The Calendar is not your Coach
Published by Mark Clemens on 2009-12-02 14:53:54
The calendar is not your coach. Of course, it generally acts like one, but it shouldn't. That is, you ought not let the calendar ought tell you when take a day off. That is just giving an inanimate object way too much power. Surely a more basic part of you would agree with that.
Most folks, called the Normal Majority in my book "Think and Grow Fit". are made to do certain things by these means. All they need to do is look at the calendar to know that they should slow down in preparation for a celebration or that they should get hungry in anticipation of a meal. In other words, the calendar and the clock become their bosses or parents if they happen to be much younger.
Should this be? Most people think so and become very angry when they are expected to work out on Thanksgiving, for example. Same goes for Christmas and their birthday, to say nothing of the Fourth, New Years, etc. These are sacred time,so to speak, even if they are otherwise not religious. If they are, it may even include every Sunday, Maunday Thursday, Good Friday and even Shrove Tuesday prior to the Mardi Gras! Then too there is the minimum two weeks vacation, which may even have become a four week one.
Is this all OK? In our society, it is expected. That is its very OK. It is thought of as the just due for everyone who lives here. The assumption is that we are all so fortunate for it being this way as opposed to others in different parts of the globe.
Would Michael Phelps, Olympic gold medalist be like this? He might if he were not himself. An interview immediately after the 2008 Games found him not remembering when he had taken a day off and virtually happy that he had never missed. He did not want. He wanted to do his daily miles to be the superlative athlete that he is. Perhaps, he even thought of this as simply being himself.
How do you feel about brushing your teeth? Do you refuse to do this on legal holidays or ever find it a wrongful activity for a Sunday prior to sitting in church? More than likely you don't. Can you ever remember a time when you did, for any reason?
The same type of thinking needs to be prevalent when it comes to working out. We should do it because it's good for us, keeps us socially desirable and simply promotes the best of health. Then like Michael Phelps we will not be able to remember when we took the day off and that we simply do what we do because its is a part of us.
