Miracles, Motherf*cker

February 27, 2013 Ashley 0 Comments

Stupid two-thousand-and-whatever-year it was that “skinny fat” became a known term.

Up until that bullshit moment, people were nice and ignorant to the difference between these two things:

Um, actually, if I naturally looked like the left chick, I wouldn’t bother doing anything. At all. I mean, I wouldn’t bother squatting and I definitely wouldn’t be writing this. I wouldn’t have even bothered to learn how to write. I’d just be enjoying the testosterous (yep, just made that up) adulation for my holy-level blessed aesthetics.

I digress.

Yeah. Up until that urban-diction moment, I could eschew the fcuk-giving that motivates morning jogs or waiting around in a gym queue for cardio equipment.

Up until then, calories in and out were determined by my torpor level. I was too lazy to go out of the way for gastronomical delights or expend them from my body beyond whatever results a fifteen minute jog yielded.

Despite my still-persistent lethargy of brain and body alike, I try to put on my Pumas and abide by Nike’s slogan – because people are hip to this effing household term (and I don’t have the other Hollywood-parts to pull off half-assing my ass-hauling). A while ago, I got one of those elliptical machines people warned would turn into little more than a dust mantle with handles. The way I was working out (reading instead of using the arm bar thingies), it might as well have been. Only recently, out of some desperate need to nix a deep, enduring sense of desolation, have I surrendered – to sweet sudoriferous effort.

It’s interesting.

We change up one or two simple things – like acquiring new playlist tunes, tweaking the way we breathe, or who we fantasize about dying in a car fire (I’d obv. never do that – much less use it to get through the two hour workout below with a smile) – and suddenly that pivotal moment after an hour of sweaty stank-ass cardio goes from feeling like self abusive exercise bulimia – to a mystical kundalini awakening.

The whole day becomes Brady instead of Daria and I feel a little less like punting the toys I see down the stairs (or the neighbor children who left them there).

One of my favorite spiritual junkie gurus – who heard it from her guru, who heard it from like Krishna or something – who knows – always says this thing that I totally love (just not enough to remember verbatim). Anyway, the paraphrased version is basically that we win the God-lottery when we change the way we choose to see shit.

“I’ll let you in a powerful secret: When you begin to look at your ego’s false behavior, you’ve unconsciously asked for a miracle. The slight willingness to see things differently is the catalyst for spiritual shifts.”
-Gabrielle Bernstein

Ah. Yeah. I was close. Same difference.

Anyway, I thought that concept was a crock – until I gave it a try (I was taking myself off Valium and feeling pretty openminded. And desperate. And hearing aliens. Moving onto the next paragraph of this entry, now.)

It’s annoying to realize I’m responsible for my own happiness. That’s hard. That’s a lot of work. It’s way easier to go find people, places, or things and vacuum the life out of them one by one (or all, simultaneously in some sorta succubus foursome). But the gratification of doing any of that has an inverse relache to how long I’ll be happy after (compounded by a more immediate misery-comedown following how effing short the good bits actually last). For three easily identifiable “not worth it” facets of doing the wrong things, I sure have to remind myself a lot how shitty they feel and to like, not do them.

This is exponentially vexing, but I’m glad I have a replacement plan that includes (not only, but not the least of which is) enjoying worthy stuff I generally start out resenting every day.

Like my workouts.

Not gonna lie. Active happiness acquisition is hard – and I’m lazy.

But without it, I’d be off the rails and off to the races – and I don’t mean with my leggy muscles.