Take Time for Change

In resistance and strength training, sets of weight bearing repetitions are used to improve muscle endurance, power and size. Repetition, doing the same exercise again and again, is the foundation of every physical fitness and training philosophy. Changing an exercise or the amount of weight used in the exercise is not required, until the desired physical outcome (change) in the muscles and/or body has been achieved. 

At the beginning of every new thing we pursue: new year’s resolution, new relationship, new job, new hobby or body-improving project, we expect to exert ourselves in novel activity(s) to obtain the ‘new’ object(s) of our desire. In regards to improving our bodies, we understand change occurs only after muscles have moved against resistance by many repetitions.

If you want to experience a year of new things, you must choose to live not in the repetition of the natural, but in the newness of the supernatural.
The Book of Mysteries ~ Jonathan Cohn

We are beings who thrive on change…even when we don’t. Change is  part and parcel to existence in the natural world. The swirling atoms of this world and of our bodies are in constant flux of change. As we live and breathe, change is our destiny. And change we will for better or worse. To change or effect change is our greatest opportunity every day and perhaps also our greatest difficulty.

Time is valuable. Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.  M. Scott Peck, Psychiatrist

Change is a dynamic force (law) of the natural world. And it works in conjunction with another dynamic force of the natural world: time. These two forces, if you will, depending on our perspective, become either an ally or an enemy. Like a runaway freight train, change and time impact our lives whether we perceive their existence or passage within or upon us.

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.  Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

In 2017, let’s take time for change…every day. Because time is the currency paid out to us in minutes. Our future self, our future world is created in the realm of how we spend those minutes. Therefore, let us take time to make time change…today…tomorrow and thereafter. 

 


KEEP GOING! KEEP PRACTICING!

It’s nearly the end of January, this first month of 2015. I hope we haven’t completely put aside those New Year’s resolutions we cast for ourselves less than 30 days ago. Even if you didn’t make an official ‘resolution’ for the coming year, I hope you made some thoughtful intentions or at the least had some ideas about what you’d like to accomplish in 2015. If you proposed for yourself to become more physically fit or to eat better, I want to take this moment to remind you (and myself) that today is the day we choose to stay the course. Never mind that yesterday had some failings or shortcomings…it is finished…it is over…it cannot be re-written. But today? Today abounds with possibilities; it is a NEW DAY! Embrace the clean slate with enthusiasm and get ready to put forth some effort (mental, social, physical, spiritual) into your intentions so you can accomplish a positive step forward toward your desired goal. If we were to approach our big resolutions with the little work of taking baby steps every day, we could look back on our yesterdays with satisfaction and accomplishment rather than disappointment. In her book, The Happiness Project, Gretchin Rubin reminds her readers that, “Enthusiasm is more important to mastery than innate ability, because it turns out, that the single most important element in developing an expertise is your willingness to practice.”

I am an artist at living, and my work of art is my life. Japanese philosopher Suzuki