My being has not synced yet. I'm not sure it is effectively attainable, but it is frustrating nonetheless to see that my physical and mental states are not in harmony with one another. When I go out to jog in the evenings, it is quite an experience. A lot of that is because I always want to go faster than I possibly can. From the get-go, the expectations that I’ve put on myself are sometimes infinitely higher than my current ability. It’s like my mind treats my body like it has the conditioning of a long-distance runner that’s been practising for months on end when in reality, apart from the football that I play weekly, my experiences with running are quite limited. It’s getting dangerous as well because this zeal sometimes makes me end up hurting myself from the excessive pressure. I’ve had a tight calf since Saturday.
I spent most of my time running around in some capacity when I was younger. It was mainly on my make-shift football pitch in our backyard but occasionally there were times when I had other athletic commitments at school during the Inter-House events. As my mother was a teacher in the school I went to at the time it was very common for me to look into the crowd and see her cheering on for me. But besides her smile, and the subtle affirmations she gave me that I was doing well, she’d often tell me to “listen to my body”. I don’t think I initially understood exactly what that meant—and to a smaller extent right now I still don’t—but I think she was prompting me to explore what my limit was and to be frank with what I was able to do.
Reflectively, I think that that’s brilliant advice, but the looming issue in my mind is that the exploration of my limit feels like a ridiculously complex thing to do. I consider myself ambitious, and very often when I decide to do something I try to be the best that I can at that task. As I said at the beginning, there’s an idea in my head—a summit that I’m trying to reach that is several miles higher than my current altitude. Bridging that gap is hard, and showing up every day to do so is even harder. I think this is because as humans we love to draw up timetables and set up metrics for ourselves that tell us where we currently are when we start that journey. The issue with that is that progress can sometimes be very slow, non-linear, erratic and far from predictable. Sometimes the mere activation energy that one has to put in before seeing any particles move can be very high.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with drawing up timetables. In fact, more than often they are necessary. The question though is: how do you set up your metrics when traversing spaces that you’ve never been in before? I’ve never consistently done cardio and whilst there are a million guides online on how to get your mileage to 10k, they are rarely often tailored to my needs. I’m a complex being, and I realize that even if I did have a personal trainer, deciding when and how I want to end each session is majorly up to me. I am the one who needs to ultimately toe that line between treating myself with kindness and just being lazy.
It feels like there’s too much nuance in all of this, and deciding how much work is too much work is quite a task. It’s not just running either. Is my mother right when she tells me that it’s not healthy to write code for 10 hours a day? I can’t seem to find a fixed formula, and teaching my pain receptors how to differentiate between good/bad pain is difficult. Am I just being lazy? Or am I risking permanent damage to my legs by trying to go for another run when the tendons in my calves are a bit swollen?
My being has not synced yet. I'm not sure it is effectively attainable, but it is frustrating nonetheless to see that my physical and mental states are not in harmony with one another. When I go out to jog in the evenings, it is quite an experience. A lot of that is because I always want to go faster than I possibly can. From the get-go, the expectations that I’ve put on myself are sometimes infinitely higher than my current ability. It’s like my mind treats my body like it has the conditioning of a long-distance runner that’s been practising for months on end when in reality, apart from the football that I play weekly, my experiences with running are quite limited. It’s getting dangerous as well because this zeal sometimes makes me end up hurting myself from the excessive pressure. I’ve had a tight calf since Saturday.
I spent most of my time running around in some capacity when I was younger. It was mainly on my make-shift football pitch in our backyard but occasionally there were times when I had other athletic commitments at school during the Inter-House events. As my mother was a teacher in the school I went to at the time it was very common for me to look into the crowd and see her cheering on for me. But besides her smile, and the subtle affirmations she gave me that I was doing well, she’d often tell me to “listen to my body”. I don’t think I initially understood exactly what that meant—and to a smaller extent right now I still don’t—but I think she was prompting me to explore what my limit was and to be frank with what I was able to do.
Reflectively, I think that that’s brilliant advice, but the looming issue in my mind is that the exploration of my limit feels like a ridiculously complex thing to do. I consider myself ambitious, and very often when I decide to do something I try to be the best that I can at that task. As I said at the beginning, there’s an idea in my head—a summit that I’m trying to reach that is several miles higher than my current altitude. Bridging that gap is hard, and showing up every day to do so is even harder. I think this is because as humans we love to draw up timetables and set up metrics for ourselves that tell us where we currently are when we start that journey. The issue with that is that progress can sometimes be very slow, non-linear, erratic and far from predictable. Sometimes the mere activation energy that one has to put in before seeing any particles move can be very high.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with drawing up timetables. In fact, more than often they are necessary. The question though is: how do you set up your metrics when traversing spaces that you’ve never been in before? I’ve never consistently done cardio and whilst there are a million guides online on how to get your mileage to 10k, they are rarely often tailored to my needs. I’m a complex being, and I realize that even if I did have a personal trainer, deciding when and how I want to end each session is majorly up to me. I am the one who needs to ultimately toe that line between treating myself with kindness and just being lazy.
It feels like there’s too much nuance in all of this, and deciding how much work is too much work is quite a task. It’s not just running either. Is my mother right when she tells me that it’s not healthy to write code for 10 hours a day? I can’t seem to find a fixed formula, and teaching my pain receptors how to differentiate between good/bad pain is difficult. Am I just being lazy? Or am I risking permanent damage to my legs by trying to go for another run when the tendons in my calves are a bit swollen?
I don’t know.