Monday, June 9, 2008

Day 81, Weariness

Today for the first time in a while I was simply tired and fed up with trying to stay on the plan. Tired of measuring out my lunch, tired of eating egg whites (I only made it through 3 today), tired of the second day deep soreness I described in day 80.

The funny thing is that when you do something for this long you reach a point where it's easier to just follow the momentum that you've built up and keep doing it than veer wildly off course. For example, I could throw up my hands and say "forget this!" and go have three pizzas at Sisiliya, but the flavors would be overpowering for me and my stomach would hurt like hell within 10 minutes. You have these visions of finishing the project and having a big piece of chocolate cake with all your friends, but the truth is that at that point the cake is too rich for you and you've lost all your friends because they're intimidated by your killer physique. (well, maybe not)

Truthfully, today was just a busy day and the PCP felt more like a chore than a joy. It's my fault for overscheduling myself and spending too much time on one project I just wanted to finish. One of the most important mental changes that you have to make doing something like this is to realize that you do have to schedule in your health. The times I've strayed furthest from my plan is when I just leave myself 30 mins to magically get through 1000 jumpropes and 30 sets of exercises. It never happens but I still imagine it can be done when I see my appointment book filling up.
If you asked someone, would they rather be wealthy and successful or healthy, they'll always say "healthy." It's the most obvious thing that without health there's not much point to all that money and success. But crack open that same person's appointment book and you'll probably see that on the ground the pursuit of success gets a lot more scheduled time than exercise.

At least that's how my day was today, and my frustration flowed not towards the excess work but towards the PCP, which is just backasswards. The PCP only helps me and makes life more interesting. I'll try hard not to let it get bumped off the schedule for lesser pursuits.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Without these "lesser pursuits" though, you'd have not the money with which to purchase the foods and shelter necessary to even do the PCP.

PS. Do you really write in Japanese?! WOW!

Patrick said...

Nah, that's not me, just a funny pic that exemplifies the Japanese salaryman life.

Making money IS a lesser pursuit. We all have to do it but we don't have to do it quite as much as we think we do.

A lot of our stressful overwork stems from fear that we won't have enough. But the mind always thinks there won't be enough. It's a losing game trying to make the ego feel safe.

Nourishing and strengthening the body is a winning game however!

Corry said...

Hang in there Patrick, some days can feel bleak. I keep thinking of your post about the waves and how sometimes they are up and sometimes down.