This is Not a Trial Run
& Gym Propaganda is Real. A two-fer on change & seizing the day.
I often have ideas I want to write about but they don’t always flesh themselves out into a full essay, so here’s a first for The New New: a 2-for-1 of minis, little lessons I’ve learned, been thinking on, and want to share.
I.
I’ve resisted gym propaganda for many years, but the jocks are right: moving your body consistently does, in fact, give you a will to live. This is not a fitness space – generally, I’m more interested in the cosmic than the physical – but after consistently lifting increasingly heavy shit for over a year, I’m starting to take stock of how much the experience has changed my life. There are the benefits of physical strength: carrying groceries for blocks and up stairs, bouncing back from injury faster, the heady high that comes with knowing I could probably kick some ass if need be. But the mental shift has been more potent, and it’s made me realize why gym people act like that (you know what I mean): working out is one of the most powerful things we can do to remind us that change is actually possible.
It seems difficult at first, but in the gym, you can go from being unable to do something to accomplishing it in a number of weeks, as long as you’re consistent and keep showing up. The mind is much harder to master, in my opinion, though the principles are the same. You keep trying, keep pushing through the suck, until you move the weight – that is, unlearn the harmful thought patterns that are keeping you stuck in place until you feel strong enough to take the necessary risks and embrace the unknown. I’ve found that consistent exercise is a tremendously compelling signal to my brain that I can get better over time if I choose to, that I can push through hard things to get to the other side: if I’ve done it with my body, why wouldn’t I be able to do it elsewhere?
II.
I hit a professional milestone recently, something I’ve been working toward for years, and it came and went without any fanfare. I thought when I got there it’d feel more momentous, but after the initial moment – a literal moment – of excitement, I pretty much went right back to work, focused on the next milestone. A couple days later, I had a realization on one of those evening walks that make me cry: this is not a trial run. This is my real life, and I need to act like it. It doesn’t serve me to continue to move the goalposts of what’s worth celebrating, because all that’s doing is setting me up for a lifetime of delayed joy that’ll never come if I don’t allow it to. I have a tendency, as I think many others do, to think that I’ll start “really” living once I achieve x milestone, accomplish y goal, or travel to x place, but of course that isn’t true – I’m living now. We all are.
This is something I write about all the time in one form or another, but here’s a reminder for anyone who needs one: this is not a practice round and you don’t get a do over. Your real life is happening now, whether you act like it or not. The bad habits you want to rid yourself of will not just disappear one day. The things you say you want to accomplish but don’t take any steps toward doing will not just magically be “done” one day. And the “small” achievements that you shrug off as not that important will not suddenly start mattering once they snowball into larger ones – you will simply find something else to strive for, another way to delay truly living until you “get” there. You will have to make a choice to start living your life at some point, because the time is passing regardless – make use of it.
As for me, I ended up taking myself out to dinner and buying a fancy notebook I’ve had my eye on, because those are the kinds of things that excite me nowadays. Love being in my old bitch era!
That’s all from me today! Last week, paid subscribers read my thoughts about embracing the present moment in Today is the Only Day:
Today is the only day reminds me that life is not some massive, unwieldy thing swirling about of its own accord, but simply a series of days following one another, like beads on string. I can only live out those days one at a time, so there’s no point of robbing myself of joy now by anticipating tomorrow’s stress (which may, in fact, never actually come!) By the same token, it makes me realize that any big task, just like life, is merely an accumulation of smaller tasks, so I should focus on what I can accomplish now, what I can do today – the finish line will always be there when I get there.
On the pod, I talked about getting over perfection paralysis and killing your inner cringe cop. Listen here.
It’s finally starting to consistently feel like spring, so I’m outside today — hiking, not partying — and communing with the earth like a true Taurus. I’m back next Sunday — see you then.
Lola xx