Interbeing is the understanding that nothing exists separately from anything else. We are all interconnected. By taking care of another person, you take care of yourself. By taking care of yourself, you take care of the other person.
Happiness and safety are not individual matters. If you suffer, I suffer. If you are not safe, I am not safe. There is no way for me to be truly happy if you are suffering. If you can smile, I can smile too.
I have a problem with working out. I feel guilty about it, like it’s meaningless or at least selfish. It feels narcissistic, sterile. Why should I be lifting weights in a gym when I could be gardening, building, etc.? I could be helping others, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity to build affordable housing, planting a garden at a nursing home, or just playing with children. Right now, the exercise I do that feels meaningful to me is splitting firewood because it visibly accomplishes something.
I’m not alone in this. In “Depression is a Disease of Civilization,” Stephen Ilardi argues that “exercise is not natural. We are designed to be physically active in the service of adapted goals. We are not designed to exercise.” Similarly, in “A Path Out of Depression,” he writes:
Many people discover this when they approach a treadmill or stationary bike and feel as if a part of their brain is screaming out, “Don’t do it! You’re not actually going anywhere on that thing! Conserve the calories!”
Fortunately, there’s a way out of this dilemma. Yes, we’re genetically wired to avoid extraneous exertion, but what about necessary or pleasure-producing activity? As it turns out, whenever we’re caught up in enjoyable, meaningful activity, our tolerance for exercise goes up dramatically. So when you make activity purposeful or pleasant (riding your bike to work, dancing, playing a team sport, walking to the store instead of driving), you’re much more likely to do it.
Many say that in order to feel fulfilled, we have to serve someone or something besides ourselves. “Happiness,” says Viktor Frankl, “cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.” Service satisfies a deep need to do something we find important, meaningful. It’s a need to belong, to feel needed: like you matter.
I realize that some people already do something meaningfully physical. Let’s say I’m a firefighter, for example. Maybe I work out because the physical work I do is not well-rounded enough. Maybe I do yoga, where that means stretching, because functional tasks don’t involve that in the first place.
I guess the answer, then, could be to do both: to do in a studio what you can’t do outside, and/or what supports it.
For these reasons, I have, for over ten years, carried a vision of what I call “karma yoga.” Karma means, among other things, service. I envision a class on a work site where people get a good, well-rounded workout led by an instructor/trainer who makes sure we are using our bodies correctly: to lift and carry things, for example. Instructors can also encourage mindfulness just as yoga teachers normally do. The difference is that we are accomplishing something material. We also build community by working together toward a common goal.
We wouldn’t need to organize these service projects. We could just approach organizations already doing them. Where I live, these include Asheville Greenworks, Beloved Asheville, and SeekHealing, which focuses on social health.
Adding this supervision would surely help decrease the frequency of volunteer work-related injuries. I think it would be fair and well worth it for the organization to pay the instructor. The class/work project session would, for participants, be free.
Most of us today have jobs that are not physical at all. Maybe we do exercise in order to stay healthy so that we can do our non-physical jobs. For example, I’m basically a writer. For aerobics, I play pickleball.
After Helene, many of my fellow pickleballers felt guilty about playing. But I don’t play pickleball all day every day. It’s important for my mental and physical health. It enables me to work.
In fact, exercise enables me to be an all-around better person. When I exercise, I feel good. When I feel good, I can be good (kind, generous, etc.) to others. If I don’t exercise, I feel bad, then I am bad (short-tempered, stingy, etc.) with others. So it’s both pleasurable and purposeful.
Another reason people work out is so that it enables them to do other things that they themselves enjoy, like sports. I have found that doing acroyoga, for example, isn’t just fun; it teaches me things about myself. I develop skills I can use in other areas, like self-confidence. So I do strength training in order to do acroyoga.
Finally, some people enjoy working out itself. When I spoke with my trainer Ryan Hamity about this, he actually said he “likes to suffer.” Suffering can be a religious impulse, but I think it always, or at least usually, has a meaning, a purpose. He made it sound, however, like the suffering he chooses to experience isn’t just a means to an end, such as winning a race, looking more attractive, something spiritual, being healthy, etc. For him, it feels good in and of itself.
If weight training or other exercise is just for fun, what’s wrong with that? I have some training in Nonviolent Communication (NVC). NVC teaches that we have no greater need than to “contribute to life.” And the life you contribute to can be “your” own (see opening quote). It can be enough, if it’s what your heart desires, just to have fun.
Still, the motivation I get from any or all the reasons above doesn’t always feel like enough. I am often not even drawn to activities that people do just for fun. I’ll actually think, why play a sport just to knock a ball around? Why do a jigsaw puzzle? Why dance?
I do enjoy these things when I’m not having my doubts: that is, when I’m actually doing them. That’s especially true when it involves competition, which takes my mind off other things. Otherwise, I guess I just don’t think I’m valuable or worthwhile: that I can be here just to have fun.
I think it’s hard for me to do something just for myself. I think it’s a lack of self-love. Maybe working out can be an exercise in just that.