Scientific Motivation?
Breaking bad habits
is difficult,
it’s irritating.
You wince every time
You bite your nails
again
Procrastinate
again
Sleep in
again
And every time
you tell yourself to stop.
Again and again.
Is it futile?
Bad habits,
essentially,
are simply neural pathways in your brain
that are nurtured
every time
you repeat the routine.
The action potential,
leaping over nodes of ranvier,
and fired down that electrical avenue
every time
You bite your nails
again
Procrastinate
again
Sleep in
again.
Breaking habits
is difficult,
it’s irritating,
but it seems a lot easier
when you remember that a neural pathway is replaced,
when it’s unused.
Break the electrical avenue.
Break the habit.
If you just let the mechanics
of that boulevard
rust and disintegrate,
poof,
it’s habit no more.
It’s not willpower or innate self-control or extent of spiritual focus,
it’s science.
Exercising
is really tiring.
Arms struggling to lift the weight of the world (a barbell).
Scorching air tearing at your lungs.
Legs liquefying.
“I’m not athletic.”
“This is so difficult.”
“Why should I try?”
Exercising is pushing your body past the limits.
Quite literally.
Do you want to be stronger?
faster?
Well, the human body has a nice answer for that too.
Your arms struggling to lift the weight of the world,
Your legs liquefying,
is simply little fibers in your arms called myosin and actin filaments
tearing.
They tell your muscles,
“Hey, noodles! Give us more strength!”
And those torn fibers,
stitch back together
and make more fibers
so you have the strength
to lift the world.
Scorching air tearing at your lungs
is an interesting thing
called oxygen debt.
Your lung shout at the capillaries
wrapped around alveoli
(they’re tiny air sacs that look like grapes),
“Hey! Give us more air!”
And those capillaries,
gasping for oxygen,
grow more friends
So you breathe
a bit easier.
Just push your body past its limit
and it’ll unravel and reassemble to survive past that limit.
It’s not willpower or God-given strength or inherent vitality,
it’s science.
Neural pathways,
those sparking freeways;
Myosin and actin filaments,
those tiny rubber bands;
Alveoli,
those little grapes;
Those are things that everyone have.
Not just the chosen few.
It’s science.
Everyone can do it.
And that’s pretty awesome.