Ah, summer, that time of year when we crave lazy days and instead try to have as much fun as possible in as short a time as can be managed, resulting in muddled sleeping and eating schedules, and therefore mildly crazed children and self. All our fun is making me pretty tired. It makes me think of a conversation I had with my sister, who has lost almost twenty pounds in the last six months because she keeps signing herself up to run 5K races every month. Talk about motivation! She now works out four days a week but if she pushes herself further than that, she is overtraining. Her body feels weak and sore, she starts hurting herself more easily, gets sick, and generally feels grouchy and irritable. Hmm, this all seems oddly familiar… I’m overtraining in parenthood!

            I strive for balance in all things. It is my mantra, my goal, my paradigm, but I have found that I have the bad habit of trying to achieve that balance by swinging wildly from the two extremes of working too hard to working too little. But the concept of working too little is something of an epiphany for me. We all work so hard, how is it possible to rest too much? I’ve discovered some cultural habits I’ve picked up: when I want to recharge, my top picks include an hour-long full body massage, toodling in front of the computer (writing my blog doesn’t count), or lounging by the pool with lemonade in one hand and a trashy novel in the other. When I’m resting, I’m going to rest, darn it! Give me comfort! Give me empty stretches of time where my brain and body are in total stasis! I deserve it!

            Our society is filled with opportunities for this kind of rest, the removal of brain and body from any exertion, from choice of vacations, to indulgence in trans-fatty, corn-syrupy foods, to movie-going and video-gaming. Even my exercise choices can be way too comfortable. I went to a yoga class last week where at least half the class consisted of meditation, once while sitting and emptying our minds, then another 20 minutes lying on our backs, our heads on pillows, lavender-scented bean bags for our eyes, and fuzzy blankets in case we caught chill. I guess when we exert our bodies, we feel we must flood ourselves with comfort before we crack from such grueling work!

            I speak in hyperbole, but not much. How often do we really need intellectual and physical comfort? How often does our overtrained mind and body need it in order to come back from a diminished state?  I learn this over and over:  when I sit on my behind and do nothing but laze my free time away, I feel worse than when I started, like I’ve just eaten too much candy. I’ll go back to my exercise metaphor again—in order to actually train and tone my body, I have to sweat, strain, pant and ache for decent periods of time. Who doesn’t feel great after a significant run, bike ride, yoga practice, swim, what have you? I don’t feel truly revitalized after a weekly massage, the daily lounging in front of the television, or the sitting by the pool with the trashy novel. I don’t grow emotionally or intellectually when I continually read easy material, watch the same movies over and over, or speak only with the people who think the way I do. A tribe of people native to this country had a saying: comfort is death. If you want to be comfortable, you might as well hurry up and die already, because living life is discomfort, and it should be. It’s stretching and battering the mind and body and plunging into difficult and scary situations, thumping away at a difficult book, or wrestling with a piece of writing, or diving into a difficult conversation with a loved one. And I think a huge part of this comes down to changing my definition of “comfort.” When I exercise regularly, it’s actually uncomfortable to not exercise, because my body expects and needs the exertion. It’s certainly more comfortable for me to live in a well-maintained house with my family filled with well-maintained relationships. Besides, like anything, overindulgence in any comfort diminishes its comfortable-ness.

            Don’t get me wrong—I’m still going to sit in front of the computer once in a while, eating bon-bons (whatever those are), and I’ll lounge by the pool and I’ll read the fluffy novel. But not very often. I need to be tough in this new life of mine, strong of mind and body, and I have the capacity for a lot more intellectual, emotional and physical toughness than I give myself credit for, if only I keep up with my exercise!

Powered by MightyAdsense