Recently, we took our annual family vacation. This is
different than a trip the girls and I take or one of our getaways with friends.
This vacation involves all of us–the girls and I, all of the children and their
significant others and an “adopted” child or two. A destination is picked, a
house rented and then the planning begins. This year, we visited historic
Savannah. This has actually become one of my favorite locales–outside of
Disney, of course–and I’m even considering it as a backdrop for some of my
stories.
Now, part of the reason I love the historic district so much
is that you park your car and walk everywhere. For a man who hates traffic,
it’s the perfect area. Everything we need is right there, including a grocery
store. And the crazy part is I look forward to walking each day. We’d wake up,
have breakfast and then go exploring. We averaged ten miles a day just in that
little area that takes about fifteen to twenty minutes to cross. We also had
the added hurdle of avoiding tour groups and trolleys. By the end of the day,
our legs were sore and we were exhausted, but it felt great.
It’s the same when we go to Disney. We are there from open
to close and, as anyone who has been to an amusement park can tell you, you
spend 80% of your time either walking or waiting in line. Our muscles ache;
we’re tired, but we’re not complaining because we’re doing what we want to do
with people we want to do it with. Char even has a pedometer she wears on our
trips that counts our steps and brags about how much we’ve walked as we’re
leaving the park. It’s only then that my body screams what an idiot I am.
However, on a normal morning as I am lacing up my walking
shoes, my whole body fights against the exercise I am about to force upon it.
Two minutes into my walk and I already want to turn around and go home. Five
minutes in and my legs start telling me they’re about to go numb and fall off.
Even with music blaring in my ears, I have to constantly give myself a pep talk
that people walk all the time and survive. I scold myself when a little old
lady struts past me and fight the urge to take her out. It really is pathetic
what I go through making myself exercise.
Yet, it’s because I don’t want to do it. My ever-fattening
belly isn’t enough motivation to simply walk the fifteen minutes to the beach
and back again. I wear myself out just getting out the door. As a matter of
fact, my legs hurt just writing about it.
But it’s all in my mind. My brain associates walking around
Savannah and Disney as an adventure, something to be enjoyed. It sees walking
for exercise as, well, exercise, something to be endured. One is a pleasure
while the other is a chore.
It’s the same with everything we do. How we view it will
determine its effect on our body and spirit. Go into something with a negative
mindset and you’re more than likely to get negative results. However, go in
with a positive outlook and you’ve already overcome half of the battle. Now I
just have to make myself positive about exercise.
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