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Patience - a disappearing virtue?

October 30th, 2008

Ahem. Went to the gym this evening and must say I struggled to be motivated to get there and to stay there once I got there. Put myself under some pressure to make the effort today since I had not been since Saturday and when I weighed myself this morning, I found I have actually put on weight. This on top of the weight I had put on the last time I checked, not really that bl***dy motivating, is it? I know, I know some people will have me believe that muscle weights more than fat but believe you me, I see no blasted muscle anywhere.

I had this thought before and I had it again pedalling away on the bike in the packed gym last night. All around me are people spending blasted hours on treadmills, cross-trainers and the like, pushing weights of several tons or bending themselves into all sorts and I realised that the vast majority of us - even some of the really fit ones - are either too fat or too thin. How much time is wasted in these places, for God's sake? If I do not lose weight, the gym is losing my subscription, simple as that. Being there is a chore and it better have some effect on my sorry behind! What I really need is a gym mate, preferably female, quite fit, pretty and willing to go gently on me 8). Which man would not make the supreme effort in those circumstances?

Thinking like that obviously shows how we have become, expecting results in short periods of time which is not reality. Patience is not the virtue of the modern man, explaining our need for fast everything - fast food to fast women. The lack of patience is also the reason we give up to early on those things we want to do in our lives. Building your contentment, building a new life style all requires time and work and it won't happen overnight.

So reconsidering, first I have to get to go to the gym regularly - fit it into my routine - 3 times a week for six weeks. If nothing happens then I cancel the direct debit. Fair? Maybe eight weeks. I also need to think of the gym in a positive light, with the right frame of mind, after all I am going there for a perfectly good reason - I am too fat and so unfit! You don't want to be near me when I come of that cross-trainer, I'm telling you 8(.

Well here goes.

May you find the balance.

[First published on my Talking2Myself blog on specified date]