Shoulder pain is frustrating–especially at 62 years old.
I’ve been dealing with shoulder pain – a sharp pain beneath the bones at the very tips of each shoulder – for about a year before I decided to go to my doctor. I went to the doctor because the shoulder pain was preventing me from throwing a baseball well and I had just registered for the fall season of the Arizona Dads Baseball Club. It was time to figure out and fix what was wrong.
I can’t touch the pain – it’s beneath the bone. The doctor sent me for X-Rays and then gave me a referral to get physical therapy (PT).
I had been going to PT for a few weeks and in one session I was feeling rushed because I wanted to get back to some challenging coding I was trying to figure out in my job as a ServiceNow developer. One of the first exercises I’m given at PT is to warm up and loosen up my shoulders by pedaling an arm bicycle.
The PT technician normally sets the bike up for me to pedal for 8 minutes–4 minutes pedaling forward and 4 minutes pedaling backwards. On this one day, because I was feeling rushed to get back to solving the coding challenge, I sat at the bike and when I started pedaling I began to pedal faster because subconsciously wanted to finish quicker. And nearly immediately my mind reminded me that I can’t make 8 minutes go by any faster.
And nearly immediately my mind reminded me that I can’t make 8 minutes go by any faster.
This got me waxing a bit philosophical about how we seem to be constantly wishing time would go by faster. We’ve all probably done this, right?
- I can’t wait until Christmas
- I can’t wait until summer vacation
- I can’t wait until Friday
- I can’t wait until my birthday
- I can’t wait until I get paid
Each of these is just us wishing time would speed up so we could arrive sooner at some future date.
But … what are we really asking for when we say these sorts of things?
We’re asking for our lives to go by faster – that’s right – we’re hoping our lives will go by faster so we can arrive at some future time where we think things will be special.
This realization sort of kicked me in the gut – the idea of forsaking our time in the right now in hopes of getting to some future event quicker. I ruminated over this for quite a while and wondered just why is it that we do that – wish for our lives to go by faster to arrive at future state of expected happiness?
I decided I would try to stop doing that and start paying closer attention to living for the right here; right now and be more patient with wanting to arrive more quickly to a future state (in essence wishing my life away).
I also realized that there is one place that I have never found myself wishing time would go by faster–riding my motorcycle. In fact, it’s while I’m riding my motorcycle that I’m actually doing it right — paying strict attention to being in the right here; right now!
