Breaking Inertia

It was a very hot day yesterday.

The hottest day of the year so far, actually. With the humidity, the temperature felt well over 100 degrees. Yesterday, Shannon, Erin and I decided to bike to Taichung, the larger neighboring city. A lot of people told us it wasn't the smartest thing to do. Most people ride their scooter or ride the bus to get to Taichung. We wanted to see how long it took us to bike there.

By train, it takes 15 minutes.

By bus, it takes roughly 40 minutes.

By bike, it took us 55 minutes. And that was going at a leisurely pace. We weren't trying to rush or try to do it as fast as we could; we just wanted to get there.
Granted, it was mostly downhill to get there. But, still. Not much different than by going by bus.Because we got there a few hours ahead of schedule (we were expecting it to take us about 2 1/2 hours), we ate a delicious lunch at a Sushi Express.
And stumbled upon a "Music Festival: Taiwan Super-Star" thingie, which turned out to be a belly-dancing competition.
It was really fun to watch. A couple of contestants from Taipei befriended us and asked Erin to video-tape their performance (which I thought was great, very professional ^_^). Man, that boy could shake his hips! His partner was absolutely beautiful.
There were 9 groups competing, and three judges. The judges were actually teachers of different schools and professionals (I guess). It was a lot of fun to see the community show their support for the contestants, which consisted mostly of middle-aged women (mom, I could totally see you doing this! hehe ^_^).

In this culture where there is an obsession with being skinny, and where you can't be fat AND beautiful at the same time, it was nice to see belly-dancers with actual bellies showing them off to the world, and not being ashamed. It makes me want to take belly-dancing lessons. Or Tahitian dancing when I get back to the islands. ^_^

**I tried to post a video on here, but for some reason it wouldn't upload (wasting the hours I hope it was...even though it said "uploading video"). So I'll just have to post it again later. ^_^


On Comfort

Humans rarely change on their own. It usually takes some level of discomfort to change. After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I have always settled for "eh, it's good enough" because it takes work to change, it takes being uncomfortable to change. Doing what's familiar to me is comfortable. And I like comfort. Why should I strive for something when I know it will probably be uncomfortable until I have achieved it? And there's never a guarantee that I'll achieve what I set out to do. But I change because I know that if I stay in the same place, doing the same thing I always do, I will eventually be uncomfortable again, and by then it will be even harder, even more painful for me to change. I only change to avoid pain. Even though change usually means pain.

And the only way to get over that pain and get back to homeostasis, back to being comfortable and to be happy with "good enough," is to get through that pain as quickly as possible. To not let the change overwhelm me.

For me, it's always been hard to break inertia, to get going again. When I'm at rest, I like to stay at rest. AND it's very painful for me to get going once I'm used to being lazy. I end up longing for the days where I could waste away my life, doing nothing. Ironically -- although I longed for those days -- I always felt worthless and slightly guilty about secretly enjoying sloth so much.

However, sometimes, after I have gone through the initial pain of breaking inertia (which seemed to have taken a good three years for me), it's been hard for me to stop. I worry that I can't fit in all I want to do in life in my short lifespan. Planning ahead only makes me realize I only have a few short years in between my life goal deadlines I have placed for myself.

I need to change my way of thinking.

Acceptance is empowering. Change is inevitable. I want thrive on change, I want to seek out uncomfortable situations to make me change, to help me change. To give me opportunities to change. If I don't achieve everything, it's alright. I don't need to do everything I set out to do, I just need to enjoy where I am, but never get comfortable enough to stop wanting to do things, to see things, to discover things.

I want to regain that sense of wonder.