I hate lifting weights.

Well, actually I don’t hate lifting weights. Once I get started, I kind of enjoy it. It feels good to work all those muscles that tend to get neglected because I have a sedentary job. It feels good to get my blood moving and it even feels good to break a sweat. Lifting weights is a little boring, it’s true, but it’s good to just turn my brain off for twenty minutes while I lift weights. And then when I get done lifting, I feel good and I always sleep better that night.

So lifting weights feels pretty good, once I get started, and after I finish I promise myself that I will lift weights again in two days…. And next thing I know, a whole week has gone by and I haven’t touched the barbell or the dumbbells.

Carol, my partner, likes to say that her body is really a farmer’s body, and she feels best when she has to do lots of physical labor. I think that’s true of all of us. Our bodies are designed to be outdoors most of the day, hunting and gathering and getting lots of exercise. I spent five years working for a carpenter, and during those five years my body loved getting a good eight hour workout five days a week.

If my body craves exercise, if I actually like lifting weights once I get started, why is it that I have such a hard time getting started? Why is it that I let a week go by, my body getting all cranky due to lack of upper body exercise, yet I won’t start lifting weights? I don’t know why. Certainly, that is sufficient proof that human beings are not fully rational beings; that we are ruled by habit and inertia far more than we are ruled by rational thought.

I don’t hate lifting weights. I just hope I remember that on Tuesday, when it’s time for me to lift weights again.