Monday, October 20, 2014

Here come t-r-o-u-b-l-e...

This morning while I was warming up on the treadmill I looked down at the machines below and could see someone using one of the machines I work out on, not to workout on but as a chair. He was watching the alpha male racquetball group play. Now there are two of these machines but the other one had the wrong attachment hooked up. I can replace it but it's a pain in the butt because I'm short. So anyway, I spent my 10 minute warm up getting a little ticked at this guy just sitting there at the lat machine watching the game.

Then when I actually hit the floor he had moved on to play his round in the game. Oh well that worked out fine. Except then when I started in on the machine that I alternate with the lat pull down machine someone else started to use the lat machine. Dang it. I was going to have to switch out the bar after all and I hate to do....oh never mind here comes someone else who is doing it instead of me...and by the time I was done with my hamstring curls they were both done with their sets and now both machines were free and had the right attachment. Guess I was starting to stress for nothing.

I've been working on a story in my head for a friend of mine. It was one of those; "This funny thing happened to someone, you should make a story out of it" moments. Amazingly, that happens more often than you would think...anyway... I had a few of the bare facts and was starting down the path of the story. I had asked for more details and originally had planned to get all of them before I started. I should have. I was missing a pretty big piece of information that changes everything I had planned. It's obviously not a big deal in the grand scheme of life, but it does change where I can go with the story.

There's a Bible verse that tells you not to worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself. You also see a take on it sometimes as don't borrow trouble from tomorrow because each day has trouble of its own. That's such a good thing to keep in mind and such a hard thing to always practice. It's part of living mindfully as well, right? Be in the moment. Each moment is its own moment. Stop thinking so much about the past or the future or you miss now.

Now, I get it, there is a fine line between planning for tomorrow and worrying about it. I'm not saying you shouldn't save money, or have an insurance policy or stock up on toilet paper, I'm just saying pay attention to where your mind wanders. Are you planning for things that are going to happen, or panicking about things that probably aren't. Or even if they do you have no control over anyway so why bother thinking about them. Why worry about something that might or might not happen. If it doesn't happen you've wasted your time worrying about it, if it does happen worrying about it did no good anyway. Good guideline, are you planning or panicking. (just a quick hint, if you are thinking about what you are going to do when you catch Ebola, you're panicking.)

Pay attention to what is going on right now and stop worrying about the things that are out of your control. Enjoy your life right now. Not in 10 less pounds. Not after the next raise. Not during your next vacation. Right now. Worry isn't going to make it better. Getting pissed off at what might happen is pretty much guaranteed to make it worse.

Even if someone is using a weight machine as a couch....

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