Mental Discipline

Sometimes, when it's 5 AM on the dot and I'm shambling to my cat's food bowl, the feline herself eagerly following and encouraging me loudly, a half-formed thought scampers through my brain -- Maybe I should go running now -- and promptly scoots back into a safe corner as I mentally growl at it. Who wants to go running at five in the morning, after having been snapped awake by an ear-shattering meow of primal hunger? Who can schlep around Cambridge perkily after having gone to bed a mere five hours earlier? Why, I haven't even finished metabolizing all the alcohol I consumed!

But maybe the thought is right. Maybe it's not a thought at all, but an instinct for health, buried under layers of comfortable fat cells. Maybe it's the voice of my Mental Discipline. 

I should run after I get up to feed my cat at the crack of dawn! But what about my sleep? Isn't proper rest as important as proper exercise?

Er, maybe I should go to bed earlier? But what about socializing? Isn't spending time with friends and loved ones good for your health too, and your soul?

What about solitude? Don't we all need some alone time, to decompress from the stress of the day, without inconvenient, judging witnesses?

Derp, derp?

Yes, these are the pathetic dilemmas I wrestle with on a semi-regular basis. When I get into these thought loops, I just think about, oh I don't know, "corrective" rape in South Africa or the Tohoku quake and resulting tsunamis. Visions of my muffin top are instantly shamed into vanishing by recalled footage of babies being swept from their mother's arms or news articles about victims of violence. Or, worse, the memory of my brother's workout outfit last weekend. OMFG I need bleach for my eyes.

See? Perspective! And how does one have perspective? Mental discipline! So this blog post totally makes sense, and I'm not rambling or anything.

Oh God I'm so tired...