In my upcoming self- help book, I Let Go by Erica J. Schmidt, section KKK discusses something called the daily victory. Here is an excerpt: (If you don’t know what Ejector Seat and Stupid Time are, you’ll have to be a bad Scientologist and guess by the context):
Even if it’s an Ejector Seat, Stupid Time day, ensure that each day holds some sort of victory. Victories begin with: Today I... They serve as weapons for self-loathing thoughts that invade when you are lying in the fetal position waiting for Netflix to load your fifth consecutive indulgence of Breaking Bad. YOU ONLY NEED ONE VICTORY PER DAY. Examples of daily victories are: i) waxing your moustache ii) a Sudoku puzzle iii) licking someone’s balls iv) getting your balls licked. v) a Pap Smear vi) spending an hour without talking about your genitals.
People who have integrated a daily Ashtanga yoga practice into every ass-crack of every dawn are good to go, since every day holds a built-in victory. However, for the sake of practicality-financial, sexual, social, or what have you- I recommend that every once in awhile, you overexert yourself and strive for more than one daily victory.
My day today was supposed to exceed the daily victory quota. It was meant to unfold a little bit like this:
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Exuberant Bodhisattva is having a pap smear.
Daily Ashtanga Yoga Practice + Pap Smear = Day of Epic Victory.
During the rest of this overachieving day, I was free to lie around eating ice cream while masturbating on shit people say videos and/or talking about my genitals.
Jesus help anyone who dared to ask me to do anything else.
But like the evolved human being I am, I had programmed a pre-pap smear routine that did not involve youtube or ice cream. (Or genitals). It entailed the following:
a) Walk the Big Black Dog. He is awesome. I am lucky to walk a dog every day. A lot of people don’t have time to go for walks every day. I do. I have lots of time. Especially today, when all I had to do was get a pap smear.
b) Drink coffee and write whatever I want: my next epistolary novel, six-word modern love stories, poems with only one vowel, journals, a blog post. Maybe one day I will become rich for my mono-vowel poems. Maybe not.
c) (Half of the day’s daily victory) A Luxurious and Uninterrupted Ashtanga Yoga Practice which I craved deeply since yesterday was a Full Moon Day and I did my best to practice non-attachment and take rest.
Tough life huh? Although all this sounds quite leisurely and indulgent, an amazing amount of neuroses and rigidity can fuel these seemingly lovely and therapeutic activities.
From a very early age, I always imposed an intensely stringent routine on my life. Every morning, when I was just seven, I would set my Mickey Mouse alarm clock for 6:30 a.m. By 6:35, I would be writing a letter to my grandparents in Manitoba. By 7:00, I was walking the dog to mail the letter, to make sure that my grandparents received something from me every single day. I was their personal correspondent. My letters were immensely important.
When I got home from the mail box, I would eat breakfast and proceed to practice violin in diligent increments of 20 minutes. I was awarded beautiful shiny stickers for every twenty minutes that I practiced. The stakes were extremely high.
Catastrophe would ensue if ever the Mickey Mouse Alarm clock went off late and I woke up at let’s say, 6:40, instead of 6:30. The whole day would fall to pieces. After all, it was 6:40 a.m. and my impeccable routine had gone to shit. Might as well go back to bed.
At 26, I’m not sure that my ability to adapt to a change in routine has evolved all that much. It can be rather disconcerting and embarrassing to observe how protective and neurotic I can be about my practice, my routine and my time.
This morning when I got home from walking the dog, I saw that I had an email from the owner and main teacher at the studio where I teach yoga. He had a massive and ravaging case of the flu. Could I come in a teach his 9:30 class?
For a good five minutes, I felt like I was seven years old and the Mickey Mouse alarm clock had gone off at 6:40 instead of 6:30. Today was supposed to be about me and my practice and my pap smear. But the truth was I had ample time to practice in the afternoon after my pap smear.
But then my hips wouldn’t be open and my nervous system will be ill-prepared when some stranger inserts a plastic disposable speculum up my snatch!
The other issue was that I have a hard time coordinating eating and digestion with a later practice time and I either end up feeling bloated and gassy or else lightheaded and starving. Fortunately and unfortunately, no matter how I tried to stretch it, both of these tragedies seemed devastatingly small. If yoga was really about making the universe a better place, I had to ask myself and/or God: what’s better for the universe right now?
That I motor through a kick-ass morning practice just so my legs will splay open easily on the examining table and I don't need to worry about practicing in the afternoon?
Or that the sick teacher gets rest, that his students are taught by someone healthy and well, maybe you'll be a little stiff and anxious for your Pap smear but you'll have the opportunity to merge with God and your pelvis right afterwards.
I am happy to report that God is way too busy to answer this kind of question. I figured out the answer myself and called to say I was available to sub the class.
As fate would have it, another teacher whose Mickey Mouse alarm clock went off a little earlier than mine had already offered her services. I guess this lesson in non-attachment will have to be postponed for another time. The good news is, I'm pretty sure I rocked the pelvic exam. The gyno didn't say anything but you could tell from her face that she'd never seen a pelvis like mine in her whole life.
Speaking of pelvises, I am still on Twitter @mypelvicfloor.
Or else there's the exuberant j. Facebook Page.
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