Doing Stuff You Don’t Wanna Do But You Should Do and are Glad you Did

Originally posted on http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com on March 14, 2007.

Everyone raise their hands if you have said you’d do something, and then when that something is an hour away you don’t feel like doing it.

Really?  I’m the only one?

I’m pretty pathetic.  And lazy.  But even that isn’t a great explanation for the constant struggle I have with getting involved with outside activities.  I fear I have turned into my father.  God bless him, this is a man who still lives on the plot of land he was born on, and he plans on staying there until he’s pushing up Daisies (hopefully not for a number of years in the future).  If you told my Dad that he was not allowed to leave the farm for the rest of his days, and he’d be allowed only to read the paper and eat a bowl of ice cream for entertainment every day, he’d pinch himself and openly wonder if he’d just passed away and entered the Pearly Gates.

I have always enjoyed a certain amount of sociability.  But as I grow older, I find myself growing away from the need for sociability.  I desire little more than coming home, taking care of a few things, eating dinner with the family, and hanging around home.  Oh, and reading the paper and eating ice cream.  Granted, unlike my Dad, I do enjoy a night out occasionally, but that night out to me is much more appealing if it’s just Wendy and me as opposed to a larger party.

And yet, when I am in those social situations that I think I loathe, I invariably enjoy myself and realize that I really need it.  It’s just kind of weird, actually.  You’d think that I’d figure out that I enjoy it, and would want to do it more often.  But this is me we’re talking about, so I guess it is what it is.

But now I’ve taken this schizophrenia to a whole new level.   I now dread other things that I enjoy.  I think I’ve developed some irrational idea that anything at all – good or bad – that gets me out of routine is somehow a bad thing.   Sigh.  We’re back to the whole “balance” thing again, aren’t we?

Lately, a couple things have struck me.  I feel almost guilty confessing them, because I’m exposing myself as a selfish person who doesn’t even want to offer my time to God.  I’m in a Bible Study on the book of Revelation.  We meet once a week.  It is very interesting and well worth my time.  I learn a lot, and since this is a topic I’ve spent a good deal of time reading about on my own, I also feel that I have something to offer.  By all accounts, I should want to go to this class/study each week.

I don’t.

It never fails.  I try to come up with excuses as to why I should blow it off.  I have something to do.  I’m tired.  I’ve been busy lately.   And so on.   Now, that’s not to say there will never be times that my family won’t need me and I should put them before this class.   But that’s really not what’s happening.   And so, I go to class, somewhat reluctantly.  And every single time when class is done, I am happy I have attended.

I’m an idiot.   But you already knew that.

Even worse is the Tuesday evening commitment to Eucharistic Adoration.  Granted, it’s a bit of a drive for us and it’s from 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM.  But it’s not like I don’t stay up that late on a normal evening anyway.   And it’s not like we have anything else going on at that time of the evening.  In fact, those reasons are the very reason we chose that time slot.   And it’s a visit with our very Lord, in His very presence.

But at about 9:25 PM on Tuesday night, I’d rather watch TV.   How stupid is that?

And so on the nights where I go, I drag my feet and shuffle out the door, wishing I didn’t have to go.  And once again, at some point during the hour, I realize that I am at peace, and enjoying my time.  I realize that it is where I am supposed to be.  I feel there is little else that could have made the hour more worthwhile.

But next week, will I remember that?  Heck no.

And so it goes.  I’m not sure of the point I’m driving home here.  Maybe it’s that I’m a loser and nobody else seems to be.  Or maybe it’s that others go through the same thing.  Maybe it’s to pass on that we all struggle with things that we realize we shouldn’t even struggle with, but we do anyway.   And maybe it’s to provide some emotional support for people who beat themselves up about not having the energy to feel exuberant about participating in all good things under the Sun.   Maybe it’s to point out that we sometimes need to force ourselves into worthwhile behavior by taking that step of signing our name to the line that says “I’ll be there,” even when we know at the moment we sign that we won’t want to be there.

Just be careful when you tell someone that you’re committed.  You don’t want that taken out of context.

Exercising Futility

Originally posted on http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com on February 12, 2007.

In my youth, I loved to exercise.  It helped that I was involved in competitive sports, I suppose.  After all, there was a specific, tangible goal to be had of making the team, and performing well.  Speaking of which, my wife and I have discussed the merits of being part of a sports team quite often.  As a homeschool parent, I am wondering how I can provide an opportunity for my kids to be involved in a team of their own.  Some of my fondest memories of high school center around my participation in football and track.   I simply cannot deny that it is something I very much enjoyed and from which I learned many lessons.   But I digress.  What the heck was I going to write about?   Oh, yeah… this post is supposed to be about exercise.  Perhaps I’ll “tackle” the homeschooling/sports/opportunity debate another time.

That was then (Mr. Exercise).  This is now (Mr. “Exercise?  What’s that?”).   I often wonder how I could have transformed myself from the kid who relished every opportunity to get a good workout, whether it was running hills or lifting weights or biking, to the slug who has to force-feed 30 minutes of not-so-vigorous exercise upon myself.   The answer, like most other things, is a little more complex than it may seem.   A combination of factors have come together to bring me to where I am today.  It’s been a long struggle, and much hard work to become completely disinterested in getting the blood pumping, but I’ve managed to finally do it!  And I am guessing that my story is not dissimilar to others’ tales.  The question now is what to do about it.

It all started in college.  I was still an avid workout warrior in my college days, but things started to change a bit.  The first important thing was that I no longer competed in any official sports.  No offense meant to anyone, but I didn’t consider city-league softball or the two-day-a-week basketball games or the Sunday night Volleyball league “official.”   But on the other hand, simply competing in those kinds of things still kept me active, and it encouraged a certain amount of desire to stay in good shape.   But there was an edge that was removed, that is worth noting.  The proverbial first chink in the armor.

But then the real world started to get in the way.  Suddenly, this thing called a job took 8-10 hours out of the day.  Let me tell you, high school and college – even with the homework – were beautiful days.  Now, the rest of the world’s schedule started messing with my priorities.  Not to mention that I work at a desk in front of a computer.  Not only was I not getting exercise at work (and still don’t to this day), but I now had countless hours where I could potentially be exercising removed from my schedule.   Still, when you’re a single guy, it’s no big deal to find some time to get some exercise.  So, while I had gone yet another notch lower on the “exercise is important” scale, I still managed to stay in pretty good shape.

And then my future wife had the nerve to break up with her then-boyfriend and she made me fall hopelessly in love.  It was a dirty trick, as marriage ensued.  Suddenly, all that “single-guy-working-out” time was far less important than coming home after work.  For one thing, I wanted to come home to my lovely wife, despite the whole marriage trickery, but there was also now the consideration that she actually wanted me to come home.  In other words, my time wasn’t just my time anymore, it was our time.  And after working away from home all day, asking for more time to pursue personal pursuits just didn’t seem too fair.   Now, I still did get out for bike rides, and Wendy enjoys tennis and some other things, so we still got some exercise.  But this knocked things down a bit more.

But it doesn’t end there.  I am an actuary.  Anyone who knows about my profession <insert nerdy actuarial joke here> will know that we have to take exams.  It is not an understatement to say that the exams pretty much take over your life for a period of time.  Here’s an exercise for you…  imagine studying 400 hours over the course of about four months.  Now, figure out how much time that is each and every day, and how you’d fit it in around work, family, and all the other things that continually pop up.   Hey, I’m not a martyr here – plenty of people do it and other people have their own issues in life.  But given our subject on finding time to exercise, take a wild guess at what one of the first things to go out the window is when finding time for studying.   This is what I most largely blame for moving me from the category of habitual exerciser to habitual non-exerciser.  Because when one exam is done, you take a little break and studying for the next one starts.  Plus, you’re out of shape now, and so you don’t go at it as hard as you used to.  Now, stretch this out over years, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

Lastly, but not leastly, I have six [2008 update... seven!] children.  Take the concerns about spending time with family that I mentioned in the marriage section, and increase them exponentially.  I am away at work all day (which I hate – topic for another post).  How, then, can I feel good about taking “me” time after work?

And so, there’s my story of increasing and well-developed laziness.   The toll is noticeable.  I know that I cannot do things I used to do.  Clearly, as we age, that is no surprise.  But while I am getting older, I am not exactly a senior citizen, and I am blessed to have no major physical limitations or disabilities, so there is no reason that I should not be able to do most, if not all, of the physical things I would like to do.   (OK, I did have reconstructive knee surgery a decade ago, but all in all I recovered fully)  I weigh more than I should.  And with every year, I do worry that my habits will come back to haunt me at some point.

So, what am I to do?   Well, I’ll save that as a post for another time.  Balance needs to be achieved, however.  For now, at least I have considered how I went from point A to point Z.  Here’s hoping I can get back to point M.  Or maybe even L.