So much of my life revolves around a cost-benefit analysis. Not only in consumerism but in my day-to-day scheduling of events. If my mind was written in C my event handler would be less concerned with memory resources and more in the economy of the processing hops.
My form on the bicycle, finding more economical movements, creating more synergy between the body-machine object that moves forward in time, and never back. Life again, is like a bicycle trip, forward motions mostly planned in advance informed by economical movement, getting from point A to point B with the least amount of resistance and the best cost-benefit.
Sometimes on the bicycle you need to go uphill to get the greatest training, or cost, benefit. Sometimes in life the same is true. Sometimes you need to go uphill, sometimes you have a tailwind and sometimes you have a headwind - regardless you need that hill - it's there to tell you something - to train your mind and body. It's about learning, it's about finding rhythm in chaos, it's about finding peace, it's about the distance between the places where you gain your experience and your wisdom.
I wake up everyday and learn something new about myself. Recently, I've been learning a lot about emotions. What they are, how they affect me, why they are invoked, why I react to them. I never gave them a lot of thought in the past - as Dan Savage would say, you don't want to over-lesbian this thing by feeling it to death. That was a good rule of thumb, but now I'm realizing that sometimes an emotional audit is in order.
Right now I feel tired. I was out at a concert all night. I stayed up late, on my feet dancing, and having a pretty awesome time. As one of my best friends would say, I made a pretty big withdrawal from my energy bank. I don't have the opportunity right now to make a deposit because I have a job, responsibilities, and some sunshine to soak up on my bicycle this afternoon. But I know tonight when I get home and crash on my bed it'll all be worth it.
It'll be worth it because I have the choice to do these things. Sometimes I regret my choices, but the fact is that I have them, they're options, and I can choose to or not ... that's a pretty awesome gift. I can choose to feel and I can choose to not feel. I can choose to react and I can choose not to react.
Today I chose to wake up at a respectable hour even though I needed the rest - what is more important to me today is to get my job done to the best of my ability, in the most economical way possible, fitting the most work into the small space of time I have to get done what needs to be done. Today I'm going to ride my bike - I'm going to get outside and do what I need to do in the most economical way possible. It'll involve going uphill quite a bit. It'll involve some pain, and it'll definitely involve me second guessing whether it's a good idea to ride when I'm so tired, whether that'll benefit me in a training sense.
Truth is, I don't care if it does or doesn't. I know riding my bike makes me feel good, tired or not. I've done way more on way less. I tell myself that every time I go uphill. More on less. More on less. More on less. When there's nothing left you can always give 50% more. When that's gone you've got 50% more. And when that's gone... you get the picture.
I do this because I can. Because it's beautiful outside and I've been at my computer in a lab all day. I do this because life is too short not too.
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