I have not talked about my health progress and goals of the last year much anywhere, but suffice to say I have been living healthier, exercising, and eating right. Specifically, in reference to eating right, I try to ask myself, “Is this worth it?” If the food is outside of my goal lifestyle, is it worth it? An exception being, special events and celebrations with friends. These events are places where I will generally let myself go a little outside of the normal boundaries and goals.

When I get together with friends, I want to eat pretty much whatever I want. I want to be able to relax and not think about it. Which is great. Truly the right reason to break from the norm is to celebrate and socialize and be good company in good company.

Though, there is a bit of a downfall to this mentality. Special events come more and more frequently. After a while, Saturday becomes a special event on its own merit. Eventually, Sunday joins his brother Saturday and is special as well. A little while later, I am sitting on a bench in the locker room thinking about the last eight weekends wondering why every weekend is special. What happens when everything is special?

Special starts to lose its glamour.

Special starts to become much more of a norm and much less of a treat.

Suddenly, nothing is special.

I find myself needing to raise the bar on what I am calling special in my diet. And in other areas I am finding I need to lower the bar. Truly, I am finding I need to reexamine what I call special and start setting it apart from the other areas of my life. I need to make it truly special. Dinner with my wife might happen four, five, or six nights a week, but do I actually make that moment special? Do I actually set those moments apart and treat them like they are actually more important than the two hundred some odd tweets I have not had time to read from today?

What is your definition of special? What sets the special moments apart from the mundane for you? Where have you gone astray in your ability to set apart these moments?

Specializing,

–JT