weight

while emailing my good friend Alicia this morning, i started to explain to her why sometimes doing the things that i know are good for me are just so darn hard. it's not that i'm lazy, or i don't understand how important these things—writing, exercise, etc.— are. it's actually quite the opposite, i know how vital they are to a healthy me, and paradoxically, the weight of their importance, at time, cripples me.

when i am about to embark on something good for me, be it writing or working out or whatever, it is never just a single event in my mind. somehow my brain takes that event and turns it into something bigger. as though if it is worth my time to do today, then surely, here and now, i must make a commitment to do this good thing every day for the rest of my natural-born life. merely doing it once would be a 'why bother?'

then, the weight of a lifetime of said good thing starts to wear and feel incredibly daunting. the fatigue that plagues my mind as it attempts to wrap itself around this heavy commitment, and all the other things i will never do because i will be doing this forever, makes me want to go take a nap... which is not very conducive to getting anything done.

my challenge, it seems, is to not put added weight onto the daily tasks that i need and want to do. the writing i do today, is the by-product of today, not the rest of my life. walking to work is merely a 25-minute jaunt. not 25 minutes times 365 days times how many more years i will live. first off, i probably couldn't do the math, but no one can expect to live a lifetime in one day.

i only have to be faithful and disciplined for today. for right now.

and deal with tomorrow when it gets here.