Working In The Wee Hours

I've flipped my body schedule for the last few months, so that I'm staying up until 3 or 4 am and then waking up around 10 or 11am and starting my day again. I've been working out with a group of guys who call themselves, "The Future Body Builders of America," and because they all work, or have families and schedules are erratic, they've decided that the best time for them all to meet at the gym is around 9pm. A few months ago and for much of the last year and a half, I've been in a relationship, which I'm not in anymore. Back then, I had to get up early in the morning, do my work and then I would go and spend the evening with my girlfriend starting at 5 or 6pm. In order to do this, I had to be done with my work before 5pm, and thus, if I didn't get up early in the morning, either I wouldn't have enough time to get my work done, or I'd have to cut work short at the end of the day. Now that I'm single again, I can work straight through 6pm, until about 8pm, before I get ready to go to the gym. I'd prefer getting up and working out first thing in the morning, but I'm getting free training and free access to an amazing gym, so for the time being, I'm going to continue on this schedule. I'm more of a night-person as it is, which I hate to admit, but it's true. I really admire people who get up at 5 or 6am everyday, and I hope to one day have those habits myself, but with my caffeine intake during the day, coupled with the constant buzzing in my brain of goals and to-do lists, I find going to sleep by 10pm a near impossibility.

Early in life, my dad instilled in me a love of physical fitness. I started competing in races at age 5, actually winning the first quarter-mile race I ever ran. After that it was golf camp, baseball camp, track camp, swimming camp, soccer, basketball and then golf in high-school. I ran the Stockholm marathon in 2003 at age 19 and continued to workout throughout college. Now, as a freelance camera operator, I find it essential to my work to maintain a peak level of strength, endurance and flexibility. In the times when I've let myself get a little out of shape, I've found it hard on my body to even do my job, which requires carrying up to 50 pounds of camera gear around for sometimes 12 plus hours a day. My work also often takes me on whirlwind adventures around the world, where I just won't be able to use a gym for a month or two at a time. Knowing that I sometimes won't be able to workout because of work-travel, I like to take advantage of the down-time, to always be improving my level of fitness.

For nearly two years I've been a digital vagabond. I've been able to do incredible video projects all over the world, without really being settled anywhere. I told myself that during this time, I would be searching the world for a place to call home. I've considered Sydney, New Zealand, Paris, London, New York and Austin. For the time being, I'll continue to travel, as I have a full slate of projects that will take me halfway around the world again this Spring and Summer. And then, within this year, I will move to a semi-permanent residence, having a real address again. I'm looking forward to this move. I think I got caught up in thinking about where I should be and I wasn't really appreciating where I was, and that's a bad way to think. So while I have these opportunities, even if my bank account is low and I'm living on prayer, I'm going to make a conscious effort to enjoy the places that God takes me. I must look like I'm carrying the weight of the world, because lately, close friends keep asking me "what's wrong." Nothing is wrong, I've just been a selfish kind of coward, thinking I have it bad when everyone else can see my good fortune. I'm so thankful for the life that God has given me to live. There was a time, my Sophomore year of college when I sat alone in my room desperate to know if I would ever get to do any of the amazing things I dreamed about. If I could have seen a list of what I'd have a chance to see and accomplish between then and now I would have been astounded, I wouldn't have believed it. Knowing that now, I need to start living like it's true and stop wallowing in delusional self-pity. I really wonder if this is just a self-realization, or if all of us would feel this way if we stopped and thought hard about where we've come from? I've got great gratitude for God's provision over my life and I owe it to Him to look like it to everyone else.