All or Nothing

I’m sitting at my desk, sipping my morning latte, reflecting on how I generally “do” at living.

I’ve realized that I’m an all or nothing person. If I feel good, I work harder, I’m excellent at planning and thinking ahead, I’m more motivated, I’m more active, I care more about my and others’ well-being. It’s really the most worthwhile positive feedback cycle to try to break into – but getting in there is the hardest part.

Just over two weeks ago, I sprained my ankle fairly well. It was a level 2 sprain on a scale of 1-3 (according to my physiotherapist), somewhere in-between healing in a matter of days and not being able to walk. This sprain came at a really, really irritating time as I had just signed up for my first ever 5K race the day before and am still “training” for it. Despite this, it ended up being a huge blessing as I’ve found myself in numerous situations when I thought “man, I wish I could run today” but hadn’t seen my doctor yet and was limping, so I didn’t. Until these moments, I didn’t quite know that I VALUED running! I’ve only started exercising again this past Sunday, and I’m glad I waited until I felt confident that I wouldn’t injure myself further. Actually, Sunday was one of the best runs I’ve had because I put absolutely no pressure on myself to “finish it”. I felt no hesitation to get outside as I knew that I had a free pass to stop after just 5 steps if I felt actual pain. I felt no pain, and completed the whole run. Yesterday I went on another run and while it went well, it was a lot harder to get myself out there b/c I felt that internal pressure to complete the whole run.

Anyway, I apparently enjoy exercise. Who knew. I, at least, did not know this for the last 25.5 years. Since I’ve been exercising again post-injury, I’ve felt so much more calm, more motivated (which my skyping date helped with tremendously), and I do something for my body – cardio or push ups or whatever’s on the schedule on my fridge – every day. Probably the best part is that I’m excited to go into hiding with books, papers, and my laptop and start writing. Academic reading is not something I’ve ever felt excited to do.

Back to the shadow I cast on this upbeat post – it is so hard to maintain this positive cycle. I have always fought with this, and it’s so easy to slip out of. As soon as I slack on one of the aspects, the whole thing seems to fall apart. Activity seems to have a slightly more influential piece in this puzzle, however.

I imagine it as a game of kerplunk – during which you dump a pile of marbles on top of a randomly stacked pile of sticks. Like Jenga, you pull out the sticks one by one, and if you pull out a stick that makes all the marbles fall through, you “lose”. All these things I “do” for my life and well-being are the sticks, but it seems that as soon as I pull just one stick out, it seems to cause a cascade in which I ultimately lose my marbles. Sad!

Does anybody else experience this? I assume a lot of people feel similarly, but I don’t think I’ve actually asked anybody this specific question before.