#stoicsim

From birth, death is assured.

From nothing to nothing;

We walk through life facing the end,

Even if we tell ourselves otherwise

So why live with fear?

Why sell our dreams for comfort?

Why, like a quiet candle do we

Choose to burn out in purchased

Silence?

Why not share our brightness,

Our unbearable lightness of Being

With others? Why not burn together

With the brightest starlit passion?

To breath pain, to push till exhaustion;

Knowing that in the end,

Rest is guaranteed . . .

No tyrants rule over the dead,

No diseases plague them.

No pain, no anxieties, no persecution,

No judgement awaits us upon our return

I have plenty of evidence that becoming a parent is a drag your fitness, and makes you put on weight. In one year after my first daughter was born, I put on seven kilos without even thinking, where before she was born I’d spent eight years struggling to put on the same amount intentionally.

Another seven years on, and after yo-yoing around, finding a fitness and nutrition programme that suited me, I have in the past year, added yet another five kilos. In all that time there are two things I’ve realised have a real effect on my fitness. 

First up is sedentarism associated with work - in the past year I’ve been working in a place that likes to serve up sugar on a daily basis, and complain if you don’t partake. I sit for around 7 hours a day at least.

Second is lack of time to train - when life is chaotic, time to train seems to get lost down the back of the sofa, or perhaps just on the sofa. 

I’m trying to use a few tools to over come these two barriers and get back on a more sustainable path of fitness. 

First up is negative visualisation - I can still imagine what I used to be like when I was fitter and healthier, before I hit the downward spiral of parenthood (which as I’ve just outlined above, isn’t actually the problem). By visualising how I used to feel, how I feel now, and how much worse I could feel in the future, I find the motivation to do something about it. If I don’t like where I am now, on the downward slope, then I need to turn around and start back up the slope before it gets even steeper.

Secondly I try to be fatalistic about how I got here. There’s not much point griping about the fact that I haven’t put the work in in the past, or that my base of fitness built up over a ten years or so as an adolescent has deteriorated. The only thing I can do is pick up from where I am and move forwards.

I also look at the people that complain to me about the fact that I don’t eat cake, and realise that they don’t share the same goals as me - which is for me to be fit - so for whatever reason they might actually want to stop those goals from being achieved. If that’s how they feel, then their views are of no value to me, so I don’t worry about them. 

Lastly, I accept that if I get at least some physical exercise in today, I will be in a better position to do more tomorrow. I should focus on the task I put before me, that is, to exercise. For the few minutes, five, ten or 20, when I want to exercise, nothing else exists.