Continuing the theme of last week’s post, I am writing this without anything specific in mind. I spent a couple of hours writing a post on Medium this afternoon, and then decided not to publish it. I think it is representative of the state I am in now: somewhere in limbo.
I just returned the passes of my last gig last week, so this week onwards I am free to pursue my experiments again. There a lot of things I wish to do, but restarting and trying to re-accumulate momentum again is hard. But the actual focus of this upcoming time phase should be on my fitness – without feeling well, I am nothing.
It is difficult to cultivate the discipline to prioritise fitness at least for me, when there are a hundred other things to do. Choosing to be fit is deciding that the one hour of exercise has to take precedence in a daily schedule. Fitness is a momentum of its own, and it takes energy to gain energy. This is why it is so hard for people to start fitness regimes. Try going to the gym when one is feeling fatigued and lousy, yet it is precisely the time we should be exercising. It is a chicken and egg thing, it took me a long time to learn.
The will to exercise, or the will to do anything, comes from physical resilience – it requires the brain to be in optimum shape, and that comes from exercise:
“…conversely, exercise unleashes a cascade of neurochemicals and growth factors that can reverse this process, physically bolstering the brain’s infrastructure. In fact, the brain responds like muscles do, growing with use, withering with inactivity. The neurons in the brain connect to one another through “leaves” on treelike branches, and exercise causes those branches to grow and bloom with new buds, thus enhancing brain function at a fundamental level.”
I am going to practice the reverse of what is intuitive to me. Previously, I would try to finish my work first before executing my daily habits of journalling, exercising and reading. This week onwards, I am going to finish my daily habits before commencing on anything else. This is a signal to both my body that I know the importance of her wellness, and I am willing to invest in it.
I am going to call it a good day if I manage to complete my planned daily regime of sleeping and waking up early, meditating, journalling and exercising – everything else will have to come afterwards, even the creative work I’ve been dying to do for months now. This is to test out my hypothesis that having a solid personal infrastructure will pave the way to all good things in life: aliveness, connectedness, love, wonder.