One of the nicest changes I've had in perception at MUM is my outlook on exercise. Prior to coming here, I took the Jerry Seinfeld view on working out: Why go to the gym? I mean, what's the deal with working out, with running in circles or pushing around heavy things? So you can go back to the gym and run faster in circles or push heavier things?
And there were always vague admonitions to the effect that it was "healthier," but that was never really qualified. "You'll thank me when you're sixty," people would say, inadvertently revealing a tendency toward foolishness. How am I supposed to have any idea about what'll happen forty years from now? That always irritated me. (That, along with people telling me that I'd "understand when I'm older." I don't, and I won't. Or rather, I'm beginning to understand all too well that being old is no excuse for a person to have lazy ideas, especially if they choose to express them).
There were always magazines and health books, too, of course; but my lungs/heart/legs/whatever always responded well after eating junk food/not exercising/whatever. And since I stopped being a serious athlete around sophomore year in high school, there was no reason to try competing at a high level.
Sure, there were times that I didn't feel great, but I couldn't perceive that the difference between walking for half an hour and not doing so was that great. Sure, "pheromones" were supposed to combat depression and generally make me "feel good;" but this was a difficult thing to notice in myself. Also, straw supposedly can be spun into gold; what did I really know about the chemical interactions in my own brain, anyway?
But since I've been here, I've gradually shifted my paradigm to the idea that exercise relieves stress. This is such a simple thing, but it's changed my perception on my entire lifestyle. I notice that I feel stressed out if I don't exercise for a while; and my mood gradually falls. And I don't have to do intense exercise, either, or really lame ones; my only options aren't SIX PACK ABS or GERIATRIC YOGA or PLAYING TAG EVERY TUESDAY BECAUSE I MISS MY YOUTH.
Now, I can take a half-hour walk just because it relieves stress. Or tag; I just wouldn't play it as a planned sort of thing.
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