I’m not quite reptilian, but I must admit that my body temperature relies heavily on external factors, including location and season. It’s really unfortunate, because when winter struck this year, I froze my body. This phenomenon is typical of the season, but always irritating because I hate cold and everything that comes with it.

The frozen tundra that I call home manages to keep me indoors during the winter months, and I stop running. I’m never quite sure if I like running, or just the idea of it. Being free, ghetto blasting some awesome music in my ear buds with the wind running through my hair sounds good to me, but then you factor in lung capacity, muscles (what are those?) and all that other lovely stuff, and running has lost its appeal. Either way, I still like to try to do it on a regular basis, with the exception of those nasty winter months.

I went out for the first time this spring the other night, and I should admit, that I didn’t even go with the regular motivation brought on by appeal. I was just frustrated. Pissed is more than likely a better explanation of what was going on, but that’s relatively insignificant at the moment. Some people can channel aggression and pent up anger, angst, or bitterness and use it to improve their performance; I’m not one of those people. I tried, and frankly made myself sick. I didn’t even run very far, but pushed myself really hard, and when I got home, thought that I was going to die.

I stumbled into the bathroom, hugged the toilet for several minutes, then took one of those showers where you just stand there and do nothing. When I was done with that, there was more quality time with the toilet again, then I crashed. I learned a lesson in motivation when I did this.

It didn’t matter what made me mad, but I ran because I was mad, which caused me to ignore several important factors that people should pay attention to when scampering around like that. My motivation wasn’t to run for the sake of getting out and running, it wasn’t to feel the wind in my hair, or to be healthy, I simply ran because I was blatantly pissed off.

I’m not generally motivated by anger, but I have stepped into situations with wrong intentions before, and it always seems to backfire just like my little adventure did the other night. I’ve served at church with the wrong intentions, which turned out to be bad, because expectations I had weren’t met, and it left me disappointed. I’ve had wrong motivation in relationships before, and not just ones with girls! (great place for an STD joke; only because sexually transmitted diseases ARE funny when you’re an idiot and can’t keep your pants on! That’s what you get!) I’ve used people and now they think I’m scum and frankly, I deserve that.

Anyways, in the spirit of pushing introspection on everyone, perhaps we should all examine the frustrations we have and see if we’re expecting something we shouldn’t. Maybe catching ourselves in yet another selfish ploy would free us from the tyranny of negative emotions that come around to bog us down from time to time.