Who cares? Does it really matter if I go workout today? Does it really matter if I push away from the table? I’m a little overweight, sure; but I still look good in black, and diabetes is a LONG way off. I may not have a 6-pack, but I’m healthy. Even if I DO workout, it will take 4 weeks before I see any difference, and 8 weeks before anyone else notices. Is one workout really going to make much difference? 

The voices inside me all start shouting at once: I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to. Exercise is hard. It’s not normal. Isn’t there an app for that? Running only looks easy until you try it. I have work to do. I have Blogs to write. I have a social network to maintain, texts to answer, e-mails to reply to, websites to “like”, and people to follow on Twitter. Won’t the Internet undergo Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure without me? A new season of Battlestar Gallactica is starting, and I want to see if that chick from the Bachelor is going to be on Dancing with the Stars. Advertisers are counting on me, and TiVo just isn’t the same.

The thought that there must be something holding me back keeps holding me back; if I could just remember what it is. I don’t have a fancy watch to tell me how many miles I’ve put in. I don’t have stylish, color-coordinated clothes to sweat in. If I run, it won’t be fast, and my buns-of-steel might clang together like cymbals. Do they make dumbbells in my size?

I already did it once. I lost 100 lbs. Granted 30 of them have come back, but I did it...once upon a time. I ran a marathon. I took great pleasure in doing something everyone said was impossible. I put more miles on my running shoes than I did on my car. I ran faster than everyone on the couch. It is an accomplishment no one can ever take from me. I did it once.

Today the running pattern on my shoes indicates I spend too much time on the couch. Yesterday I said “tomorrow” and here it is. Exercise is just a giant question mark asking “will you suck it up, or suck it in today?” Will you participate in our own life? Will you make an excuse, or an effort? Normal is just another word for ordinary, and it will keep you from being extraordinary. Yes, dumbbells ARE heavy; that’s why they are called “weights”. There is no magic wand. It will take effort, that’s why it’s called a “workout” not an “easy-out”. No one will ever know how hard you work except you. We ARE what we repeatedly DO.

I only HAVE time when I TAKE time, and I always return with a feeling I couldn’t get from a fancy coffee, 2 flirty e-mails, and 3 stars on Angry Birds (and the Internet seems to do just fine without me). Sweat cleanses from the inside out. My friends at the gym are believers, dreamers, doers. There are plenty of people ready to tell me what I cannot do, but I never see those people at the gym (perhaps they dislike being interrupted by people actually DOING it) And no one at the gym has ever criticised the clothes I chose to sweat in.

Today, I chose to take the time; to take a chance. Today I chose to ask for help and guidance rather than permission. I chose to make progress rather than excuses ESPECIALLY if no one else knows, because when I ask myself “who cares if I exercise today?”, a fragile voice from the recesses of my soul timidly whispers, “I do...”