text: I never finish anything. I feel like the most inconsistent person on the planet. As soon as I start something I know that it will be a week, max, before I drop it and move on to another project. I have always been reasonably proficient at acquiring a lot of information quickly. But actually doing something with it? Not a chance, not gonna happen in my lifetime at least. My life up to this point has been a series of obsessions lacking a common thread. When I was a kid I was obsessed with sports, first basketball; I went from not knowing who Lebron James was when I was 11 to knowing by heart who won every championship for the past decade by the time I turned 12 (Lakers, Lakers, Lakers, Pistons, Spurs, Heat, Spurs, Lakers, Lakers, Mavs). This continued for many years, each year a new topic, and with it a complete disinterest in using my knowledge. In the summer of senior year of highschool I stumbled on a quote by Warren Buffett about his favorite investing book. *Wait who is Warren Buffet?* And so began a three year on again off again infatuation with value investing, the style of investing that revels in finding gold nuggets in the dirt and grime of American Capitalism. What drew me to value investing, as opposed to, say, currency speculation, was its intoxicating combination of aggrandizing elitism and monk-like restraint. What I *really* loved was the mess of contradictions that characterize its most famous proponents. Warren Buffet, is a jovial megalomaniac; Charlie Munger is an elitist vagabond. Still, although I conducted stock research in the manner prescribed and even found some worthwhile companies to invest in, I never pulled the trigger. It is with this backdrop of years of puzzling inability to take action, that I began running. I did not know a thing about running and still don’t. It is the only thing that I have stuck to consistently in my life. At first glance, running for fun seems like a fully actualized expression of self loathing. In its best light, it is a commitment to the classic ideals of discipline and self improvement. In its worst, it is nothing short of a voluntary, and unending torture. When you run, you are essentially exchanging pain now for a better, but indeterminate future. When you drag yourself outside at 1pm, 2pm, 9pm, you know that you are about to be in for a world of hurt. The pain deconstructs into at least three interrelated sources. First, there is the immediate physical pain; The fibers that lattice in your musculature groan, then yell in objection. Then, there is the condemnation, as the world comes together for a brief moment to stare at how much of a weird fuck you’re being. Finally, there is the dual pain of uncertainty about whether you’ll finish the lap and the disappointment that arises when you actually do. So why would a person ever do such a thing? Why do I try and do it everyday? Because it imposes order on life, it lets you build something, work towards something, see improvement and most importantly, it lets you chisel away the parts of yourself that you don’t like so you can become the person that you want to be. In short it allows you to get started.