How much of your life have you spent in activities you said “Yes” to, when you meant “No?”

The world is a constant demand situation.  If you do not define yourself to the world…and other people…the world and other people will define you. 

Could anyone convince you… that you were the sort of person who would like setting your alarm for five in the morning… dressing with a swimsuit as underwear… driving downtown to an ancient university gymnasium and… diving into a chlorine-heavy basement pool?  And that you would do this without someone holding a gun on you? 

….What could get a woman to not only do this once, but agree to do this insane routine five days a week for six weeks?

…Yep. The beast who agreed to the routine was, of course, my Emotional Guidance System.  The same critter that landed me in the Water Tower Place shopping mall.  (See previous post.)  I agreed to the bizarre morning swimming routine because when my special person claimed that something called “aerobic swimming” was not the work of the devil, but something that I’d be glad I’d completed, and that he was leaping on the opportunity…

My brain shot right out the window and, for ever how long it took for me to sign up… 

I ignored “the facts”… 1) I read into the late hours and get up grouchy; 2) I’m a terrible swimmer;  3)  Indoor pools are yucky;  4) There was zero possibility that I would continue ‘aerobic swimming’ if I should be fortunate enough to survive the course.  And the strongest fact of all, that if I had no intention of making ‘aerobic swimming’ part of my lifestyle…there really was no point outside a few weeks of bragging and living in the “lying to myself zone” that is what sells every new diet, new piece of exercise equipment, every project that depends on pretending we are on the verge of a personality transplant.

“Oh no,” he said.  “You’ll like it,” he lied.  “You are too rigid and unwilling to try new things.  This would be good for you.”  And yep. The challenge to my personality perfection along with the “good for you” baloney got me to question what I knew to be the facts about myself.

I did come to my senses.  But it took three times of me quitting…the last departure quite public and spectacular.  I did eventually engage my Thinking Guidance System, but not until I’d suffered through weeks of torture. 

Here’s the picture.  I arrived on the first day and hopped into my lane, ready.  From there it was downhill.  The pool was awful, the water was cold, I sucked royally at swimming, and nearly drowned on at least four occasions. Particularly amusing that first day was my exit when the class was over.  The coach Nazi blew his whistle and said something diabolically cheery and that we were done.  Everyone else, including my special person, bounded out of the pool and headed for the dressing rooms.  Now this is the pool the swim team used early in the last century, which means that the lanes area had no ladder.

Unable to pull myself out of the pool and now surrounded by bouncy college students readying for swimming class…I flopped desperately against the side of the pool, one foot stuck up over the edge.  I’d almost make it, then plop back in.  I supposed that once my special person was dressed and ready, he’d notice I was missing and re-trace steps until he found me half in, half out of the pool. Either that, or he’d find me in two days when the class started up again.

The point here is how persuasion…or FUSION…can get us to waste time and energy in activities that are someone else’s idea, someone else’s challenge.