The View From The Sky
I write blog posts in my head all the time. The trouble with that is my memory is not so great, so by the time I sit to actually blog, I think, now what was that ridiculously witty thing I was going to say?
My Id and my Ego were at odds at 2 am. My cell phone, which I use for an alarm, made an obnoxious noise and woke me and I thought to myself, I sure am tired and sore, I could use some extra rest. I reset my alarm for an extra hour. But before I could get comfortable enough to fall back asleep, I realized what I was doing, deciding not to care and not to try, and it is always a slippery slope from there. So the alarm was set back to the original time. I always have to remind myself that I will ALWAYS feel like I want more sleep, even when I get more than enough, so instead of letting that be an excuse for letting opportunity escape, I have to fight against those thoughts with logic.
I got up at 4:30, shivered at the thought of of my ice and snow covered car sitting in the still-black winter morning, and remembered to weigh myself. (holding steady at 176, but my clothes already fit better). I slid to the gym on ice rink roads, and had an awesome chest and shoulder workout. As I was getting my shoes on to leave, one of the Obese Ladies Who Love To Swim (OLWLTS) exit the pool, hide herself in an impossibly large towel, and head to the row of lockers behind mine. Now out of site, she said,"Lets see, do I want to go home and clean for a while?" I was hoping she wasn't talking to me, but I couldn't tell if anyone was over there with her. After a long pause another voice answered, "Nah, take the day off." To which she replied, "I take lots of days off, that's the problem." I have never pretended to be the most ambitious person on the block. After all, I have been known to waste a couple hours playing Angry Birds. But something about that really put me off. Maybe because I assumed that this lady was on some sort of disability due to her morbid obesity. That might not be the case at all, and it's not my place to judge and assume. I started running through my schedule of daily responsibilities in my head, and it started to make me feel sad for her. I have a reason to be at the gym, working hard, because I have two awesome kids that would be devastated without me, and for whom I have to be a role model. And I have to get to the gym at 5am so I have time to get them and me ready for the day. And I don't have time after work because there is hardly enough time to help them with homework, feed them, help them with their bathing, play with them, and get them to bed. By that time, I need to get to bed myself so that I can be well rested when my alarm goes off at 4:30 the next morning. On the weekends I spend a few hours doing my own homework, playing with my kids, grocery shopping, house cleaning, food prep, and reacquainting myself with my husband, who seems to be a passing blur in my constantly busy weeks. Yes, it's busy, but when I think of having a lifestyle of sitting home alone with no responsibility, I get kind of sad. I have been in that place before, when I still lived at home and wasn't in a relationship and had very little to be concerned about. I was obese and hid out in my room, trying to numb my depression with junk food and bad TV. I desperately wanted to be living a different story, but couldn't break my mental addiction to food. Oh! If only I knew then what I know now, especially about the sugars and why I kept craving them and what it was doing to my blood. But that was my sad life, maybe hers isn't like that. It just irritated me because I felt like, if you have a bunch of time on your hands, why not spend some of it doing something productive, or better yet, something that makes you proud? Easier said than done, I know, but usually it's not as hard as we think it will be once we get started. I think we humans have a universal knack for complicating things and making excuses for staying in our comfort zone. To me, that is like a bird with broken wings. The view from above is magnificent, we just gotta find a way to get up there.
My Id and my Ego were at odds at 2 am. My cell phone, which I use for an alarm, made an obnoxious noise and woke me and I thought to myself, I sure am tired and sore, I could use some extra rest. I reset my alarm for an extra hour. But before I could get comfortable enough to fall back asleep, I realized what I was doing, deciding not to care and not to try, and it is always a slippery slope from there. So the alarm was set back to the original time. I always have to remind myself that I will ALWAYS feel like I want more sleep, even when I get more than enough, so instead of letting that be an excuse for letting opportunity escape, I have to fight against those thoughts with logic.
I got up at 4:30, shivered at the thought of of my ice and snow covered car sitting in the still-black winter morning, and remembered to weigh myself. (holding steady at 176, but my clothes already fit better). I slid to the gym on ice rink roads, and had an awesome chest and shoulder workout. As I was getting my shoes on to leave, one of the Obese Ladies Who Love To Swim (OLWLTS) exit the pool, hide herself in an impossibly large towel, and head to the row of lockers behind mine. Now out of site, she said,"Lets see, do I want to go home and clean for a while?" I was hoping she wasn't talking to me, but I couldn't tell if anyone was over there with her. After a long pause another voice answered, "Nah, take the day off." To which she replied, "I take lots of days off, that's the problem." I have never pretended to be the most ambitious person on the block. After all, I have been known to waste a couple hours playing Angry Birds. But something about that really put me off. Maybe because I assumed that this lady was on some sort of disability due to her morbid obesity. That might not be the case at all, and it's not my place to judge and assume. I started running through my schedule of daily responsibilities in my head, and it started to make me feel sad for her. I have a reason to be at the gym, working hard, because I have two awesome kids that would be devastated without me, and for whom I have to be a role model. And I have to get to the gym at 5am so I have time to get them and me ready for the day. And I don't have time after work because there is hardly enough time to help them with homework, feed them, help them with their bathing, play with them, and get them to bed. By that time, I need to get to bed myself so that I can be well rested when my alarm goes off at 4:30 the next morning. On the weekends I spend a few hours doing my own homework, playing with my kids, grocery shopping, house cleaning, food prep, and reacquainting myself with my husband, who seems to be a passing blur in my constantly busy weeks. Yes, it's busy, but when I think of having a lifestyle of sitting home alone with no responsibility, I get kind of sad. I have been in that place before, when I still lived at home and wasn't in a relationship and had very little to be concerned about. I was obese and hid out in my room, trying to numb my depression with junk food and bad TV. I desperately wanted to be living a different story, but couldn't break my mental addiction to food. Oh! If only I knew then what I know now, especially about the sugars and why I kept craving them and what it was doing to my blood. But that was my sad life, maybe hers isn't like that. It just irritated me because I felt like, if you have a bunch of time on your hands, why not spend some of it doing something productive, or better yet, something that makes you proud? Easier said than done, I know, but usually it's not as hard as we think it will be once we get started. I think we humans have a universal knack for complicating things and making excuses for staying in our comfort zone. To me, that is like a bird with broken wings. The view from above is magnificent, we just gotta find a way to get up there.
Well said.
ReplyDeleteYou don't need to worry about your posts, they are always well thought out and have make a good point.
ReplyDeleteThank you Tony!
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