What you feed will grow

The weekends are definitely stressful. It's Monday, I got a good night sleep, and I feel significantly better.

I remember when I was a child, I noticed adults had difficulty changing. I could change pretty easily then; I just decided I was going to be different, started to behave differently, and soon the change felt natural. As I grew older, I noticed that change was harder, sometimes difficult. I'm talking about behavior patterns mainly.

A couple times in this blog, I've mentioned accumulating weight, or gravity. This is what I'm referring to; the longer you are someplace, or do something, it becomes more difficult to change. I knew if I stayed in South Beach, I would adapt to the stresses of being here, and overcome them. I would learn how to take care of myself in the new environment, and living would become easier. Likewise, I could have left, gone back to live with my mother, and I would have adapted and overcome there. But I also knew doing so would have made it difficult to get back here. Not to mention the contacts I am cultivating that continue to grow in depth and breadth.

There is a neurological basis for this phenomenon. So as not to be wrong, or boring, I will generalize; your brain builds wiring diagrams to facilitate more rapid behavior, essentially. When you are learning a new skill, you are creating the hardwiring for that behavior. As you become skilled, the circuits become more reliable. This is how it works for behaviors, emotions, thoughts, everything your brain does. Thus the expression, what you feed will grow.

I have also noticed, since I've been here, that it has become easier to change. I have changed my environment, altered the demands on myself, and am thus rewiring myself. That's probably why I feel like change facilitates growth. I don't simply react to my environment, I am able to take a meta-view of myself, my thoughts, emotions, and behavior, and make decisions about future behavior with regard to my values. I raise myself, as long as I continue to grow.

So I want to put my money where my mouth is. I am not happy with how much I am drinking, smoking, and not exercising. I want to drink less, stop smoking, and exercise every day. I recognize that work is hard, and by the time I finish at 4, all I want is a seat, a cold beer, and air conditioning. In turn, drinking leads me to smoke more, and all of the above inhibit me from exercising, in a self-feeding cycle.

Tomorrow morning I am going to try to get up an hour earlier and go for a run. I've notice that in fact, I am able to function before coffee, something I've learned since I can't get any before 7:00 am. I imagine myself waking up and putting my things away, putting on my running shorts, and driving over to the beach. Going for an easy run up the beach.... and so on until I am at Publix at 7:00 am to begin my regular routine. I worked out all the details I could think of earlier today, and have been imagining the new routine several times today. I will go over it again, in as much detail as I can imagine, right before I go to sleep. My belief is that this is how I can accomplish the change I want. I have put some emotional currency into it by telling you, and realizing I will have to report the results.

So there is my seedling idea. By exercising first thing, I will change my whole day. I am feeding it, and we can see if it will grow together.