Why yes, I *do* suck
Those of you who don't know me that well are probably thinking, "This guy has to be in the world top ten for 'worst at following through on things he starts.'" Those of you who do know me pretty well will, of course, know that that is ridiculous - because I'm easily #1.
It's like a battle of wills with myself right now. One half of my brain looks at myself in the mirror and is disgusted by my size and by other things, such as the fresh, ugly stretch marks on my side that I really noticed over the weekend (that's right - I am apparently getting fatter even as we speak). The other half of my brain looks at the commitment to running and starts to make up excuses. "It's too cold." "My feet hurt today." "It might rain." The past week, I've been working till 8 pm pretty much every day, which isn't necessarily a complete excuse for never running but, as it's dark by the time I get home, it's at least a semi-valid excuse.
I know I have to force myself. It sounds bad to say "force," but that's really all there is to it. I think maybe I underestimated how hard it would be to stick to it - and when I say hard, I really mean exceedingly difficult. It's far too easy to let a different little thing sidetrack you every day. On one occasion I flaked out because I was selling some baseball cards on eBay and "needed" the time to create the listings. Yeah.
This can't go on. I know I say that a lot, and each time I say it I manage to convince myself that I mean it for a couple weeks, and then I stop. But with the weather getting better all the time, and my stomach seemingly getting bigger all the time, it really has to happen now or it never will, and the latter cannot be an option for me.
As if to prove to myself that I'm serious, I jogged back from the bus stop when I got home today, at 8:30. Yes, it's not that far (maybe a third of a mile?), and yes, I was out of breath (I didn't stop except for a five-second pause at the Broadway light), and yes, I obviously didn't stretch out first and so kind of felt like crap. But you know what? I got over it fairly quickly. And at least I did something. Hopefully work stops extending so far into the evening so I can get myself to do something more.
It's like a battle of wills with myself right now. One half of my brain looks at myself in the mirror and is disgusted by my size and by other things, such as the fresh, ugly stretch marks on my side that I really noticed over the weekend (that's right - I am apparently getting fatter even as we speak). The other half of my brain looks at the commitment to running and starts to make up excuses. "It's too cold." "My feet hurt today." "It might rain." The past week, I've been working till 8 pm pretty much every day, which isn't necessarily a complete excuse for never running but, as it's dark by the time I get home, it's at least a semi-valid excuse.
I know I have to force myself. It sounds bad to say "force," but that's really all there is to it. I think maybe I underestimated how hard it would be to stick to it - and when I say hard, I really mean exceedingly difficult. It's far too easy to let a different little thing sidetrack you every day. On one occasion I flaked out because I was selling some baseball cards on eBay and "needed" the time to create the listings. Yeah.
This can't go on. I know I say that a lot, and each time I say it I manage to convince myself that I mean it for a couple weeks, and then I stop. But with the weather getting better all the time, and my stomach seemingly getting bigger all the time, it really has to happen now or it never will, and the latter cannot be an option for me.
As if to prove to myself that I'm serious, I jogged back from the bus stop when I got home today, at 8:30. Yes, it's not that far (maybe a third of a mile?), and yes, I was out of breath (I didn't stop except for a five-second pause at the Broadway light), and yes, I obviously didn't stretch out first and so kind of felt like crap. But you know what? I got over it fairly quickly. And at least I did something. Hopefully work stops extending so far into the evening so I can get myself to do something more.
posted by Flax at
8:45 PM
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