Inspiration Friday: On Life Without Coffee, and Why Pain Is Not Necessarily Gain

I love coffee.  I mean, I really, really love coffee.  Like, a lot.  Coffee is probably the magical fruit liquid of the gods, as well as their sweat and tears.  I have this theory that coffee was passed down to us from higher beings because they love us.  Benjamin Franklin said that about beer, that god sent it because he wanted to make us happy, but in my opinion, coffee is way better.  This also may be because I don't drink, so there is that, but really, everyone.  Coffee.  Yum.  Oh my god.  Yum.

Now, my friends, I shall contradict everything that I just said with what, for me, is an utterly shocking statement- I have not drunk a cup of coffee in almost three days.  Guys, I'm bugging out.  Nearly three rotations of the earth have occurred since I last enjoyed a steaming, or iced, cup of java.  Three.  That hasn't happened since... I don't even know... I was in middle school?  This is crazy.  Insane, to be honest. Some small symptoms of withdrawal have been noticed, which to be honest, freaked me out a little bit, but were not completely unexpected.

Why am I doing this, you may ask?  Is it out of some vicious, maniacal desire to thrust myself into the fires of torture?  No.  I'm trying to reset my body.

Over the past year, I have been sick a lot.  This may be because I work in an indoor office with no windows.  It may also be because I work at a desk shared by many other people, most of whom, including myself, eat whilst sitting here.  It may also be, though, because I eat a lot of processed foods.  Because, I do.  I love frozen chicken patties, macaroni and cheese, bacon, chips ahoy, chef boyardee, udon noodles, fish sticks, and all kinds of other things that really aren't that bad for you health-wise, but have a lot of preservatives and such.  

 

 

 

 

I also eat lunch and dinner, and sometimes breakfast as well, out.  Wayyyy too many of my meals are bought instead of made at home, and this little "reset" is forcing me to reconsider this.  Not only does eating out cost bagillions of dollars over the course of a lifetime, it's also, generally, far less healthy.  My goal is to be healthier, so I'm trying to be more careful about this.  For the past three days, I haven't eaten any "processed" foods, aka canned, boxed, and anything with preservatives or crap tons of salt. 

Along with this, I'm taking a week off from coffee.  Coffee is actually quite good for you in small quantities, but I haven't been drinking small quantities.  A day with less than 3 cups, most of which were far larger than the serving size of 8oz, was a weird day for me.  Generally I was knocking back 3-4.  That is way too much.  And, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.  So, I'm taking this week and just drinking tea, so I at least get some caffeine and my body doesn't flip a gasket.  Next week, I am going to begin drinking just one cup of coffee in the morning.  Hopefully, I will be able to sleep better, and have more legitimate, rather than drugged energy.

Yoga and martial arts have been making me consider these things.  I need and want the energy to be able to do what I need to do in a day.  On top of this, I am becoming more obsessed with overall health and injury prevention- as someone who has a longtime injury, tendonitis in my ankle, this is important to me, and I wish that it were more important to the other people I train with.  It is to some people- that isn't meant to be a cut, but I've seen a lot of really brilliant athletes injure themselves because they pushed too hard through something that hurt.

 

 

 

 

 I've been pondering the phrase "No pain, no gain" a lot lately.  It's thrown around surprisingly often at martial arts, and I totally disagree with it.  It's misleading.  Pain in the form of a stretch is good.  Pain in the form of pushing yourself to the limit can be good.  Pain in the form of confidence, or strengthening can be good.  Pain in the form of shooting pain, bleeding, or injury is bad.  It doesn't make you gain anything- it makes you have to take time off.  I have  had to take time off due to stuff like that so many times in my athletic career and, frankly, I'm sick of it.  I'd rather train sustainably, in a way in which I can train til I am 100 than train in a way that takes me out of doing what I love every other week.  

 

 

 

 

Screw that!  That doesn't work.  That causes bodily harm, stress, and an abnormal schedule for your body.  You end up in and out of training, constantly struggling to regain lost ground instead of climbing a steady upward slope.  And that, my friends, is stupid.  That helps no one, and it definitely doesn't help you.  It' hurts you.  That's not gain- that's loss.  That seems so obvious now.

I don't know why it took me so long to come to this conclusion.  Maybe it's because I get punched in the face (and everywhere else) for fun.  That might be it.  But, I'm glad I'm here, because I'm going to use this knowledge to, hopefully, not have to miss class anymore.  I'm done with feeling broken, unhealthy, and exhausted sometimes.  I'm ready to feel vital, healthy, and put together as much as humanly possible.  Because, this is my body, and my outlook.  I can control it!

In conclusion- be kind to yourself.  Be kind to your body.  Be kind to your mind.  You'll last longer.  Push, but not too hard.  

 

 

 

 

In the words of one of my brilliant yoga teaching instructors, Sarah Bell- "When you have a bunch of voices saying different things to you in your head, your true voice is the one that is kindest to you".

Happy Friday!

The World Is Beautiful

I'm still on my optimistic, happy kick, and, frankly, I don't think it's just a kick at this point. This has lasted for over a week now. I think I might have made a fundamental lifestyle change, or perhaps understood some new philosophies that allow me to see the world in a different way. I don't think it's through rose colored glasses- I think it is through percentages. More people in their cars do not honk than do. More people do hold open doors than don't. It's simple statistics. More people don't suck than do suck. More days turn out to be okay than complete, utter disasters.

I've started, when people ask me how I'm doing, to answer, first of all, "great," because that seems to be how I feel on a general basis. Yeah, I might have cramps, but I live in a world-class, glorious, gorgeous city, have my dream job, and have lost a lot of weight. Mathematically speaking, though I might have had to pop two advil this morning, three positives minus two advil still leaves me with one! I am doing great! Or, I might answer, "wonderful!" Because, even if I have a little bit of a cold from the weather change, the weather change feels delightful, I get to wear my new, comfy and stylish boots, my favourite blazers, and snuggly leggings, I was asked the other day to be in a workout video (something that I never ever ever thought would happen), I'm in a happy, stable relationship with the man of my dreams, and flowers are pretty. When I look at it that way, it is rather difficult to view things as anything but wonderful. Once again, it's simple numbers- my day is wonderful, even if there are little things that get me down. It seems so obvious to me.

So, after I answer with, "wonderful," "great," or "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (which I haven't done yet, but holy hell is it tempting,) I've been saying, "the world is beautiful," because, well, I've done the math. The numbers check out. We live in a beautiful world. For every bit of suck, there are about ten heaping servings of totally awesome. Thus, beautiful world, right? For every thing that goes wrong, something might not go right, but a lot of other things didn't go wrong. Plus, flowers are pretty and coffee and chocolate exist. We have a lot going for us.

Okay... people invented that? Life can't be all that bad.

But, the reactions I've gotten have been overwhelmingly negative. Actually, they've ranged from negative, to surprised, to downright snarky. I've gotten "Wow," "Haha, is it now?," "Psscht," "I'm glad that it is for you," "Oooookayyy..," "Bullshit," and "Well, that's a lie"... Is it, though? Is your life really that hard? Not to bring up the age-old cliche, but are you starving to death? Has everyone around you been killed in a terrifying genocide lately? If your answer is yes to either one of these questions, not a theoretical or figurative yes, but a legitimate, absolute yes, than perhaps it is true that mathematically the world is not beautiful for you as of late. Otherwise... you might have it okay. Something to consider. I mean, neither one of those things, or any event/ tragedy even close to either one of those has ever struck at me, but I realize that this makes me lucky and blessed, which is not an entitled right for anyone as a human being, and, it makes me feel empathy and sadness for those who may have experienced this every, or, frankly, any day. I wish I could fix it. Well, I give money to some charitable organizations, volunteer some time to help underprivileged teens in NYC and spread the word about new news things that I think matter and are relevant on a world or local scale on Facebook etc. a lot, so, even though I know that I could take the next plane to some impoverished countryside and make quite a bit more of a difference through labor or handing out teddy bears or some kind of charitable whatever like that, I don't feel dreadfully awful about my current impact on the world. Call it a lame justification that I do more than a lot of people if you like- it is. I could do wayyy more, and intend to during my life. I think it is each of our responsibility to leave this world better than we found it, not just for our own kids, but for every single person on the planet. But, that's a whole nother post.

That sun is gorgeous. Like a beautiful world, right?

Back to the topic at hand... why is everyone so convinced that this world sucks? Why is it not okay, normal, or, frankly, even within the realm of acceptability to state, and truly mean, that you think the world is a beautiful place? Why are we so dogmatically snarky and pessimistic? More importantly, though... what would happen if, instead of it being "in vogue" to think that people are awful, our lives are terrible, our fates are sealed, and that our world is, as a rule, a place of pestilence and abject horror that is out to get us, we all adopted the motto of, "the world is beautiful?" I'm serious. Would people do more to help the world, and each other, if, instead of thinking that this planet is crumbling into the abyss, we felt that it was climbing up a ladder to becoming a heaven? I think that they might. Instead of attempting the near-impossible of salvaging a sinking ship, we'd be nudging a baby bird to take its first flight, which it would manage even without us.

See? Flowers. Pretty. We're winning.

Therefore... here is my challenge. I dare you- take a day, and try to see the world as beautiful. If you think about it mathematically, it should be easy. Realize how many people didn't annoy you, or make you mad. Count how many gorgeous flowers, or color-changing trees you passed on your drive or walk to work.

What have you got to lose?

Seriously now. Hand-crafted lattes (that I can only afford once a week) are beautiful.

The world is beautiful.

And optimism will not make you lose this latte. It might even taste better.

Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Floral Hope and Light

I posted a little bit last week about the Highline, a new park in New York City built on a raised train platform that runs for about twenty blocks through the west side of Manhattan. In that post (here's the post) I gave a short, mostly-accurate story of the park, and described how desperately cool the place is. It's insanely cool. I also shared a bunch of photographs of the park, people in the park, the surrounding skyline, and views of the street a few stories below. That post ended up being about the length I wanted, and then, I noticed I still had more photographs of the park. It took me about another week to compile them in a moderately creative way, acquire enough internet connectivity for a long enough amount of time to finish this piece, and get it posted. Now, it's here. Whee.

So, I noticed that most of these accidentally forgotten photographs were of the flowers and other fauna of the Highline. I'm a sucker for flowers. I'm a girl, and I love them. Roses make me swoon. It's October, not prime flower season in New York City by any stretch of the imagination, and half of the photographs I've been taking lately seem to be of flowers. This borders on almost a kind of obsession, it seems. But, damnit, they are just so pretty. They are gorgeous. Flowers are natural, beautiful reminders that there are powers, influences, gods, what have you, that shine happiness and light on the world despite all of the darkness. They amaze me every day with their hope. Every flower I see makes me think about all of the lovely moments in my day, and my life.

Call me Candide, but I've become a crazy optimist lately. I mentioned this in my post yesterday, but the world is WONDERFUL. My life is going well, the lives of everyone I know are going well. Change is occurring, and change is fabulous. The world is moving forward. Isn't that the point? I like logic, facts, and good points. Like these ones- there is less war than every before. There is so much less poverty than at many points in history. In this country, the public is starting to make itself generally better informed, and is stepping up to take a more active role in politics. The cool air of the weather change is refreshing. Flowers are pretty. Food is delicious. I love my job. Some people are rude, but for every single asshole I meet during a day who doesn't want to let me on the train, or cuts in front of me in line at the deli, or almost runs me over with his bike while I cross the street for which I clearly have the green light, there are hundreds more people that I encounter every day who did not do that.

People are nice, and people are good. Some people aren't, but most people are! It's so exciting and uplifting. I have such wonderful feelings about this world. We are all so lucky to be alive!

And, for real... LOOK AT THOSE PRETTY FLOWERS AND PLANTS AND STUFF!

They're so pretty. Even the dead one.

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA