The Shortest Distance

When I was very young I decided that the more I used my body the sooner it would wear out.  Later, when I was in school, I learned that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line.

I concluded that I would live longer if I moved my body the absolute minimum amount I could. This may be the ultimate couch potato rationalization, but I actually lived as if the shortest distance between two points was to stay in the same place.

Exercise?  Cardio?  Hiking?  Those were activities indulged in only by foolish people who didn’t know any better.

Modern science, of course, has thoroughly discredited my original belief.  It is well established that, within limits, the more you use your body the longer it will last.  Throughout our lives we are often exposed to ideas that contradict our fixed ways of thinking, and the real question is whether or not we learn to adjust our choices.

During the past year I have made the effort to walk an average of more than three miles every day.  Through conscientious eating I have lost about ten pounds.  I find that, with most restaurants closed to inside dining, it’s easier for me to eat a healthy meal at home than it was in a restaurant.

From the time we are young, our life decisions are shaped by our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, such as “finish everything on your plate”.  For better or for worse, we live by those decisions throughout our entire lives unless and until we change those underlying beliefs and are able to act on new decisions.

Here are three more unhelpful ideas I held onto for many years.

1. Women are always warm and considerate. Men are always angry and abrupt.
2. You don’t really need to brush your teeth.
3. Never throw anything away. That would be wasting money, and you never know when you may need it.  (To this day when Daveen shows me some possession that I haven’t seen in twenty years, and I don’t remember it at all, I still want to keep it, “Just in case.”)

We are creatures of habit – typically starting each day in the same way with a cup of coffee, or tea or whatever our morning ritual entails.

But every once in a while we might peek deeper into ourselves to discover if we can improve our situation by changing a behavior that no longer serves us, and then, maybe, we’ll take a walk, or clean out a closet, or do something new, which is more interesting and productive than just staying in one place.

Alan