Today we’re discussing a bit of physics. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be like
those lectures in high school where your teacher started drawing all sorts of
circles and arrows on the chalk board, assigned them letters, usually greek,
and then couldn’t figure out why the entire class was lost. Today I want to
talk about 2 concepts: Inertia and
Momentum. Inertia is that force that makes
it hard to get something moving. If you’ve ever pushed something heavy, you’ve
noticed that it’s harder to get it moving than to keep it moving. That difference is inertia It is sometimes expressed as “A body at rest
tends to stay at rest” or for the hardcore geeks, Newton’s First Law of Motion. Isaac Newton studied inertia in terms of the
forces that moved the planets around the heavens. It is also a very important concept in
exercise and fitness. Inertia
is also the force that makes you say “ I’ll quit smoking tomorrow” or “come the first of next month, I’m going to do sit ups
every morning” Coming up with the ideas
of how to get healthier is never the hard part, it’s getting those plans in
motion that is difficult. I think anyone
could do 1 sit up, but for me, doing 1 sit up is really, really difficult. I
find it really hard to do the first one.
Once I’ve done the first one, the 24 or so are relatively easy. It’s the same way with going for a run. Just getting suited up and out the door is
the hard part. Once I’ve gotten that
far, the rest of the run is actually pretty enjoyable. The opposite of inertia is momentum. Momentum is that force that keeps you going
once you’ve started something. It’s what
lets you do that extra mile or two when you didn’t even think you could do
one. It’s what makes it easy to not
snack between meals because you didn’t snack last night, and managed to go all
morning without one. Once you get some
momentum going, things get easier. Momentum
is your friend. Inertia is not. The next time you’re having trouble getting
something going, just remember that once you start it, it gets easier. If you can get something going from a
standing stop, it’s much easier to keep it going. Don’t think about how far you have to go, or
how long you’re swearing your morning donut, or anything like that. That just makes the task seem harder. Just get started. Even if you do it wrong, just do it and then
make improvements along the way, because once you’re moving, its much easier to
change course. Newton used these
concepts to study the heavenly bodies of his time. If you want to have anyone studying your
heavenly body, get moving. Overcome the
inertia, embrace the momentum, and just start whatever you’ve been putting off
until tomorrow !!
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