This past year, I have worked hard on physical growth and the improvement of my body. I have always done my best to take care of myself. On the other hand, I am very much a realist. I am well aware that my mind has always been quite a bit better than my body, and accordingly, developing my intelligence has always been my priority. Why sharpen a blunt knife when you have a razor you can sharpen instead? At times I can be ruthless in the provisioning of my time and effort, and as a result, my first year of college was spent maintaining my body within the bounds of “healthy” while my focus centered on the further development of my academic strengths.

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Last year, I revised my naïve assumptions about “min-maxing” my intelligence stat and focused on consuming and producing creative works instead. As I stated in my previous Year in Review, I believe getting in touch with my creative side was the next step for me to become a more ideal version of myself. While it was still a departure from my usual methods of self-improvement, creativity is still fundamentally within the category of mental enrichment. I am glad that I have reaped the rewards of my investment into creative thinking (and continue to do so) but I realized I remained unsatisfied.

 

Once this fall academic semester came around, and the weight of some of the more rigorous classes began pushing down on me, I realized that I would need a new, healthy way to release my new stress. I have quite a few friends who are really into exercise so I had a general knowledge that hitting the gym is a great form of stress relief. This made sense to me, as I am an avid biker, and am known to occasionally take long rides around campus when I feel overwhelmed, need to clear my head, or just need some time to myself. My roots as a swimmer also compelled me, because I knew that physical work (despite not coming naturally to me at all) would never betray any effort I invest.

 

I decided to make a habit of going to the gym twice a week, in the early mornings after my Organic Chemistry II lectures. That class had a lot of material that needed memorizing, and I always seemed to feel burnt out after spending all that time absorbing material. Twice a week doesn’t sound like much, and in all honesty it isn’t, but it was a big improvement from my infrequent, unscheduled attendance in the past two years. After a month or so, I started to get comfortable with my routine and had even curated a good set of exercises I wanted to focus on to build specific muscle groups. From this point, there isn’t much to talk about, but I think that is my favorite part of this change in my life. It has become routine. It no longer feels out of place for me to break my body down, because knowing I will rebuild myself better than before feels great.

 

I have continued to hold a very consistent schedule of gym attendance: 2-3 times a week (depending on club meetings or academic load) across both academic and co-op semesters. I am noticeably stronger than I was one year ago. My body is much closer to the realistic ideal I have always wanted to achieve, and my self-confidence has grown in tandem. And if you happen to see me at the UC Rec Center, don’t be afraid to strike up a quick gym conversation!