As the conversation went on he said he'd like to work exercise into his routine. But for some reason, he could never find the time.
"Then what you're really telling me," I told him, "is that you don't have time to take care of yourself." He was a little taken aback at my bluntness, but what I told him was the raw truth.
Because the reality is, it's a rare person who doesn't have time to do at least a minimal amount of exercise.
Some people equate exercise with spending an hour in the gym, pumping iron, or doing aerobics. And of course if one thinks about exercise that way it will take a bit out of their day, especially when one includes getting there and back. Time that a lot of people really don't have because of their other obligations.
But exercise can take a lot of forms, as science is finding out. One can find a lot of easy workout routines on YouTube. There are literally thousands of them available. Also, we can get a few more steps in each day by parking further away from the door to our office or from the market we shop at. If we work in a sedentary job, as so many of us do, we can carry our phone with us as we talk to our business associates and move around our office during the conversation. We can always work in a few push-ups along the way. We can use the stairs rather than the elevator.
Because I live in the world of recovery I know a lot of people who have substituted food, video games, and television for the addictions that they gave up. But my reality is that I didn't get sober 28 years ago just to pick up another kind of addiction or to live an unhealthy life.
At one point I didn't think I was going to live to be 40. And now, if I make it another month, I'll be 80. And because of my lifestyle of healthy living and eating I'm still relatively functional. I have the privilege of working six or seven days a week, taking vacations, and meeting all of the other challenges of daily life.
Does it take discipline? Yes. But the discipline is worth it if we want to enjoy our time on this planet.
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