How to live in reckless abandon…. avoiding the circling drain
(Just a warning this article won’t make a whole lot of sense without watching the video! Its only 3 minutes and trust me worth it!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xCpowcXopKE
“I’m way more proud of every single day I’ve spent outside with my lungs burning, chest heaving – sucking for oxygen and life, than I am of the times I drank too much , slept in, squandered time sending useless but somehow important emails or whatever. I hate those wasted days. I have never regretted working out, going for a walk, not once…. Fight for movement, fight for this life… Life’s more fun when you move”
Recently a friend shared this on facebook. Sharing a philosophy I would like to say I share. Now those that know me know I can’t stay up past midnight without the help of huge amount of energy drinks, know that I never sleep in past 9, and I am not one to drink at all. But this video still stirred something in me.
Though the truth is along with homework, school, my job and seeing my friends the gym always gets put on the back burner. A year ago I was doing PE GCSE, I was in hockey club, I played hockey and netball for the school and was on the athletics team, and even got the chance to captain these teams. This year exercise is a huge effort, going to the gym is something to be planned a week in advance into my schedule to make sure it gets done, I spend all my time at the leisure centre….doing my job as a lifeguard never actually exercising!
And I’ve talked about dreams, I’ve talked about the obstacles I myself can face in taking action, in making dreams reality.This video kind of makes all my talk seem just that, like talk. Sometimes emails really are important, as is my work. But so is getting out there, so taking an hour to enjoy the countryside I’m lucky enough to live in.
Not all of us can afford to go on ski holidays, not all of us are brave enough to climb a glacier like the guy in the video.
But all of us can get out there, to stop thinking about how we might indeed be circling the drain, and to just get out there and do something and do it today. Stop procrastinating, get off our sofa’s and say that run that I’m going to go on tomorrow I’m going to do it today.
Sometimes even though I’m still 17, and young by pretty much everyone’s standards, I feel too old to start afresh, or to disregard a long held dream in reckless abandon of a new bigger and perhaps brighter one. I think everyone can feel like that, we can reach a point where we think its too late to step out of that comfort zone and take the action we really want to.
Winston Churchill said “I never worry about action only inaction” and that’s true, the more we sit back and watch life go past the more likely it is that we will continue to do so without even noticing.
But I for one don’t want to live like that, where a day of my sofa is regularity. I want to go for a run and end up somewhere I’ve never been before, I want to dive into the pool or the ocean, I want to dive right into life. But more than wanting to be outside I want to take action, stop concerning myself with the days and hours I have already lost, or the day I know I will inevitably lose in my future when I give in to a duvet day or, a tough day induced, chocolate fest. I want to put things in place now that will enable me to take action, and take action in the things I can today. I can’t get the job I want right now….because I do actually need a degree for that….I can’t fly to Africa tomorrow and do volunteer work because I need to study for my a-levels. But I can apply for a job that will enable me to save money, I can work my hardest of my ucas application to give myself the biggest chance of being accepted into university. And whilst I do those things I can make time to go out on my bike, to run and feel my legs burn and my chest tighten as I push myself beyond what couch potatoe me could have thought possible.
Because its easy to make excuses……I have been lucky beyond belief to have had the opportunity to cycle to France, ski in Switzerland, and climb a mountain in Africa. I’ve jumped off sand dunes and I’ve run amongst sky scrapers with thousands of other runners in New york. When I look at the places I’ve had the opportunity to go, when I reflect on all these experience I’ve done its easy to say well I can’t afford that or well….I can’t exactly ski in Oxfordshire. It’s easy to be complacent and just to sit back and wish I could have those experiences all over again. But there is a whole host of opportunities yet to have, and not all of them require a long haul flight and a well-endowed bank account! Some of my memorable moments are when I’ve been walking around the fields I live by, or on a trip to the lake with my family. Getting outside isn’t the only way you can take action…..as right now I am admittedly writing this from my sofa…very much inside and not liking the look of the cold rain outside my window pane.
You don’t have to go outside to push yourself, you don’t need to travel to push fear aside and go one further than you ever thought possible.
But….you do need to move.
Lets not let our good intentions stay just that, as intentions. Lets make those intentions actions. Lets not fear of acting on them but fear inaction upon them.
ANDYS BEAT! 