Playing Games I Can Win

Week 1 of a 12-week writing challenge

Joel on Day 2 of the Daily Cycling

I am on day 5 of my cycle-every-day challenge. The plot it simple – each morning after I wake up, I change, step out, decide a 10km route on Strava, eat a small snack before, sprint through the route, eat a small snack after, log the sprint on social media, log it on Strava, hoist my bicycle back on the rack, and send a message to one of my co-schemers about the effort.

Tight feedback loop. Definite milestones. Multiple shots of completion-satisfaction.

In the past week or so, my most reliable co-schemer has been

Udayyyy

who writes ‘Curated by Udayy.’ I have found them so kind and insightful across our few conversations and co-reads so far and think you will too.

Across the next 12 weeks, we will post an essay like this one on our respective blogs, reflecting on whatever side-quest we’ve been taking on.

The goal? By the end of the summer, we both leave with a sense of accomplishment, trails of our effort and progress, and also a bond that is, otherwise, difficult to build in our increasingly disconnected world. I am so grateful that we shared the single conversation two weeks ago, which led us to taking on this challenge together.

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What are other games I am playing?

• Improving my fluency in French.

• Starting martial arts.

• Learning to skate.

• Building and implementing healthier routines to start and close my day.

• Maintaining a daily prediction log.

• Practicing sitting in discomfort, without judgment or desire to ‘fix’ whatever emotions stir them.

• Meal-prepping during the summer.

• Trying to find some career and academic clarity.

• Getting some traction on PingBack, my year-long capstone. About page.

• Finding people, communities and spaces in the DFW-area, where the aforementioned items will be rooted.

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For each of these, I hope to build feedback loops similar to the biking one – and slowly integrate them across the coming weeks.

Subsequent blog-posts in this series will hone in on specific side-quests and attempt to describe the ontological experience accompanying the change.

I will be working on other essays and exposés simultaneously, which will be shared in a cycle different from this writing challenge.

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Okay, off to bike now.

Cheers,

Joel A. A.