I work out five to six days a week. I am committed to improve my fitness. Often, I find myself struggling with thirst. I know if I wait until I am thirsty to start drinking water that I am in trouble. In theory I should be regularly hydrating, filling my body in advance.
By using “in theory”, I acknowledge that I have heard and understood the facts and figures. The details have been presented for as long as I can remember. The earliest recollection is when I was 7 or 8, playing outside on a hot summer day, and my mother reminding me to drink plenty of water. She loaded me with facts to the point that I talked back defiantly, letting her know that I had the point firmly lodged within me.
As much as I know, each day is a new struggle to get the necessary quantity of water into my system. Inevitably, I end my workout by consuming bottle after bottle, working a catch up situation that could have been avoided if I had started when I know I should have.
I keep thinking that I am smarter than my actions suggest. I know I should hydrate yet I wait until my thirst is demanding that I stop whatever else I am doing and take immediate action. I know I should do _____________; there are so many ways I can fill in the blank! Yet for a range of reasons and excuses, I push the action off until something demands that I stop whatever I am doing and act. My life reflects the writer’s angst when he realized he should have prayed before the crisis arrived. Instead he found himself responding and praying; “And me? I pray. God, it’s time for a break! God, answer in love! Answer with your sure salvation!” (Psalm 69.13)
There are reasons for hope. Last year I dreamed of exercising regularly. What was a dream is now a reality. I took one aspiration from a longing to a reality. Today is an opportunity to go further and farther.
