After 6 Months Off, I Finally Went Swimming!

One of the most irritating parts of being a human, is that it’s somehow easy/natural/logical/commonplace, to put off doing the things that we enjoy.

Yes, they’re usually things that involve an element of challenge or effort. I don’t avoid eating chocolate or binge-watching TV, for example. But then again, those things don’t feel as good as those things that involve more effort.

I’ve remembered this today, after finally getting my backside to the swimming baths after 6 months off. As soon as I felt the water around me, I felt something like release or relief, something like peace. It was spiritual, baby! From the fourth length onwards my recurring thought was: “This is happiness. This is bliss.”

I’m not really sure why it’s taken me so long to return to something that makes me so happy. I guess I forgot how happy it made me, because I made it feel like hard work. I set goals and challenges, telling myself that I should go more often and swim faster, for longer. Urghh. Pretty quickly, it’s just another chore on the ‘to do’ list – another rod to beat myself with.

When the things that you want to do become things you feel you should do, you lose sight of the reason why you were doing it in the first place. Today, I remembered that I want to swim. Because it feels absolutely flipping amazing and it makes me feel absolutely flipping amazing. That’s what matters. Everything else is irrelevant!