Tag: Reflections

It’s October, my birthday month. I only mention that as it marks what I guess is something around the halfway point of my life. And, as it approaches, I’m finally realising I’ve got myself mostly figured out and my life is taking shape.

A few years ago I wouldn’t have believed you if you described my life as it is now. It’s not that I had a bad life, I wasn’t unhappy before but I didn’t realise what was missing.

But then, hindsight is 20 20 and all that.

Hmmmmm, 20 + 20 = 40

There’s something in that…

The health kick has stalled again but I think I’ve figured out why.

I need a goal. I need an achievement.

In the past I’ve managed to tackle a 10KM run, and a 47 mile cycle ride from Glasgow to Edinburgh and, more recently, I took part in a local 5KM event.

All of them gave me a target, a goal, a reason to do some training.

This is not news to me, I know I need a challenge to push me to exercise. After that I know that the healthier eating falls into place and after a couple of weeks I start to change my approach and attitude to being healthy, I’ll take more care of what I eat, I’ll push myself to do more exercise, I’ll even start to plan around going for a run, or to the gym, shuffling my social calendar where I can.

But whilst I know HOW to set myself goals, it seems that without some form of focus or event I can’t seem to stick to it.

Being healthy is not a specific enough goal. Lose 10kg is specific and measurable, but hasn’t been attainable despite the fact it is most definitely realistic and I can set myself a time limit to achieve. But there is no competition other than with myself.

Although I’m not sure “competition” is the right word.

There is definitely something I need to have in place that has my exercise being focused on an event, as opposed to a simple goal of losing weight.

So it’s time to come clean. My name is Gordon McLean and (I think) I’m a praise-addict.

I think I have to finally admit that it’s the achievement and praise that completing an event brings that triggers something in my head. Looking at how I interact with others when talking about exercise and health, it starts to make sense.

I’m aware of my weight and size, and whilst I’ve been heavier, it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t talk about my weight. I don’t drop it into conversation at work, for example, nor is it something that anyone asks me about (you tend to only comment when people have lost a very noticeable amount of weight and then only if you are reasonably sure that they have been trying to lose weight in the first place).

If I manage a short run, or I lose a little weight, I will mention those things in a self-deprecating way, but when I was taking part in Pedal for Scotland (the 47 mile cycle) or the recent 5KM run, everyone knew about it as I talked about my ‘training’ for it.

But, at work at least, we talk about what we did at the weekend. The achievements of our lives if you will, and I’m realising that the external validation (for want of a better word) is what drives me on. It’s also why I share weight and fitness ‘stats’ on a Twitter account, and why I write about it here now and then.

At this point I’m pausing to wonder if it’s praise for an achievement that I seek, or simply just having an achievement to boasting about.

None of this is new. I’ve floated similar thoughts on Twitter in the past and several very lovely people have offered me ‘competition’, be it comparing Fitbit stats, or mileage ran. At the time it was an intriguing thought as I was convinced it was purely my competitive nature that drove me but, as I’m starting to figure out, it’s not that at all.

Competition will always push me to push myself. I like to win. I like to help others win. Even going back to my time in the Boys Brigade, it was that same drive and determination to push myself further, and either help or drag others along with me if I had to, that made my squad win all the trophies going for the year I had them (I won both personal trophies that year too).

Ohh that’s a boast, isn’t it.

Regardless of whether it is praise or boast that motivates me, I know that I need to figure out how to ‘game’ my brain again. Sign up for another 5KM run perhaps? There is a local Parkrun* but, for no good reason they don’t seem count in my own internal (and admittedly quite weird) scale of ‘achievement’. Perhaps that’s all I need to change. To set myself a date driven ‘run 5KM at Parkrun by the end of October’, perhaps?

My general fitness isn’t actually too bad, I play basketball once a week and, injuries aside, have been managing to do at least one run or longer walk once a week as well, but it’s not enough and I know it.

The bottom line is that I need to lose weight for medical reasons.

My weight needs to go so my blood pressure lowers naturally so I can, in turn, lower the dosage of my high blood pressure medication before it starts messing with my liver. Beyond that I’d like to lose some weight to be more comfortable in my clothes and to change my own internal body image.

But, despite the seriousness of the issue, knowing that I have to lose weight, that I am compromising my health, still isn’t enough to motivate me to make the right kind of changes.

I guess that losing weight and eating healthily just doesn’t sound like much of an achievement to me.

Note: I’ve not made any explicit references but this post may contain triggers.

Somewhere in my head there is a grouping of thoughts.

I’m trying to write down some of these thoughts because I’m fed up with them being whipped up into a frenzy in my head, leaving me annoyed and angry by the actions and comments of others. Whether it’s a noted journalist who is pushing her, very binary, view of the world on others, a “casual remark” overheard at work that (unknowingly) supports the patriarchy, or yet another example of everyday sexism, I want to call out these thoughts, acknowledge them, admit that I’ve fallen prey to some of them in the past (I never said I was perfect, only that I’m trying to be better) and by writing them up hope that they solidify into something coherent.

I make no promises that what follows is coherent.

The thoughts are interconnected. Some directly, some are only roughly in the same area but they are all in there, bundled up like the Christmas Tree lights you could’ve SWORN you put away neatly last year but now resemble a quite spectacular birds nest.

I’ve tried to take the time to tease them out, to try and separate them enough to at least make sense of them in isolation but no, my brain refuses to cooperate. Every time I think I’ve managed to extricate one, carefully consider it and then coiled it up and set it to aside, by the time I’ve turned around to decide which thought to tackle next, when I turn back, the careful coils have gone and it’s leapt back in the box again, more tangled up and confused than before.

So, here’s the thing.

All around me, every day, I see things I don’t like.

Sexism. Homophobia. Racism. Misogyny. Hate. Prejudice.

Even just writing those words makes me sad and downhearted and it’s here where I struggle to collate my thoughts into something meaningful, I struggle to give them the voice they deserve, but I know that isn’t the point.

I’m white. I’m probably (upper) middle class but frankly, I’m not even sure what that means… how do we decide class these days? I mean, I shop at Tesco, occasionally at Sainburys and about twice a year I splurge at Waitrose, does that help? Anyway, my point here is that I am slap bang in the middle, I am average, I am a shining example of the ‘norm’.

Culture, media and opinion are all leaning in my favour whether I like it or not.

So, I have the benefits of “privilege” and surely the last thing that is needed is for yet another white man to explain how things should be, right? (it’s called mansplaining by the way, that thing we do guys, it has a word…)

But that’s not what I’m doing by writing this post.

What I’m doing, I hope, is saying I am here standing next to you. I’m saying that I’m guilty of saying the wrong things at times in the past. I’m saying that I don’t have any solutions, but I want my opposition to these things to be counted.

I’m starting to get more vocal about a lot of this stuff. Challenging people on their comments, not laughing at their jokes, and finding that I’m more and more comfortable with myself in that respect. I’ve never been the type to go on marches but it feels more like something I would do than it has in the past.

It might be part of being ‘out’ about being polyamorous, which in itself is allowing me to explore more of me and who I am.

Regardless of where it comes from, I’m doing my best to support where I can, to add my voice to the calls for change. To that end, I’ll now shut up and point you in the direction of some organisations and people who do have some answers and constructive suggestions:

• Stonewall (Scotland): http://www.stonewallscotland.org.uk/scotland/
• Zero Tolerance: http://www.zerotolerance.org.uk
• White Ribbon Scotland: http://www.whiteribbonscotland.org.uk
• Not Ever (Rape Crisis): http://www.notever.co.uk
• LGBT Community: http://lgbt.co.uk
• LGBT Network: https://www.lgbtnetwork.eu
• Equality Network: http://www.equality-network.org
• Racial Equality and Rights: http://crer.org.uk

There are many many more organisations out there, and many more issues to be tackled.

Where do you stand?