Life's ups and downs

Resolutions are a curious thing. So many involve making our heart rate rise… whether it be from the classic “this year, I shall exercise more” or the terrifying “This year, I shall ask out that pretty girl in accounting”.

One year, I bought into the ‘Upping the heart rate’ hype. I purchased a gym membership, determined for the first time to actually use it, not just watch the card yellow over time in my wallet. I went all in, too… bought sweat pants, loose fitting clothing, and a duffel bag. One might think that I would have such things on hand, but one would be wrong. I hadn’t really exercised in any capacity since the second Bush administration. I still had my sweats from back then, but trying them on made me feel like packed sausage and restricted blood flow to my brain. It’s not like the blood flow was all that great to begin with… I had taken leave of my senses and joined a gym after all.

My first day at the gym was… discouraging. First, I tried walking a lap or two of the outdoor track. I made it one lap before my heart was ready to bounce out of my throat. (Bush administration, remember?) I was still, pretty proud of my efforts, and sat on a bench trying to get my heart rate to return to normal. An elderly gentleman passed by on his tenth lap and tried to encourage me with a friendly “You need to eat less, fatty!”.

This did not help my heart rate. I didn’t return for a week.

I did go back though. They say that ninety percent of life is just showing up after all. I made a new years resolution in front of my wife, God, and those guys in the chat room on the internet. By all I hold sacred, I was gonna keep it.

Rather than face the snarky septuagenarian outside again, I opted for one of the treadmills that were all facing the gym-long mirror in the back. I hopped on, and set the controls for about a mile at a leisurely pace. I was doing pretty good I thought, and had just exceeded the quarter mile length of the outdoor track. My pace on the treadmill was considerably slower, so my heart rate was doing okay. I was keeping a steady beat to the piped in exercise music all such places seem to have. I looked at the out of shape person in the mirror in front of me, assuring them that this was the way. My reflection looked at me angrily, unsure that it would ever see it’s reflected family again if I kept pushing them on. I once again tried to be reassuring, but I couldn’t deny that the guy in the mirror looked awful.

I was so wrapped up in that conversation with myself that I barely noticed that someone had gotten on the treadmill next to me. I plodded along a bit more before I looked over, and saw an elderly woman running like her life depended on it. I glanced at her speed and distance, and she had already gone three times as far as I had in only a few minutes. She hadn’t even broken a sweat, and here my leisurely pace had my reflection looking like someone had turned a hose on it.

I got off the treadmill and staggered to a nearby bench. I took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. I could feel my pulse pounding in a steady rhythm behind my eyes. The energetic background music from the speakers in the ceiling washed away from me. I sat there for a long time, just listening to my breathing and calming my mind before it occurred to me. The reason I had started this exercise in exercise was because I had heard that it was a great way to relieve stress, and lord knows I had enough to relieve. I also hoped to somehow get my body to provide me with more energy, focus and vitality. Looking back, it was a big ask to make of what had thus far only amounted to me walking a bit more each week. “Perhaps,” my suddenly clear brain said in the darkness behind my eyelids, “there is another way to do this”. My stream of thought was cut short by a gym employee poking me to make sure I was still alive. Across the room, the elderly man from the week before yelled “Of course he’s alive! It’s all you can eat shrimp night at the buffet across the street! He’s not gonna miss that!”

I left the gym and never returned, but I learned a few valuable lessons that day. One, the exercising elderly are a plague upon our society. Two, that maybe the goals behind these resolutions are more important than the method.

Rather than choose a resolution that focused on getting my heart rate to go up, I started to focus on ones that made my heart rate go down in the following years. I pulled out a few of the unfinished model cars I had sitting in the closet and painted them, letting soothing music guide my brush strokes. I started meditating daily with a focus on clearing my mind and encouraging my creativity. I made it a point to get a better night’s sleep each night, to the end of even buying a new mattress. It was significantly more expensive than the sweats and gym bag had been, but not more than the year's membership. This year, I’m resolving to read more. In short, my resolutions had really become about giving myself permission to get some rest.

In our fast paced, twenty four hour news cycle interconnected world, we forget how important rest can be. Like that treadmill at the gym, how you pace your life is important to the health of your body and soul. Live your life at your own pace, not the one arbitrarily set by Super Granny on the treadmill next to you, or the angry old man with a vendetta against anyone with a BMI over 20. You’ll find yourself happier and healthier as a result.

Seriously, what was that guy’s problem?