Falling Off the Treadmill of Life

I got sick a week or so ago and had to take the whole week to rest and do nothing in order to recover. I have found that when I stop everything (usually when I'm sick) it is really hard to get moving again. I feel sluggish and have no energy, and can barely find the strength to just get through work. Last night I walked in the door and collapsed into bed. Next thing I knew, I woke up and it was around 9 PM and I was starving.

Today I decided I HAD to get to the gym to get some energy moving. When you work out your metabolism gets working again and you start making energy. Yes you have to burn energy to get more. I hopped on the exercise machine and started moving. I went at a very slow pace and it took a lot of effort to move the wheels. Each step was an arduous process but I made myself do it. Then I started moving faster and got up to a full sprint. As my speed got higher, the resistance actually got much easier. It was so easy to keep going once I was moving fast. It was the very first steps that were the toughest.

I have found it is the same way with life. I need to back off and rest sometimes or I will collapse or get really sick. But it's very hard to get moving from a standstill. I just have to power through it for a while before the momentum builds and I find myself running again.

Finally a Warm Day!

I have been going to the pool nearly every day for the past couple of weeks. Each time I dip my foot in, I shudder at the thought of getting into such freezing water, and jump in the hot-tub instead. I realize it is late October, and most of the world never gets as warm as it is right now. Still, I miss the warmth of summer and I really have been missing the swimming.

Today was a refreshing break from the cool, rainy weather. It felt like spring again, and the skies were a perfect blue. After a nice, long bike ride, I finally got to get that cool swim I have been craving. Then the sun went behind the trees and I had to run back inside because it got so much colder. I hope this weather lasts.

My First Bike Ride

Today I took my first ride on my new bike. It turned out to be a good workout since I had to haul it across my house and down three flights of stairs. I haven't had a good bike ride in years and I really missed it. As soon as I hopped back on I just took off and flew about a mile before I started getting tired. I had never realized how beautiful the path around my apartment complex is. It's like a jungle in parts, and I even found a tiny banana tree growing off the side of the path. I tend to forget the beauty of the world around me when I spend all my days working inside an office. I sometimes miss the days when I was an innocent kid running around through the forests around my house.

A Free Bike

Last weekend I was headed out the door to take my best friend to Olive Garden for dinner. On the way out, my neighbor caught me and asked if I could take a look at her computer. It was a brand new computer and the keyboard wasn't working. I figured out pretty quickly that one of the pins had been bent and was now crushed at the bottom of the plug. I grabbed my pliers and bent the pin back in and got the keyboard working. My neighbor was so happy about it she offered to let me use her bike since she recently got a new one. I was thrilled. I used to love riding my bike all the time and it's so much nicer riding around the neighborhood than it is in the gym. I'm going to have a lot of fun with it. It really pays to extend acts of kindness to strangers. Sometimes you even get repaid with things.

Stagnant

The other night I unplugged the filter in the fish tank in my room because it was making strange noises. Without the constantly flowing filtration, the water quickly grew stagnant. This morning as I walked by, it was actually starting to smell bad. I had to drop everything and change the water, then get the filter going again. It was a lot of work but I knew the fish would all die if I didn't do it.

It really reminded me how quickly life in general can go downhill if you don't constantly stay on top of it. I spent almost all weekend cleaning the house and taking care of little things that just needed to be done. I never realized how much work has to be done just to keep up with life. But if you fall behind, your whole life starts to stagnate and slip into a rut. I have to keep reminding myself of this each time I go to work out when I feel too tired to move. I know if I let myself slip, I won't ever have the energy to do anything. My work is draining enough as it is, so I have to do everything I can to keep the momentum.

Return to College

I went back to FSU campus tonight and had a great time hanging out with some friends who just started a class there. I went out on the field in the middle of campus and found myself asked to join a game of ultimate frisbee. I got out on the field and naturally was the team that went skins. We took our shirts off so we could easily be told apart from the other team...

And I realized how much I stuck out from the perfectly fit athletic frat guys. I've been out of college for 2 years and worked in 2 office jobs. I've packed on what could be considered a bit of chub, and it especially stood out in contrast to the other guys. To make matters worse, they were all incredibly good at frisbee. They had perfect strategies and formations, and ran all over the place without breaking a sweat. And I was winded after about 5 downs. I feel so old already and I'm only 24. Life seems to just come at us too fast. I wish I could slow down and just live in the moment, but I don't have time for that. There's too much to do.

Frozen Burritos

It's strange to have to watch my diet now. I used to live on nothing but bagels and ramen noodles and I did just fine in college. A fast metabolism, lots of exercise, and sleep deprivation kept me fit and skinny throughout the years on campus. Now I'm working a sedentary office job and needing to be more careful what goes into my body. I'm trying to eat right and get the right balance of enough healthy nutrients and not too much food. I've been trying to eat out during my lunch breaks since I can't really cook during the day. But there are days when I just don't feel like making the trek across town. On days like this, it's time for frozen burritos.