I haven’t written anything, anywhere, for a very long time.

In fact, I think it’s been over two years since I put anything on this site. I’m actually surprised it still works, but then again as long as I keep paying for the domain, I suppose it’s going to stay active whether I write anything on it or not. I’m really not even sure why I’ve paid to keep it active, because in all honesty, I had pretty much given up on the whole thing.

The truth is, once I came home from my all-expense paid trip to the middle east, (courtesy of the US Army), I slowly lost all ambition to continue the Filthy Fifty project, and I had pretty much stopped the whole health and fitness thing altogether. I stopped working out, stopped eating right and before I knew it, I was the heaviest I’ve ever been, (weighing in at a solid 235 pounds), and in the worst shape of my life.

I didn’t quit right away, in fact I tried to get back to my fitness routine and attempted to write posts a number of times over the past two years. But I really struggled to make any progress, and when I’d look at some of the things I had written in the past, I felt like such a fraud that I couldn’t stay with any of it. In my earlier writings I had foolishly announced that I was going to be in the best shape of my life in my fifties, without any idea of how hard it is just staying healthy when you’re over fifty. Instead, I wound up being the direct opposite of what I aspired to be, to the point that now I can’t even breathe when I bend over to tie my shoes. The bottom line is I was simply too embarrassed to keep spouting off about health and fitness when I was obviously not very good at it.

So why the change of heart? Well, a few months ago, I bumped into someone who I hadn’t seen in a while, and they asked me why I had stopped writing my blog. I was kind of caught by surprise because I had no idea they ever read my stuff to begin with. I had always joked that I only had six readers, but it turned out I had seven. They told me they enjoyed it very much and said they had missed it since I stopped writing and wanted to know why I quit. I made some lame excuse about being busy and left it at that, but it stuck in my head for a while. I couldn’t believe that someone actually appreciated what I was doing.

Several weeks later, someone close to me asked me if I was going to start writing again. As it turns out, they too had drawn a bit of inspiration from reading about my struggles with health and fitness as I approached my senior years. My determination to not give into old age without a fight was a source of motivation to them and they couldn’t understand what had happened to make me stop.

Now looking back, I’m not sure why I understand either.

I guess I was just embarrassed, and felt a little ashamed of myself. The problem with quitting is it gets easier the longer you do it, and starting up again gets harder the longer you wait. Wait too long and you begin to feel like you were a fool for even trying in the first place, so starting over again seems almost impossible.

But what the hell, I think I’ll give it a go again anyhow.

Trust me, I make no mistake in the roll I played for these two readers, or to anyone else for that matter. I am no influencer, or roll model. I’m just a guy, trying to do the best he can to get through life like anyone else. But it just happens that some folks were watching me fight my way through and thought, “if he can do it, maybe I can too,” and in this case I let them down.

So I want to apologize to them both for quitting, and also to anyone else out there that was following me who may have enjoyed reading about a slob like me trying to battle Father Time. I’m sorry that I let you down, and I apologize for abruptly stopping the way I did. I didn’t mean to leave you hanging. I’ll do better from now on.

Now, for the promised word of advice:

Whether you believe it or not, someone is watching you too. You may not know it, but the struggles you go through and little victories you achieve day after day, inspire someone in your life to keep going as well. So don’t give up, no matter what you’re going through, because that someone needs to draw motivation from your strength, and inspiration from your resilience. Someone needs to see that they are not alone.

For me, it’s time to get motivated again. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I know what I need to do now, and it’s time to get started. Feel free to follow along if you like.