What Are You Committed To?

Something happened in our lives recently that I want to share with you. For 7 years now, Petra and I have lived a literal party every day. What that looks like is that have great sex, followed by a great cocktail, followed by a gourmet dinner. It’s great fun, and as we like to say, “We use the day up!”

Petra has the tendency to be a workaholic. This prompted us to have a conversation about her putting herself first. Taking action on this, a few months ago, Petra began going to the gym before work in the morning to get in shape. One morning, she opted to go to work instead, which had me ask her, “What are you committed to?” In response, she said, “Putting myself first and improving my health.” And that was it. That weekend, we went down to our storage locker and pulled our Concept 2 Rowing Machine out of storage, (we live in a really small space, so we try to only keep thing we absolutely use in our home.) We brought the machine home and we both began rowing every morning. That was in late May, today being August 7 as I write this. Since we started, I have rowed 447, 851 meters as of today. At the same time, both Petra and I are lifting and working to improve our health status beyond our aerobic capacity as well.

At the end of June, we purchased a high quality Medical grade biometric scale, which we use to monitor our progress. The reason I like that scale is that it offer a full body composition panel of data. Suffice it to say that since I started rowing and lifting, and monitoring my food intake (more fresh fruit, smaller helpings etc) I have lost just about a pound of fat a week. Small victories.

At the same time, I have watched my sexy wife get leaner and stronger and sexier, if that is even possible.

After we played yesterday, we were having a cocktail, I made us each, a Vesper, and we were talking about our training. After we compared notes, Petra said, “I am having so much fun with you that I want to make sure I am healthy and fit enough to party every day till we die!”

All I could do was grin. “Me too!” I said, “Me too!” I said.

Life is short. VERY short and as humans, we have a tendency to live through our lives not in our lives. Then, one day you wake up and life has simply passed you by. Have you ever wondered why the Prairie Home Companion radio show was so well loved? It was because the way Garrison Keillor told those stories, you literally had to stop and listen. Be present. We made the choice some years ago to focus on the now. Being present to our own experiences, and to being with each other. Its is why it makes perfect sense that we are both working as hard as we can to get and stay healthy so we can continue to party with each other every day of our lives.

It is also the case, that sleeping is very important to getting healthy. If you don’t sleep, you don’t repair, and you certainly don’t lose weight. We read the book, Why We Sleep” by Mathew walker PhD, and follow his very specific advice to get enough sleep. Among the things he recommends, the most important is to get an 8-hour sleep window. We do that and have for many years now. We often compare our sleep notes now that a wrist worn device can track sleep mechanics quite well.

So we eat well, we sleep well, we have great sex every day, and we enjoy our time together over a cocktail. Add to that that we exercise well, and support each other in our efforts to be all in. The point is that this life that we are living results entirely from a series of choices we make day to day! . How is it that we are living this dream? It occurs because we are committed to this life we have created. It’s nothing like the lives either one of us lived before we met each other. In those lives, we were more at effect of things around us rather than cause in the matter of our lives. we came into our relationship crystal clear that everything we thought we knew about relationship was clearly wrong. We literally had to set aside our priors and begin at the beginning. We started over from nothing and built our relationship brick by brick with conversations and making agreements along the way. As we like to say, “we held hands and jumped into the rabbit hole with both feet!” Over time, we made choices to live an extraordinary life in the present. We do all we can to not allow our internal dialogue to frame our interpretation of events. It’s always the case that as humans we judge and assess, but this is something we are committed to avoiding. We communicate with each other, we listen to each other, and we discuss what needs to be discussed saying what’s on our minds. Mostly, we operate with the agreement that there is nothing wrong, there is only “what’s so”. With that framing, we live a dream, a day to day experience of bliss.

Here is a glimpse. It’s a little after 5:00 am as I write this and as I sit here, the sound I hear is Petra on the rowing machine. After she is done she goes to the gym to lift. When she gets home, she will shower, then before she dresses, I will give her her morning orgasm. Each day she begins the day with oral pleasure, and each day when she returns, we welcome her home the same way.

I am thrilled that we are committed to doing the work, and that we are both working hard to improve our health status together. The couple that works out together stays together! We challenge each other and we inspire each other.

Here is the question I want to leave you with today: What are you committed to?