The Battle of Wills

Every morning when I awake I fight the "battle of wills" -- the struggle to get my lazy butt out of bed to exercise. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, but it's an epic struggle almost every morning.

I can honestly say, over the years, I have won the daily battle of wills more than I have lost, and for that I am proud of myslef. However, one time losing is the same as ten times winning.

We all fight a daily battle of wills, you just may not call it that. Some may look at my battle of wills and think it is trivial. Why is getting out of bed and exercising a battle of wills? For me morning exercise sets the tempo for my day. It gets me up and moving. If I can make it through my morning workout, the rest of the day is easy.

I use my battle of wills as a simple way to motivate myself to achieve for the day. I have made it so that I can't afford not to win my battle of wills.

What is your battle of wills?

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What Really Matters

What do you see in the picture? Maybe a whale, truck, cream cheese tub, and a travel bottle of shampoo?

To a four year old these items are fifteen minutes of pure bathtub enjoyment.

I watched my daughter so completely focused on these objects in the bathtub that she was oblivious to the fact that she was almost hypothermic because the water temperature was dropping. Oh, and by the way, that cream cheese tub is not a cream cheese tub, it's a boat.

It's the holiday season, and watching my daughter derive so much pleasure out of those four simple toys helped set the tone for me for the rest of the season.

It's not about "Black Friday" and waiting in line for hours outside Best Buy to save $50 on a television.

It's about the simple pleasures in life. It's about watching your daughter completely enthralled with a whale, truck, cream cheese tub (boat), and a travel bottle of shampoo.

These are the things that make her and me happy. These are the things that really matter.

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Shiny With Bright Flashing Lights

I spent some time in a New Haven, CT BW3's recently and made an interesting observation. It's not an earth shattering observation because I think we are all aware of it. It was just one of those "aha" moments when something becomes perfectly clear.

It was your typical BW3's: football on TV (I was watching my Michigan State Spartans implode against Penn State) and good wings.

But, this BW3's had another element: It had a gaming area with several large, shiny games with bright flashing lights.

My aha moment of clarity was this: If you put a large, shiny game with bright flashing lights in a bar, grown men will waste their hard-earned cash to play the game -- even if they have no earthly clue how to play it or hope to win at it.

Now mind you, this BW3's was near the campus of Yale, and it was the Saturday of the Harvard vs Yale football game, so there was (or should have been) a lot of brain power in the bar. Brain power that should have known better than to waste money on large, shiny games with bright flashing lights.

But, the allure of these games was too much for the male patrons. They had to test their "skills" against games (a large punching bag game and, what looked like, a large "poor man's" version of Tetris, to name a couple) that were probably unwinable.

To make matters worse, the punching bag game promised a free sixteen ounce beer to the person who broke the high score.

What does it all mean? I think it means that men are gullible, but I'm happy to say that I resisted the temptation to plug my cash into one of the large, shiny games with bright flashing lights. A moral victory?

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Appearance Is Everything

"Always be more than you appear and never appear to be more than you are."

The above quote came from a 14 November column written by Bono for the New York Times. According to Bono, the quote was something German Chancellor Angela Merkel (she attributed it to her father) said during a conversation she was having with Bono and Bob Geldof.

I'm not sure if it's an original quote by Merkel's father, but it said volumes to me. Below are a few things that came to mind immediately when I read the quote.

Always be more than you appear...
- Don't believe your press clippings or your evaluations.
- Constantly strive to be better every day -- never be satisfied.
- If something is worth doing, it's worth doing well.
- Work as hard as you can always.

...never appear to be more than you are.
- A little humility goes a long way.
- Let your actions speak for you.

If more people prescribed to Merkel's fathers' school of thought the world would be a much better place.

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No TV? What to Do?

Do you watch TV on the Internet?

I recently moved from North Carolina to the northern Virginia area. Just prior to the move my TV bit the dust. When I moved into my new home I had to make a decision: Buy a new TV, or not?

I opted not to get a new TV. I have been traveling quite a bit and didn't want to shell out two thousand dollars for the TV and another hundred bucks monthly for the cable service, only to not watch it.

I typically don't watch much TV, but I do like to watch sports on the weekends and some reality shows (I've been known to get sucked into Saturday Deadliest Catch marathons).

So, when I feel the urge to watch TV, or a movie, I have been resorting to the Internet. Most of what I want to watch is actually available on the Internet (it's still pretty hard to get streaming sports on the Internet, though).

I don't really miss not having the TV option. In fact, I find not having the TV option frees up a lot of time for more "constructive" things.

I think, eventually, we are all going to be watching TV in some form through the Internet. How about you?

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Do Something!

Do you ever feel like you're going into a battle of wits unarmed? Like you are making decisions with only partial information?

We all have to make decisions with partial information because rarely do we ever have all the information needed to make a perfect decision.

There's a saying: A timely, GOOD decision is better than a PERFECT decision made too late.

So, the moral is: Do your homework, gather as much information as you can, but, ultimately, make a decision. Doing something is usually better than doing nothing.

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Guest Post: Exercising: My Love/Hate Relationship With The Gym

By Patricia "Patty" Pendleton

When I moved to Minnesota at the age of thirty-six I decided to get healthy. Well, I would like to think that was why I joined the gym, but it really was my desire to get skinny. I even went so far as to have liposuction a few years back. All that did was take the fat from my butt and redistribute it to my abdomen and arms. I have never liked to exercise. If I could take a pill to do it I would go that route. I do not like getting sweaty and winded. I haven't the drive to be the best and compete for glory. I just want to be thin, plain and simple. It sounds vain and I own up to that. After being nicknamed Piggy by my two older sisters during my teen years my body image suffered greatly. Now, going on thirty-nine I am still battling this demon that drove me to do an unspeakable thing to my body. I joined a boot camp class.

Over the years I have spent thousands of dollars on at-home exercise equipment. Sitting in my garage right now is the elliptical machine I had to have. The most exercise I got from that thing was dragging it up from the basement this past weekend so I can Craigslist it so I can pay for my gym membership. At the gym there are plenty of free classes I could go to, but I decided to do the boot camp class, which cost extra, much to the dismay of my ever patient husband. I did the boot camp class because it is supposedly the hardest class at the gym. Boot camp is for bad asses and I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to have a sculpted stomach with a tight, high muscular butt, free of cellulite and jiggle. I wanted arms like Madonna. I would get thin in this class. I just knew it.

After twenty-four weeks of boot camp class not much in my physical appearance has changed. I still have my mom gut and, sadly, cellulite. However, I can pump out one hundred seventy push ups during the hour long class when told to do so. I can even run five miles with little fatigue. If someone told me I would be able to do these things when I first started I wouldn't have joined at all. I would have said: "They are going to make me do what? Why would I want to run holding twenty extra pounds of weight over my head? I am a house wife for Christ sake, why would I ever need to hold a plank position for ten minutes?"

Though my initial goals were not achieved, the whole "thin" thingy keeps me going. It isn't because I love the feeling of reaching a new level of strength and endurance. Rather, I am afraid if I quit now I really am going to get huge. I figured I was burning, on average, at least five hundred calories per class. Times that by three, and the calories I burn running twice a week, and I would have to cut out a lot of food from my life to maintain my current weight. It is a vicious cycle. The exercising increases my appetite, so I have been eating more food then ever, and if I quit exercising my metabolism is going to tank. I feel like the rat on the wheel running in circles and going nowhere fast.

Another thing about exercising I have noticed is I don't feel any healthier. In fact, I have more aches and pains then ever. My ankles, knees and the muscle right underneath my left butt cheek have suffered from "fitness". The running has made my neck problem flare up from all the jarring. I hate exercising so much I clench my teeth the entire time (when I am not mouth breathing, gulping air into my burning lungs) creating tension headaches. On top of all that it makes me swear like a sailor. I drop the f-bomb at least thirty times during a class. I think the other people in class think I have Tourette Syndrome. So what is a woman to do?

I have one month left to figure it all out before my boot camp ends. It would have been over this week, but I won an extra month doing a fitness challenge at the club. Isn't that ironic? I can admit I am proud that I have stuck with it as long as I have. My motivations were shallow and trite, but I think in all this misery, which I paid extra for, I learned something about myself: I realize if someone tells me to do something I will do it. On my own I am a quitter. I need people to inspire, motivate, even threaten me to reach my potential. I can live with that.

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The Beauty of Grey

Is it still possible to separate your personal life from your professional life?

I say no.

With modern communications (i.e. smartphones) we have the potential to always be connected. Currently, being constantly connected is a conscious choice. I think that in the not so distant future being constantly connected is going to be a requirement.

Being constantly connected will be a requirement because the smartphone is becoming pervasive and the call and data plans associated with the smartphone will continue to become affordable for everyone.

As the smartphone market continues to grow, the expectation will be that we are constantly connected personally and professionally, and the days of leaving your work at work and your personal life at home will become a thing of the past. The line between work and play will blur.

For some, the line between work and play has already blurred, but this will be the case for everyone soon.

You can run, but you can't hide. And if you try to hide you will find that you will become irrelevant because you are not connected.

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