Gentle Reader,
Sheets of ice and snow have been sliding off the roof all day. The dogs don’t like it. They think someone is attempting to break into their cozy little cocoon filled with warm blankets, delicious treats and belly rubs. The crack and the crash moves them to frantic barking, but they don’t know where to direct it, so they just run in circles while I am by turns amused and annoyed by their noise.
It’s a brand-new year and a brand-new word. Kate says: motivate.
Go.
I’ve got to be honest: I adore junk food, I hate exercise and getting up early makes me angry. While I don’t mind eating a nice salad or black bean burger and I don’t dislike the way I feel after a good workout session, sweat dripping and endorphins flying (there’s nothing good to say about getting up before the sun), I am gluttonous and lazy.
Despite the lifestyle changes I’ve been forced into over the last few years, fundamentally, in the core of myself, I want to eat greasy pizza and binge-watch Netflix all day.
We assume that, in a magical moment of transformation, accompanied by an epic score written by John Williams, we’ll come to love the things that we have to do in order to take care of the bodies that God gave us. Perhaps that’s true for some, but it certainly hasn’t been true for me. I don’t believe that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. I don’t care about the number on the tag inside my jeans. I have been known to mutter impolite words while doing triceps push-ups.
Sometimes the thing that motivates is more primal, more simple. For me, it’s this: I do what I do because I want to stave off cancer and organ transplant for as long as possible.
Maybe fitness isn’t your issue. Maybe you’re one of those people who bounds out of bed in the morning, fresh-faced and ready for a 5-mile run or some weightlifting. (Are you human)? Instead, your struggle is in studying Scripture consistently. Or quitting smoking. Or reckless spending. Or lying. There are as many hurdles as there are humans.
Four days into the new year, now is the time to really think about why you want to fight the battle, why you want to change the thing. What are you pursuing? What’s the goal? Don’t assume that what works for someone else is going to work for you. Don’t think that if you do all the steps that some successful self-help seller is peddling that everything will be rainbows and unicorns.
Find your own motivation.
Stop.
Taking a page out of Andrew’s book tonight and sharing this beautiful song that I have loved since I was a teenager. I feel like I could take on an army every time I listen to it.
