Three weeks ago, I launched the Fitness Project. The project page still doesn’t list much other than my exercise routine, and I did promise more details… not to mention that I’d really like to gloat about how I haven’t quit yet. Therefore, in typical Don’tASQ fashion, it’s time for a status report!

Commitment: I’ve so far completed nine full-body workout sessions and two short jogs. (Do you see anything wrong with this picture?) The original plan was to work out on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and to jog on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Recently, I’ve had a lot of trouble waking up early; I have no qualms about lifting weights at any hour of the day, but somehow I just can’t bring myself to go running in broad daylight. (There must have been a vampire somewhere in my lineage. )

Workout Details: On the project page, you can see a list of the exercises I’ve been performing. The workout usually lasts about an hour — give or take ten minutes — and I try to make it as intense as possible while still doing the exercises correctly. Since I’m a poor college student (and/or cheap), I’m limited to doing the entire workout with a 40-pound adjustable dumbbell set. Granted, I may be a twig, but 40 pounds won’t even take me that far. Within the next several weeks, I’ll probably look into a gym membership.

Injuries: On Friday (4/27), I suffered a minor back injury while doing the Dumbbell Deadlifts. Because of this, I performed only half of a workout on Friday, and the other half on Saturday. I’ve also decreased the weight for both back exercises as well as the Calf Raises. I’ve suffered back injuries in the past, but it’s a bit disappointing that I suffered one while doing the very thing which should help to prevent them. I’m hoping that this was a one-time shot due to overexertion, and that it won’t be a continuing problem.

Results: I still look like a twig, but I feel slightly stronger and more energetic. A couple of the more difficult exercises (e.g. Iron Cross and Shoulder Press) have become less exhausting. I didn’t expect significant results this early on, but it is encouraging to notice at least some improvement.

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What if you were God? That’s quite a question, isn’t it? The only way it could be more open-ended is if we shortened it to “What if?” I’ve found that one of the best ways to understand a person is to put myself in their shoes… but what about a deity? (Non-theists, stay on the line; I’ll address your concerns in a minute.)

First, let’s get a few things straight: When I refer to “God,” feel free to substitute a suitable name of your preference; I’m attempting to be religion-independent here, so the only assumption I’m making is that God is some type of supernatural being with much more knowledge and power than any living thing on Earth. Creator, Source, Flying Spaghetti Monster… for our purposes, they’re all essentially the same. However, in order to learn anything from putting yourself in God’s shoes, you must assume that God has a consciousness. If you firmly believe that the universe does not (or did not) have a conscious creator, feel free to try and put yourself in the shoes of quantum physics or some other scientific principle… but I don’t guarantee it will be very enlightening.

From this point forward, the discussion will be biased toward a Biblical, Christian perspective. It’s not that you couldn’t make similar arguments based on any beliefs, but that this is the perspective about which I know the most. I strongly encourage you to look at your own belief system and compare it with your experiences. Do they agree, or are you following some blind belief (or non-belief) system simply because that’s what you were taught?

Let’s start with the basics, something to which many of us can easily relate — a highly addicting PC game called The Sims! The object of the game is to create families of digital people (fittingly called “Sims”) and control pretty much every aspect of their lives. You may build homes for them, guide them through various career tracks (or through school), facilitate their hobbies and their social lives… and even kill them, if that’s your style. You may also enable a “Free Will” option, which allows your Sims to control their own lives when you’re not doing it for them.

Interestingly enough, free will is also a major topic of confusion for pretty much anyone who’s ever debated religion and/or philosophy. Let’s put ourselves in God’s shoes by pretending that the world is one giant game of The Sims. This is where different personalities will come to different conclusions, but I’m going to give my own take. Based on my experience with Sims, I’ve found that they rarely do what I want them to do without my command. (”C’mon, Ttocs, your house is a mess, your very neat and tidy girlfriend is coming over in less than an hour, and you’re watching sci-fi!?”) I would love to be able to rely on the Free Will option and simply guide my Sims through the most fun parts of the game (night on the town, anyone?), but sometimes I’m afraid that they’ll burn down the house if I allow that. In a way, this is how I view God. I’m sure God’s job would be a heck of a lot easier if he could trust us to our own brains and just sit back, relax and watch us work wonders. But, being humans, we make mistakes; that’s when God has to give us little nudges in the right direction.

Occasionally, a person will become so stubborn (and/or blind) that even with God’s best efforts at a gentle nudge, that person just doesn’t get it (or doesn’t want to). Similar situations can occur in The Sims. For example, let’s say we have a college Sim who needs to study for today’s exam — yes, it’s after midnight. He’s exhausted and refuses to stay awake, despite your numerous commands to hit the books. In the Sim world, fixing this problem is cruel, but simple: Surround your Sim with four walls and a desk, and don’t give him any room to lie down and sleep. (Anyone who’s played The Sims will probably know that a Sim won’t actually study when he’s tired, even if you refuse to let him sleep. In this case, we would only end up with a very angry Sim who will still fail the test.) But you see my point — desperate times call for desperate measures. If it takes a double dose of divine intervention to pierce your thick skull, I don’t believe God has any qualms about providing it.

Understanding your beliefs is a very personal endeavor, and it would be nearly impossible for me to delve into every facet of putting yourself into the shoes of your favorite deity. However, I hope I’ve given you a starting point from which to ask the question, “What if I were God?“

Imagine (if necessary) that you’re a student at a major four-year university. You roll out of bed at 8:45am on a typical Monday morning, pick up some mismatched articles of clothing from the floor and throw them on before leaving your dorm. As you walk at a faster-than-normal pace toward your 9:00am class on the opposite side of campus, you briefly stop to chat with a couple of your friends. You leave them alone after finding out that they haven’t slept in two nights - apparently, they have a killer Bio exam tomorrow. You continue on, grumbling about the reminder that you’ve got your own exam to study for. You wistfully wave to acquaintances as you space out, wondering who the professor will embarrass today… oops! (You duck behind a tree to avoid being spotted by your ex.)

A few minutes later, you spot another acquaintance, one you’ve barely ever spoken with. He’s always seemed a bit withdrawn, and exhibits some of the symptoms of one of those antisocial disorders you remember studying in Psychology. You almost pass by without acknowledging him, just like everyone else usually does. But then, something inexplicably changes your mind. You turn toward him, smile, give a brief greeting, and ask how his weekend went. He appears startled, but you listen intently as he tells you about his grand adventures in… World of Warcraft. “Sounds… interesting?” you say, but he actually doesn’t seem to feel the same way. You tell him about a choir concert that you’ll be in this weekend, and suggest that he go - just for something to do, since it’s free for students. And for the first time ever, you see him smile. You part ways and sprint toward your class (which has already started).

If you happened to be a student at Virginia Tech, you may have just saved 33 lives.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!” We all heard that line as kids. Unfortunately, it’s the second biggest lie that’s ever been told. (The biggest one, if you’re curious, has to do with a certain “War on Terrorism”…) Words do hurt, and they can cause people to do unimaginably horrible things - but the good news is that words can also cause people to do unimaginably fantastic things.

The shooter at Virginia Tech was a 23-year-old Korean student, a permanent resident by the name of Cho Seung-hui. He was described as a “loner”, and was actually referred to a school counselor at least once. Seung-hui was not a typical “work hard, play hard” college student. He was not heavily involved in campus activities, he was not a star athlete, and he had very few friends, if any at all. The most violent people in American society are not your small-time burglars, your drug addicts or your drunken frat boys. The most violent people in American society are those whom everyone else has forgotten. They’re the ones we’ve left out, be it intentionally or not. They are the people who hide in the shadows, observing everything else going on around them - and despising it.

Fortunately, these folks do have to come into the light sometime, and it’s our job to make sure that they don’t regret doing so. Please, for the sake of… well, everyone, never hesitate to speak a few kind words to these social “outcasts”. You probably don’t even have to go out of your way - if you’ve put a smile on their face, you’ve succeeded. And that smile may be the difference between life and death.

After spending three months trying to fulfill one of my yearly goals of starting a workout program (and failing miserably), I’ve decided that I need some extra motivation. The extra motivation of, say, millions of people holding me accountable for my actions. Therefore, I’ve launched the Fitness Project… also informally known as “Dadgum It, I’m Gonna Exercise Whether I Like It Or Not!”

This isn’t so much a “Change the World” project as a “Change the Body” one, but I do hope to inspire others to start their own fitness plans. Right now the project page is a bit lacking, but I’ll add more details as time goes on, as well as keeping a daily log of my own progress (since that’s kind of the whole point). Please don’t hesitate to leave a deriding comment if you notice me slacking off.

The topic of global warming is a political hot button, but it really shouldn’t be. If global warming wasn’t already the subject of heated debates, Friday’s release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report has brought it even more clearly into the public eye. For those who don’t know, the IPCC report apparently painted a very gloom picture of the earth’s future - a picture which was even more gloom before its “watering down” by various governments. Check the IPCC’s website for more information.

You’d think global warming would be a pretty easy topic to debate, right? Either it’s happening or it isn’t. Either it’s our fault or it isn’t. Either we should do something about it or we shouldn’t. I don’t see any reason why this topic should be political at all, nor why it should even be trusted to politicians to begin with. (Let politicians deal with trivial issues like file sharing, and leave the future of our planet to people with some intelligence.) What’s even more baffling is that, somehow, Democrats and Republicans have managed to camp on opposite sides of the line yet again. It’s almost as if the people we’ve elected into leadership would rather spend their time arguing with one another than, ya know, making progress. Oh, wait…

I’m not going to argue for either side, because I’m not educated enough on this issue and jumping to conclusions rarely solves anything. However, there’s one point that I think we can all agree on - Our planet is not expendable. Until the day comes when we can colonize other planets and freely transport billions of people between them, we will always have to be keeping an eye on the state of Earth’s environment. Claiming that we can pollute our planet without consequence is like claiming that you can let rodents and termites into your house and pour corrosive acid down the drains. You may not notice any damage right away, but sooner or later, you will have to deal with your negligence. Think of Earth as a really big house with six billion bedrooms. Maybe the problems haven’t surfaced yet, and maybe they won’t surface for another 100 years. Maybe they won’t surface for another million years, but if our rate of pollution continues, they will surface eventually. And when they do, we’d better hope that there are other houses on the market.

Assuming you haven’t lived under a rock for the last five years and have wasted a reasonable amount of time surfing the Internet, you’ve almost certainly run across a blog or two. You know, blogs - short for “weblogs”, kind of like journals or diaries, but in a digital format. They often remain personal in content, but rarely in audience. So, if you don’t mind my asking, what did you think?

Were any of them particularly enlightening? Were any of them good enough to bookmark and share with your friends? Did they inspire you to change careers, or to propose to your sweetheart, or to give away all of your belongings and devote your life to priesthood in Fiji?

If you could honestly answer “yes” to any of the above questions, please tell me where these blogs are. Blogs, while highly conversational, are usually devoid of meaningful content. In other words, they’re easy and often pleasurable to read, but don’t provide their readers with much value… kind of like Cosmo. Blogs come in several flavors: News/Politics (they’re almost indistinguishable nowadays), irrelevant personal anecdotes, collections of numbered lists…

Yes, that’s right - I said collections of numbered lists. Anyone who’s ever surfed the Internet for websites about a personal development topic (such as health or personal finance) has undoubtedly come across a few of these. You know what I’m referring to: “Shed 50 Pounds Before Summer With These Five Great Tips!” As an example, I’m currently looking at one of my RSS feeds (name of the blog omitted to protect the guilty), showing the titles of the latest nine posts. Of those nine titles, seven contain numbers: “Ten Commandments”, “22 Tips”, “Four Profound Agreements”, “44 Longevity Tips”, “9 Easy Ways”, “10 Timeless Lessons”, and “207 Great Tips”. Collections of numbered lists aren’t inherently bad, but they can make the wrong impression - that following these “Five Great Tips” will result in a painless overnight transformation. They won’t, nor will anything else.

How many blogs have truly changed your life in some positive way? It doesn’t even have to be a major change (like giving away all of your belongings and devoting your life to priesthood in Fiji); something as simple as learning to cook would be great. My count is probably hovering around the 3-4 range - and I’ve spent a lot of time on the Internet. Most blogs seem to exist primarily to waste our time. Don’t get me wrong, they do a great job of that, but if we’re already spending all of that time reading other peoples’ scrawlings, wouldn’t it be best if we could acquire long-term benefits from them?

Any blog worth reading should provide some value beyond the text. In other words, if it’s not changing the way you think, feel or act, or inspiring you to go change the way someone else thinks, feels or acts, drop it. The idea seems harsh (and probably is), but I can guarantee that it will be a huge time saver, if nothing else. As a personal example, I started this website with a clear mission in mind - to change the world, first in thought, then in action. I’m barely just getting started on the thought changes, but you might think of this website as Phase I of Scott’s Master Plan (for World Domination). Jokes aside, my point is that this website has a purpose beyond simply making money or being an outlet for mental turbulence.

With that said, it should be obvious by now that most blogs aren’t worth reading! Stop wasting your time with them; you should be able to tell within a couple of minutes whether you’ll ever return. And shedding 50 pounds in six weeks isn’t healthy, so you can stop Googling for that, too. Get out of that comfy chair and go contribute something to the world. If you’re not sure where to start, try discovering your purpose first. (FYI, Steve Pavlina’s blog, the one I just linked to, would probably be one of my “worth reading” choices. Spend some time there; it might become one of yours, also.) Remember the old adage, “One reaps what one sows.” For a less kindly-worded motivator, read my Thoughts on Apathy post. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to catch a one-way flight to Fiji.

For more information about my year-long Resolutions project, check out this post and this one.

In the month of March, I wrote a grand total of three Blurblog entries, which is even fewer than the number I wrote in February. But considering that I spent two weeks of this month upgrading the server, and a third week in New Orleans, I’d say that’s not half bad.

Rather than simply writing a sentence or two, from this point forward, I’m going to attempt to rate my monthly progress on each of the four resolutions on a 1-10 scale.

• 20 Hours (of Productivity): 6
• The Good: You’re reading this. The fact that I was able to meet my self-imposed deadline for getting the server back online scores major points. It wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped…
• The Bad: Earlier this month, I officially stopped sleeping polyphasically, which obviously caused a dip in productivity. I’d been struggling with it for awhile due to my work schedule, but I knew it would be nearly impossible to keep up with it in New Orleans, anyway. As you might expect, though, the hiatus will not last long…
• Finances: 5
• The Good: I haven’t been fired yet!
• The Bad: I haven’t secured any income yet beyond the job. Not that that was a goal, but since I’m only working full-time until August, it would be best to create some long-term earnings potential. Tuition will also be due soon. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
• Fitness: 3
• The Good: Early this month, I began a morning exercise program.
• The Bad: Two weeks later, I halted it… and haven’t looked back since.
• Social/Relationships: 4
• The Good: I met a lot of people and formed some great ties over Spring Break.
• The Bad: Since then, I’ve pretty much been a hermit. A large part of that is, of course, due to the server upgrades, but I’m not going to allow myself any excuses from now on.

We’re now three months into 2007, and I’d like to find out how many of you are still keeping up with your New Year’s resolutions. Did you make any, and if so, what were they? How are you progressing, or how long ago did you surrender?