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Mole-Hills

I keep waking up late -- 10:30 or 11:00.  My husband gets up at 7:30 every morning to work and asks me to make a sandwich, but I'm too tired.  I end up grumbling at him in bed for a few minutes before he gives up, but I don't fall properly back to sleep until he leaves.  I'm too much awake to fall right back to sleep, but I don't have enough energy to actually get up.  So then I wake up much later and the day's gone.  As I was dozing this morning, I thought of Confucius' remonstrance against Zi Lu for sleeping during the day: "Rotten wood can't be carved.  A mud wall can't be plastered."  What an optimistic view of human nature!  Or at least of education.  But we're stuck in the grooves habit has laid down for us -- which having been laid down, it's very hard for us to switch tracks.

As for grooves -- I've learned that the exercise regime I've been trying to lay in place for myself is called "greasing the groove."  The idea came from a neuro-scientist: training muscles is partly a matter of "knowing" (subconsciously) how to move them, and knowing comes from frequent practice rather than exhaustion.  To lift something, you have to have the strength to lift it, but you also have to know how to get your muscles to coordinate with themselves and each other -- and that's what "greasing the groove" is designed to accomplish.  It helps build endurance.  You do the same exercise in small bursts (not to exhaustion) over and over again throughout the day.  A philosophy for those of weak will!  I can never bring myself to do anything big -- my only hope is that I can force myself to expend minimal effort again and again and again.  My whole aim in life is to make mountains out of those mole-hills.

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