The Choice

Got up and out for my early Monday yoga class, got there to find it had been cancelled due to family emergency for the teacher. Went back home to do some stuff, issue was whether to go back to work out, or even to attend a spin class.

Or to pack up the laptop and go to the coffee shop for black coffee and a scone, and do some writing. Not an easy decision. When I retired nearly 4 years back, I made the conscious decision to join the Y and to spend my time exercising rather than bloating myself with scones (my formulation of the issue at the time). Since then I've been to the Y three or 4 times a week, spin classes until the pandemic hit, then yoga once it re-opened, since the spin classes were cancelled.

And this morning? Here I am, looking out the window of my favorite coffee shop, just finished my scone, staring out at the parking lot, watching folks come and go from the nearby library. Coffee's good, I've got my earphones on with soothing background music cancelling the ambient chatter. The sky is a mix of bright blue and soft white clouds, the temps just below freezing.

This is a good place to be, physically and psychologically. Still, I wrestle with the nagging from my worrisome self, that perhaps this is the beginning of a new trend, and perhaps a setback in my journey toward wholesomely healthy golden years. That's what makes choosing so hard for me sometimes, always arguing with myself, with the result that I don't get the benefit of either choice.

My final answer here? In my spiritual and psychological meanderings, I've been drawn more and more to the concept of radical acceptance, of "being here now." Rather than living in light of shoulds, I choose instead to live in light of what I am. Today I am someone who craved coffee and scones. That's me at the moment. if I deny that in light of a "should" I would be denying who I am. I need not pretend to be someone else.

If that makes sense. Reminded for some reason of T.S. Eliot,

“Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

I might as well fully enjoy this decision. The revision will be along soon enough.

Cheers.