1. Lack of exercise, and worse, full awareness of the aforementioned lack accompanied by a frustrating and incomprehensible inability to act on the very real need to jettison the extra pounds that have begun to make it hard even to climb a flight of stairs without running out of breath. Not to mention not looking svelte in photographs. I've never been much of a looker to begin with but seriously, ugly AND pudgy?
2. Disintegration of once formidable but always shaky self-confidence linked to point one, where deplorable lack of stamina plays on my mind ceaselessly, making me feel oddly vulnerable in an intellectual capacity. Very possibly, if not most obviously, physical fatigue from poor fitness, like a poor power supply, is translating into an inability to sustain concentration; ideas are thus short-circuited in their embryonic stage, and necessary mind work falls disappointingly short of much touted potential.
3. Performance at work, hugely dependent on physical and intellectual stamina to withstand long teaching hours, is currently well below what I know I am capable of achieving. Work is shoddy by personal standards, though inexplicably the illusion I am giving at work, according to work reviews by my sups, is that I am handling the stresses of the job with a toughness unexpected of novices. It is imperative therefore to fix problem one (and by chain reaction, problems two and three) before the powers that be arrive at the conclusion that I am already at-- I am struggling to keep afloat.
