tennis balls are launched towards him. But I guess, in the end, it’s all for the cause of bringing awareness to something that I wish never happened – on average, 22 Veterans take their own lives every day.
Below is as creative as I can be and it’s probably way to up-close and personal.
If it weren’t for the push-ups, what would I be doing with this blog? Usually I try to point out something interesting. I try to learn something new every day. Really, I do. Can you imagine if every day for 365 days I actually found something new and exciting, or added a good habit to my routine, or ended some bad habit or behavior? That would mean 365 new things or changes each year. 720 self-improvements over the course of two years. I’d make 4,000 discoveries or improvements over the next 11 years. Wow! That means, by the time I turn 53 years old, I’ll be 4,000x better than I am, today.
So, you ask, what did I learn, change, or fix, today? OK. Don’t laugh. I committed to loading the dishwasher and running it right after dinner and emptying it before I go to bed as part of my bedtime routine. My morning-self will thank my nighttime-self. Do you know who the morning-self and nighttime-self are? The nighttime-self is the enemy of the morning-self. Nighttime-self stays up too late, has a second or third beer, and doesn’t do anything productive. He’s lazy and selfish. Morning-self hates nighttime-self because when morning-self wakes up, he has to clean up after and undo all the damage nighttime-self did. Basically that’s my way of saying that I get made at myself in the morning when I wake up and I have to unload the dishwasher and it starts my day off in a bad mood. And when I wake up tired and can’t get outta bed at 5:15 because I stayed up until 11:30 or Midnight, it makes my whole day worse.
“The greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory.” -Napoleon’s warning
Back to the topic and my day-1 of 4,000-days of improvements. Today, I’m committing to doing the chore I hate doing before I got to bed each night to make my mornings better. I believe this (doing one thing daily) is called the Kaizen Way (1% better every day).
“Little strokes fell great oaks.” –Benjamin Franklin
And now …my push-ups.
“When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens — and when it happens, it lasts.” —John Wooden
Don Kowalewski 