30 Days of Joy: Get Up…Now

The fight to hold onto a habit.

Note: This article is the next step in my challenge to find joy in something — anything — every day for 30 days. Today’s entry is part 27.

Every morning, I wake up before work to exercise.

And every morning, it keeps getting harder and harder to do so.

I don’t know why this is.

This has been my routine the last three years, because it was the only way I could figure out how to exercise consistently. The rare flight to catch aside, my schedule is always clear at 5:30 a.m.

The initial adjustment period was rough, but in time, it became a habit. I wake up to work out — that’s what I do, just like I brush my teeth and make my bed. And I seldom questioned it.

But recently, I’ve started questioning it.

In the moments prior to my alarm sounding, as I drift in and out of consciousness, the back-and-forth begins.

“I’m staying in bed.”

“You have to get up.”

“I worked out yesterday, and I’ll work out tomorrow.”

“You’ll hate yourself the rest of the day if you skip.”

“There are few things I love more than sleep.”

In the past, I’d go through occasional stretches, a week or two at a time, when I’d have some variation of these conversations.

But now, their verdict has never been more up in the air.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, and the same workouts are more painful.

Or maybe this is just another one of those stretches, only it’s supersized this time, and I’ve got to dig a little deeper.

Whatever it is, it makes me nervous.

Because I know that with each day I miss, I get one day closer to undoing the capital I’ve built up over the last three years.

But thankfully, after this morning, that undoing will have to wait another day.

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