Success Starts Here!

Over the last six months I have really been focusing on my health and fitness. Call it the mid-life crisis or me making a last-ditch effort to hold onto my youth. I don't know. I chose a random day to begin back in June I guess and just chose to do good for myself and have not looked back. So I arrive at this new year invigorated and for the first time in a long time genuinely happy with where I am physically inside and out. I've got a long way to go to reach my personal goals, but I am on my way. So when I saw the following post the other day, it made me laugh so hard. In particular of course and of importance to me this year is I will be fighting with "Resolutioners" on January 2nd to get on the machines or weights I want at my gym. Having said that, we all know how this goes, by late January, the herd will have thinned considerably and by mid February, it will all be back to normal. Those of us who have always gone will be the only ones still going. Over the

This week's Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy struck pain, despair, and deep sadness in a significant majority of us here in America, and many people around the world. The senseless acts of violence of a seemingly deranged man seem impossible for our brains to comprehend, or for our hearts to understand. So here we are, just days from what is supposed to be the most festive day of the year in the most festive time of the year and some of us are lost. How can we allow ourselves to feel joy after such a tragedy? How can we enjoy the holidays knowing those children's and faculty members' families cannot? Are we evil or bad people if we "go on?" As many of you may know, I am in the military and have been for a really long time. Over the last 11 years I, along with many of my brothers and sisters in arms, have regularly been at the emotional breaking point over the loss of friends, colleagues, even family members who have sacrificed their lives for our country. After eac