The First One

 Are you the first one at the door waiting for the gym to open?  I was that once, or more than once, really.  My goal was to be in fit physical condition with no one getting in my way on the exercise routines, machines, and weights, or the swimming pool.  The problem I eventually realized, (duh!) is the results of my fit physical condition could not carry serenity through the rest of the day.  As soon as life was not on my terms, or someone else’s plans interfered with my own, I got upset, whiny, resentful and admittedly now, self-pitying.  It happened most every day.  So now I try not to start out the day getting my own will.  I choose first to work at a fit “spiritual” condition.  I surrender to some other power to do the heavy lifting.  I call it meditation.  It can carry me through a later gym workout in which other people are ahead of me.  But it is ok.  Life on life’s terms.  Let go.