I’m a slow processor. Throughout my life, each time I’ve received the news of a devastating event, I wish my reaction could be more immediate, but it never is. Others hear the same news and they immediately cry or mourn or frown or otherwise outwardly display their emotions. That’s never happened to me, and I can’t explain why. Before you judge me – as it seems everyone is wont to do the last few days – please understand that this is not an admission that I am an unfeeling, hate-filled, soulless being. I don’t think I am.
What I am saying is that we all process information differently, particularly when it comes to life’s most disturbing events. So, I find myself troubled by the outpouring of vitriol and argument that I see going on around me. Especially the hate that is not directed at what people are saying, but how and why they are saying it.
When I first hear of something terrible, I want to fix it. I can’t help that reaction, nor do I know why it happens. And even as I am doing it, I can feel a pit developing in my stomach that I tamp down and try to ignore. I can feel that pit growing and looming, working to fight itself through the defense mechanisms that I’ve spent years building up and strengthening. Then, after an hour, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime later, the pit erupts, unannounced, uninvited, and uncontrollable. In that moment, I am overcome with sadness or rage or fear and I don’t even know from where or for what. It’s often a moment that I share with no one. out of fear that someone will deem my emotional response incorrect or insignificant.
Though I may not share that moment on my facebook wall, or send out a tweet announcing my lonely tears and deepest fears, it doesn’t make it any less valid. Somewhere in the world, I’m sure there is a person who is not saddened by the tragic loss of young lives in Connecticut. A person who doesn’t mention that his heart goes out to the families and communities that will forever struggle with what it’s like to experience the inexplicable. But, I don’t think that person is one of my facebook friends, and I don’t think that person is today reaching out to others proposing solutions for how to prevent another tragedy from happening again.
So in this moment, I choose to reflect on my feelings in the way that feels best to me. I write them down. I also choose to respect your right to do the same. Whether that means attending a candlelight vigil, praying to a god I do or don’t believe in, proposing political change, or sharing a funny cat video to ease the tension.
But please, let’s stop arguing about the right way to react.
For the first 33 years of my life, I steadfastly refused to try yoga. At first, it was because I refused to try anything that fell under the umbrella of general health or fitness. Thankfully that phase of my life ended after my first 29 years. Then, I had an enlightenment and realized that I’d probably die soon if I didn’t start exercising. I didn’t realize this horrifying fact from any article or person, but I think that as a 30 year old I just realized that I wasn’t filled with the youthful exuberance that had fueled marathon sessions of watching Real World marathons on MTV.
My impending death got me off the couch, but I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I started running because I was deathly afraid of embarrassing myself at the gym. Years of inactivity meant that I had no idea what to do. I was fat-ish, weak, lazy, and sweat like . . . hmmm. I tried to come up with a good analogy here, but I’ve never seen anything else in the world that sweats as furiously and vigorously as I do, so let’s just agree that I sweat a lot.
At first, I was a timid runner. I’d hide out on the treadmills in the back corner of the gym. I’d run a quarter mile then walk a quarter mile. I’d set my speed to 4.6 so I could dust the 94 year old woman on the treadmill next to me. But over time, my confidence grew and I started to fancy myself a runner. It defined me to some extent, and it made me look incredibly cool:
Over time, running morphed into a more general sense of fitness. I even lifted weights a couple of times. Periodically, I’d walk past the room with the people doing yoga – mostly women, mostly wearing lululemon, mostly incredibly limber. On one hand, I was skeptical and judgmental. I mean, come on, they were lying on the floor half the time. The other half, I’d peer in and they’d basically be standing still. It looked like a joke. On the other hand, they were basically jacked. It wasn’t for me, though, I couldn’t even touch my toes.
Another year passed, and then one day just before my 34th birthday a muscle in my back popped. Exploded would be a more apt description actually. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I was literally paralyzed for years and years. When I saw the doctor a few days later, he said that the injury was because my core wasn’t strong enough and that I should try yoga. I laughed. Yeah, okay bro. Have you seen me? I’m a runner:
The next week, I begrudgingly went to yoga class. Immediate obsession. Here are ten things I learned from my year of yoga:
1. Yoga is really really hard
When you walk past a room full of people and they’re sitting around gently reaching their outstretched arms to one side or the other, it looks really easy. But when I tried it, I was sweating before the class even started. (I know that’s not saying much, but if you don’t like Bikram Yoga, then you really should never attend a class with me. I’m essentially an oversized space heater). A year in, I continue to find every class I attend constantly challenging to me. My arms burn when the class is over. Sitting is hard. Standing is hard. Balancing is hard. Relaxing is hard. Yoga makes everything f*$king hard.
2. But yoga is also really really easy
Because no matter how many classes I’ve taken, no teacher ever pushes you beyond your limit. If you feel tired, they tell you how to rest. If you’re pushing yourself too hard, you take a break. If you can’t touch your toes, you don’t have to. Just get as close as you can. If you can’t balance on your head, don’t even try until you’re ready. Despite what it looks like from the outside, it’s a very inviting environment, and being cool with what you’ve got makes it much easier and less intimidating than it initially seems.
3. The “spiritual” BS is kind of nice.
At first, I loathed all the omms or taking an inventory of my inner self. I was Mr. Cynical about getting in touch with my mind. Then one day I realized it wasn’t so bad. I was more confident. I felt taller. So a little spirituality won’t kill you, and you might just end up liking it.
4. There’s a class for everyone, you just have to find it.
I’ve taken a lot of classes. If you hate a teacher though, you don’t have to go back. There’s something for everyone. And even though I’ve gotten to a point where I’m okay with a little of the spiritual BS, it’s still not my favorite, so I’ve clung to teachers that were more dude-centric and allow for a little more normalcy in the class. My current favorite is YoJo with Anne’s old trainer, Jessa (her website is under construction, I think). I like it so much, I made a video about it:
5. No one really cares what you do.
Maybe everyone is looking at me all the time and judging me for the sweat dripping from my face onto the communal mat that I put back on the shelf after class. Maybe they laugh when I fall down. Maybe they are disgusted when a little bit of my ass hangs out when I do a forward fold. Maybe they avoid danger zones. But if they do, I’m not aware of it. Hell, the instructors sometimes even do something I wouldn’t even do – they put their hand on my sopping sweaty shirt to make an adjustment during class. Sure, they immediately regret doing so, but it’s the thought that counts.
6. If you work at it, you can do cool stuff.
Now, I can totally do a handstand. Suck it, haters.
7. You start to get muscles in weird places.
For me, it’s been my arms and my abs. Who knew?
8. It made me more comfortable in my own skin.
I’m not even embarrassed to post a picture like this on the internet even though it totally tells the world that I don’t have the same full head of hair that I did back in college:
That’s kind of yoga that I’m doing there, right?
9. It focused me in other areas of my life.
I used to be bad at finishing things I started. Now, after a year of yoga, I’m much better at it. Just this post for example, I wanted to do this all day, and now I’m getting it done. I mean, it did start as a list of 20 things I learned this year. But whatever. It’s also taught me that we are constantly evolving and that you need to take the good with the bad.
I’m having trouble getting into the holiday spirit this year. Not only because the world is scheduled to end on December 21st, but also because I worry that my family has not truly embraced the holiday spirit. As the family has grown, we have seamlessly audibled to a system that involves only the distribution of presents through a secret Santa system.
As I understand it, a secret Santa system generally operates as follows: All participating members enter their names into a hat. Preferably one like this:
A jolly old family member walks the hat around until each participant has an assignment for present purchasing. You’re supposed to look at your assignment and quietly nod to yourself in approval as you imagine all of the epic presents you can buy for your beloved family member. Then the jolly old family member announces the spending threshold and you go back through those mental images and recalibrate:
iPad, No:
iPad charger, yes:
Then, you spend the next few weeks searching for any hints about what your assignee may want this holiday season. You look at facebook, twitter, amazon.com, and maybe even ask a close friend. Then, out of nowhere, you figure it out! It’s a beautiful thing, so you run to the internet to buy that perfect gift. But when you get to the internet, you remember that you wanted to check your email, and see if Youkilis signed with the Yankees yet, or see if anything funny happened to someone’s cat. 8 hours later, you go to sleep in a bleary eyed cat high. The next day, you remember that you are past the deadline to send your secret santa gift, realize you complete forgot your revelation from the day before, so you buy an amex gift card and ship it off in the mail.
As I understand the world, this is how a secret Santa is supposed to work. But my family is different.
We start out the same. We use paper and cut it into squares. We put them into a hat. Ours looks like this:
(psst – it’s a yamulke)
Then my Uncle walks around with the hat. You pick your assignment and read it aloud to the whole family. One of my aunts yells, “Wait, didn’t you have him last year? you can’t have the same person again.” So you put the name back into the hat. Then you pick again and read the new name aloud. It’s your wife, so that sends the entire day in a tailspin. We spend the next 25 minutes debating how we can make it work like it has in the past. Finally someone figures it out. Everything goes perfectly and then the hat comes around to you. You’re the last one in the family and you pick the last slip of paper. You read it aloud and it’s your name. You ruin Christmas. But it’s okay, because we haven’t even realized that we’re Jewish and Hannukah already happened because we’re too busy debating whether Homeland is all the way in the shitter or only part of the way in the shitter.
So now that the “picking” part is ruined, my uncle goes into the office and manually assigns each person his or her secret santa. Then he reads the list to the whole family. I get the same person every year. In other words, it’s not that secret. But hey, at least we get to be imaginative with the gift buying.
Except for that after we get the assignment, it becomes your responsibility to inform your gift giver exactly what you would like for the holiday season, then you get it. Yet somehow, and this is the amazing part about family, we all still manage to complain about our gifts. And I’m not pointing fingers, because I can complain with the best of ’em. In fact, I’m surprised my name even goes into the hat. Poor little old me never gets a good present. Just this year, I asked for a beautiful sweater from J Crew and I got this:
If you’ve been following my blog, you might me remember my struggles with ice cream, or the time I quit training for the NYC Marathon, or the many months when I didn’t post at all [null link]. Maybe you’re noticing a pattern here. I certainly did: I have no willpower.
Okay, you caught me. I’m lying a little bit. I didn’t actually read it. Not the whole thing anyway. But! I did listen to the Audiobook while commuting. Most of it at least. And sometimes I would think about how I could do the exercises to try and get better about things. But then I would remember my defensive driving training and return my eyes to the road, focusing on any immediate emergencies 2 seconds ahead or scanning for potential danger up to 12 seconds ahead.
At the very least, just by listening to the book, I now can’t help but think about some of the broader concepts that McGonigal discusses. (Note – if you’re going to listen to the audio book, you’re in for a rude awakening if you expect the narration to be in the author’s voice. And judging by her picture, she has a hot voice. The narrator is a monotone man who probably sent a dozen other people to defensive driving class through no fault of their own.)
One concept I learned about was the struggle between my current self and my future self. From what I gathered, my current self is lazy, selfish, shortsighted, irrational, conniving, lazy, calculating, and optimistic. While my future self is an amazing person, but I never get to meet him. Here’s an example of a conversation I have with my current self all the time:
Rob1 (current self): Man, I haven’t been to the gym in a week. I am harnessing my pants together with an airplane seatbelt extender. I have ice cream drippings solidifying in the folds of my chin. Maybe I should go to the gym today.
Rob2 (also current self): Good idea. But didn’t you want to watch the new episode of Two Broke Girls?
Rob1: No, not really. I should go to the gym.
Rob2: Dude. Two Broke Girls!
Rob1: Hm, that does sound good.
Rob2: We can just go to the gym tomorrow.
Rob1: True.
Rob2: And let’s get some pizza and more ice cream because we’re going to start eating healthy tomorrow too.
Rob1: Oh yeah, I did say I was going to do that when I was eating lunch at Arby’s.
Rob2: Totally. We’re going to be awesome tomorrow.
Rob3 (Future Rob): Whoa. I really committed to a lot tomorrow.
Rob1&2: Yeah, but you’re so amazing. We love you.
I’m not sure if reading that book will change the way I think about these conversations, but it’s at least made me aware that I totally justify things by thinking I’ll get better about them tomorrow. And not only that, but McGonigal uses things like sciences and experiments to back up her findings. I’m a democrat, so I really dig that kind of hogwash.
I’m not saying that this book has all the answers, but if you’ve been keeping track, you have probably noticed the dramatic increase in volume to this blog (and the distracting facebook clog I have caused on your timeline). So you’re welcome and I’m sorry.
Rob Complains About Things 