The Chicken and the Egg

I have become an early riser.

Not because I like it, but out of necessity. I live an hour out of town and commute in regularly. Therefore, in order to avoid the throngs of lemmings creeping reluctantly into their day jobs in the city, I have to leave at an ungodly hour. I am clinically impatient and suffer physiological symptoms akin to a seizure if I have to sit for more than a minute inching along slowly to that big sigh of a day.

The average Vancouverite shakes her head in disbelief, thinking me at least a little off my nut for putting so much space and time between myself and this great city, moreso between myself and my daily responsibilities. Someone more wistful than myself might ask "what's it all for?", but I cringe at most signs of the philosophical and so I try to offer something a little more pragmatic.

Let me see if I can explain what got me thinking about this.

During my commute today (during which time I have alot of opportunity to muse), I did my daily sorting through my mind's agenda for the day and tried to identify where any little points of frustration were originating. I'm a relatively satisfied girl with no great demons, but I manage my frustrations like a To-Do list - what do I need to fix today? One of those little demons that had me thinking was my total lack of success at finding a way to introduce some regularly scheduled cardio-enhancing activity into my weeks. The frustration is not new. It's a nagging old friend looking on disapprovingly, more and more each year as I add some pounds on to what used to be a lithe frame, and feel less and less capable of that weekend jaunt up the backcountry trails (which I keep meaning to schedule).

Essentially this challenge is a symptom of a greater circumstance which is characterized by the driving need to fill every moment of each day with something productive and necessary, leaving little time and motivation left for activities that cause one to sweat and expend energy that is in short supply at the end of the day. Though I love the feeling of a good workout, my mind cries out desperately that tonight I just want to sit and watch TV, tomorrow we will start the good program to trim the thighs. And you know what happens tomorrow, of course. Just another day then I'll be fit. Well let's see... um, when was the last time I managed more than three weeks in a row of fitness? Years. Literally years.

So then I start marvelling at others who have managed to fit fitness into their lives. Should it really be that hard? Well, my friend, it all boils down to priorities, of course. Others make their fitness a priority - everything else takes second place. Fine, I get it. Priorities. Fine. I can dig that, but here's the problem. For me, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is more, er... a circle. Or maybe a spiral? Whatever, the point is that I can't commit to a hierarchy. It's totally and completely against my grain. My Hierarchy of Needs is trumped by the need to do everything, see everything, learn everything and then do it again. I am fundamentally unhappy without my fingers in every of life's proverbial pies. So therefore I can never be an expert at anything in particular. But... yeah you got it, I need to be an expert as well. That's something, isn't it?

I need the chicken AND the egg. Who cares which comes first because eventually they are both there. Maybe we should give it a name... Don'tMissAThing-itis (DMAT).

Is this a scourge of a Type A personality? Well sure, maybe. But I'm not pure Type A, it depends on my environment. Is there such thing as a Type AB? Type A in the day, Type B in the night? As a true DMAT sufferer, I would need to be both, wouldn't I?

I'm not sure my DMAT is curable. I'm not sure I want it cured. My internal value structure defines diversity as a priority so I guess I'm destined to be a living dichotomy.

While I was gazing at my navel there, I missed a whole bunch of opportunities to see something new on my drive in. Sigh. Next post I am going to choose something a little less innate.