Smarter and wronger.

I haven’t blogged for a long while…missed me?  I know I have.

Today’s blog is about exercise.  I don’t exercise much.  But Jenn started Jazz-ercising the other day, and I’d already been thinking about my recent lethargy, and the need to de-lethargificate my life.  ( I’m easily as impressed with my use of the word de-lethargificate as you are.  We’re both in wondrous awe. ) In response to this de-lethargificationariffic urge (!) , I bought a pass to the local pool and decided I’d start swimming again.

Swimming is on the short list of things I might actually enjoy doing that involves an elevated heart rate.  ( No, I’m not going to list any other items on that very short list.  You’ll have to go somewhere else on the internet to get that kind of content.  Shame on you. )

The prospect of burnishing my physique presents a big challenge…I’m always telling Katy to ‘Go Hard’ and respond strongly to challenges.  ( Somebody give me a roll of tape for my mouth, please ). Back in my childhood someplace, I figured out that my favorite way to address such a challenge was to attack it hard.

To a large extent I believe that to be a response based in fear.  My mindset is “You’re not going to see me fail, so I’m gonna be sure to crush it”.  I don’t know whom I think is watching me all the time…but clearly my fear of failure is immense – ( BTW: fear of failure = pride).

I’m especially prideful with regard to my athletic ability.  This is counter-intutitve, since for the most part I’m not a good athlete. In fact, I’d rather not exercise than face how lousy I feel about being mediocre.  HUGE pride. Huge.  HUUUUUUGE.

Self-disclosure aside, last week I went by the pool, towel in hand and decided to take a dip.  In one sense, it’s good that I want to exercise.  However, forces were at work, unseen within me.  Invisibly, my huge ego was fully in control as I approached the water.

It’s only in retrospect that I can articulate all this.  I had been dreading getting into the pool all day.  I just KNEW it was going to be horrible…my pride and shame were in high gear, telling me so.  And I, consistent to a fault with my ‘ATTACK THE DANGEROUS THING! YOU MUST NOT FAIL’ mentality, hit the pool at Mach 3 with no warm-up.

Three laps later, it hurt to breathe.  It hurt to move.  My arms were cramping.  I didn’t have a good time.  I slunk to the locker room, slunk to my car, slunk it out of the parking lot and slunk home.  So much for that.

Later in the week, my friends William and Heidi were very helpful, once they stopped laughing at my misfortune – Note: misfortune is defined here as ‘foolish prideful behavior’.  In particular Will told me to just spend a half an hour in the pool, no matter what I was doing.  Just put in the time, and try to do something you enjoy while you’re there. 

In that same vein ( ‘vain’ ) while watching Battlestar Galactica on Saturday, one of the main characters had a conversation where he was told “sometimes you’re so busy doing the right thing that you don’t do the smart thing”.  I am fond of his response - “I’ll try to be smarter...and wronger”.  So I’m going to do the smart, wrong thing – or at least the thing that feels wrong and is smart – I’ll just swim, just because.

With that in mind, I hit the pool in slow motion today, in full, grudging acceptance of my limited ability to be awesome.  And I had a great time.  I didn’t try to do anything other than enjoy swimming.  There was exercise, and fellowship with Jesus, and I even want to do it again.

So that’s a nice change.  The whole thing is still a tiny bit excruciating, if only for the very clear revelation of how my heart actually is wired. I need a tune-up before I actually injure myself while trying too hard at something.