This year, I’m investing in a yoga class
But it’s not about flexibility, mindfulness, or any other yoga-related benefit.
It’s Sunday morning and I’m trudging to my car, cursing up a storm under my breath, on my way to a weekly yoga class.
Over the years, I’ve concluded quite definitively that I’m not a yoga person, nut starting in December 2023, if it’s Sunday morning, you’ll find me in this particular class.
Why? Because the teacher and students gather for coffee afterwards.
This communal coffee is the whole reason I’m willing to torture myself with yoga. If my flexibility improves, it’ll be an unintended bonus.
Why am I doing this?
A couple of years ago, due to family circumstances, I had to move to a place where I didn’t know anyone and where I didn’t wanted to live.
My first two years here were spent feeding my misery and victimhood. I refused to expend any effort on making friends or even acquaintances. I wallowed in the righteous martyrdom of the sacrifice I made for my family. I still kept in touch with all my friends from the U.S. by zoom, text, WhatsApp, and the occasional visit in person, but I was making zero moves to meet new people here.
(P.S., I’m a freelancer working from home. So, without affirmatively seeking out human contact, I can go weeks without live interactions with anyone outside of my family.)
By the third year, the misery, victimhood, and martyrdom have grown old and boring. In addition, it dawned on me that I may be stuck in this place for many years. It was no longer a viable option to hibernate in social isolation until I could move away.
So, to my horror, it was time to make friends.
Did I mention that I have social anxiety?
Working with what works
Many of my friends are remarkably socially ept people. They are the kind of folks who’d not hesitate to eat alone in a restaurant, choosing to sit at the bar. By the end of the night, they will have made friends with those seated to their right and to their left, and those who are three seats removed, too.
By contrast, if I go out to eat alone, the best I can hope for is a good meal and a nice glass of wine. I will leave the place not having spoken to anyone except the waiter.
I don’t do spontaneous acquaintanceships. It’s just not how I’m built. I need a reason to speak to people and a structure to make speaking to others obligatory.
So, once I realized that I needed to break out of my self-imposed social exile, I started searching for a situation where I’d have to be social. The yoga+coffee setup fit the bill.
In the interests of full disclosure, I chickened out of the coffee part after the first class. But I did force myself to stay and interact with people after the second class.
Guess what? They didn’t bite! They were friendly and engaging. In fact, time flew by and the whole experience made me wonder what I was so afraid of.
My return on investment (ROI)
I’m investing time, money, and discomfort in this yoga-coffee experiment in the hope of significant returns:
- New acquaintances
- Greater ease with meeting new people
- Other social opportunities through serendipity (for example, one woman told me about a women’s giving circle where members pull their money to make a greater charitable impact)
Viewing the yoga class as an investment helps me stay the course, too. It’s akin to buying and holding a position in a stock portfolio. When you’re investing and holding, you’re making a commitment to stick with your investment through some lows, as long as you still believe in your hypothesis for why this investment should make a profit.
And that’s the bigger experiment that I’m doing this year — I’m looking at my whole life as an investment portfolio. Instead of just investing and making money with this portfolio, I’m also looking at how I invest my time, connections, knowledge, curiosity, and experience to live a happier life, contribute to others, and make an impact.
Let’s see how it goes…
