Heat

Heat brings us a lot of joy, and yet a lot of trouble.  We appreciate it in the summer time, hate it in the fall, and beg for it during the winter and spring.  We like when the sun accompanies heat, as it motivates us to go outside and do something.  At the same time, too much of it sends us running back to air conditioning before we melt to nothing.

Heat has many different uses in English.  We use it to refer to temperature, but also to stress (i.e. the heat is on, I'm facing a lot of heat right now, etc.).  The beginning of a school semester comes to mind:  all of the stress with buying books and re-orienting ourselves towards studying for class discussions and exams feels a lot like the late August heat that we feel around here.  I look at my current schedule and see a lot of work, between advanced seminars and capstones and a potential internship.  The fun part, however, is that I also see a lot of focus on Latin American topics, something I didn't have much exposure to during my first year of graduate school.  The first week brings a lot of heat to a graduate student attempting to re-adjust from a summer full of hard work, but I'm ready for the challenge.

Heat also finds meaning in intensity.  This meaning is not entirely unrelated to stress, but it certainly discriminates as to which kind of stress qualifies.  We as humans generate a lot of heat through activities in our daily lives:  exercise is not the only means, but we must do it if we wish to stay and shape and (of course!) acclimate to summer's last attempt to raise the thermometer.  Intensity, so long as we are in control of it, translates to a good stress, or a good heat.  I took the chance to weigh myself over the past two Mondays and found that I have lost four pounds in the past week (224 pounds then, 220 now).  Over the next month I would like to raise the intensity of my workouts and lifestyle, pausing between hours of teaching to do push-ups and sit-ups while operating in a non-air-conditioned room.  The goal by the end of next month is to drop another ten pounds and keep it off.

Finally, heat manifests itself in challenge.  The true challenge of heat, whether we think of it in terms of stress or intensity, is that it stands in the way (much like cold) of us living everyday lives.  We must always remember that in spite of the weather of the day or of life, that there is still a humdrum set of tasks that we must finish each day.  Amid the challenge of making myself into something better, I cannot forget to hold onto the things that I have already promised.  The distraction of heat cannot keep me from eating well, from laughing often, nor from praying hard.  In future blog posts, I will talk about how I maintain these things; however, the mention of heat adds a new dimension to the challenge of maintaining good habits.
 

Fight every day through the heat.  Increase the heat of your efforts.  Don't let the heat scare you away from the kitchen.  Don't accept that, for a minute, what you have set out to do isn't something that you couldn't accomplish:  at one point, something inspired you to make the decision to challenge yourself.  Let it be your spark!  For as a spark brings heat, so should your inspiration drive you to finish your task.  Go out and be the spark in your own lives!