Michael: Numbers

The passion flower;
Its white and violet petals,
Is simply stunning.

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Every year at this time I always feel somewhat shallow because I come up with decent and reasonable health goals as opposed to spiritual goals. But I’m going to start easing up on myself because it’s just so much easier to create health objectives that I could tell anyone with a good chance they’d nod their head in agreement with, as opposed to telling them some spiritual stuff that would probably have them nodding with that quizzical look like…”Okaaay…That… sounds interesting… I’ve got to be running along now…”

I’ll give an example. Right now I weigh just under 148 lbs. and am just a sliver under 14% body fat. My goal is to weigh under 142 and be under 12% by July. I’m going to accomplish that by throwing in one extra easy run and ride per week. That’ll be three rides and 4 runs per week total. Tough, but I’m retired and the workouts are varied and interesting. I’ll keep an eye on the numbers and if I can’t keep up on my intense workouts or start to get sick or even more cranky than I am now, I’ll re-evaluate.

Sounds good and doable.

Now take a goal like meditating for at least 5 minutes every morning. So far, so good. But how do I state what outcome I’d like to achieve without sounding peculiar? I could just say I hope to increase my awareness or serenity or some other such new age goofiness. Or I could be even more strange and put a number to it and say I’m planning on increasing my serenity by 5% this year.

Now how would you react if I looked you straight in the eye and said that with real conviction?