7. Apply yourself to the basics and progress will follow.

You wake up if the necessary conditions of oxygen, water, nutrients, normal body temperature and atmospheric pressure have been met overnight and remain in place. You're already working - maintaining boundaries between inner and outer worlds; moving smooth and cardiac muscle; sensing and responding to stimuli; digesting; metabolizing; excreting; reproducing; and growing. You don't have to think about this work, and if you do, it only becomes more difficult.

You struggle immediately with the desire to go back to sleep and barely shake it off.

Next, the first negative thought dive-bombs in before you can open your eyes, and then more - hot summer horseflies - and the fight begins.

Inhale and exhale. Don't forget to breathe.

Push back on the voices - the critic, the heckler, the doubter.
Recite your affirmation.
Again.

You reach for something brave like whatever it takes but it rings hollow - doesn't pertain to you in this moment.

Now prop yourself up, swing the legs out, plant your feet on the floor. Breathe.

Remember to breathe.
Take control of the narrative.
Take responsibility for every aspect of your life -
every thought, every action, every moment.

Yeah? Get bent.

But you force your arms open wide, in greeting and acceptance,
hold them out toward the new rising day
while simultaneously tensing your abdomen,
not so much out of vanity
but as if to take a punch,
and then you stumble forward.

You meet her at the gym. It is very early. She is doing shoulders, biceps and triceps.
She is younger than you are. Fitter. She's positive. Her progress is visible and hard to believe.

You are warming up on a treadmill focusing on your ragged breathing wanting to stop.
Soon you are distracted by the men grunting, banging weights, their eyes creeping toward her.
They are younger than you too, and able.

You realize you are occupying time and space in advancing middle age, right now, right here,
fully engaged in a battle to stave off cardiac arrest. She is serious about her workout, earbuds in, seeming not to notice the men. You look away trying not to let your thoughts go sour.

Overhead the speakers play:
Finished with my woman cuz she couldn't help me with my mind.
People think I'm insane because I am frowning all the time...

You're a little bit paranoid she says, grinning, her eyes searching your face.

Despite feeling like you might collapse, you want to smile at the strangeness of it all.
The synchronicity. The ridiculous timing of events.
There is nothing to do here but go along. To continue.
Breathe. Inhale and let it go.

Step under the pads, assume the weight, raise your heels off the floor, lower them, raise them, lower them, raise them, lower them, raise them, lower them, raise them...