the amateur

Right off the bat, I am probably going to use the word *hard* a lot in this post. So go ahead and get all the 'that's what she said' jokes out of your system.

Done? Good.

I've been doing a lot of hard things lately.
Grad school? Hard.
Relationships? HARD.
Job hunting? Hard.
Working out? Hard.

Let's talk about that last one. Back in February, when Sundance was over and life was back to normal I started running again. And it was unbearable. Seriously. I remember feeling like I'd been running for ever and then looking and realizing it had been two minutes. Oy. That was the day I stopped looking at the clock on the treadmill.

But with time, and perseverance, running became something I love. Does that mean I want to run a half marathon or a 10K or anything? Absolutely not. I just don't have any real interest in it. I did, however, want to be able to run a 5K without stopping. And I did it. And it was awesome.

Something that seemed insurmountable at first was accomplished. And I discovered that with enough time, anything is possible.

When I think about the things I want most in my life, none of them are things I would just fall into (unless I won some sort of lottery that you don't have to enter). They are all things that would require effort, and work, and sweat, and tears. Which brings me to the above graphic.

It will be hard. (The best things are.) Do it anyway.

I made it so I can look at it when I'm thinking about quitting, or backing off, or wondering why I put effort into something when I can't always see results. The epilogue to that graphic is 'It's worth it.' And I truly believe that most things are worth it.

I'm a Libra, and apparently one of our traits is that we take the easy way out. I don't know why, but that's stuck with me since I first heard it. I don't want to be the person who won't put in the work. So I've been trying to do more hard things. And even though sometimes it does leave me sweating, or in tears, or whining to my parents, it's been a good thing in my life lately. In fact, I'm happier than I can ever remember being.

So what's my next hard thing? Well, D and I have been falling into the couple trap where we just eat whatever we feel like because eating icecream together is fun. And going out to eat a lot is fun. But these are not the habits that we want to build together. So, we're doing Body for Life. It's a 12 week challenge aimed at changing your eating and exercise habits (it's also totally safe and has been around since the mid 90s), and we're starting today.*

You might be hearing a lot about it on the blog, depending on how it goes. As with all new things, I will give this the best shot I can, but if it isn't for us, I won't feel any guilt about stopping. Mostly I'm hoping it'll get us away from eating take out and junk food as much as we do. We are pretty good at making dinner a few nights a week, but there is still a lot of pizza and Cafe Rio. 


*To be clear, I'm not trying to lose any weight. No sir. I want to tone things up, and I want to get into better shape and be supportive of D doing the same things.