I need to work out. I have a schedule I try to stick with: four days of cardio interspersed with three days of weight training, because my doctor beat me about the head and shoulders about the need for weight training (which I find deeply boring) if I expect to arrive at Old Age in any sort of shape at all. So I have a schedule, which helps keep me honest. To be frank, I’m still sort of getting back into the swing of the routine after spending a week on vacation, but I’ve been pretty good, even when it meant bounding out of bed and starting to exercise.
However.
I have a cold. Coughing, sneezing, scratchy throat, the classic bug. Yesterday I did nothing. Which includes the cardio.
Today I am feeling better. By rights, and by my schedule, today I should do my weights routine. Except that I didn’t do the cardio, which I marginally prefer, yesterday. And I found myself having an actual, very dumb, conversation with myself about the moral imperative to do the weights routine today, on accounta I have a schedule, and if I do not keep the schedule then I am a bad person. Madeleine A opined that if I did not do weights today I would knock the whole schedule out of whack and then chaos would ensue. Madeleine B pointed out that I could do cardio or weights or nothing today, I might as well do whatever I prefer. Madeleine A responded that if I’m going to exercise at all, I should keep with the schedule, because schedule. Madeleine B pointed out that the schedule is entirely arbitrary, I invented it myself to give myself some structure, and that there is no external authority who is going to give me demerits or a spanking if I knock the schedule out of whack. At which point Madeleine A said, huffily, “FINE! You might as well not work out at all today! At least then you’d be back in the rhythm of the schedule.” Madeleine B noted that this might be an over-reaction, but again, there is no external authority who is going to come scold me and tell me that I am a Bad Person for skipping exercise when I’m sick.
At which point Madeleine C, a wholly separate entity, declared she was going to have a cup of tea and revisit the whole question in an hour.
It is a fine thing to create structures. Especially now that I am retired, I love my structures because they keep me from doomscrolling or watching too many reruns of old medical dramas. On the other hand, our structures can be manipulated into shackles, and nobody wants that. Balance in all things.