Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Laws of Motion

I took a physics class in high school. It was horrible. I did NOT take physics in college. In fact, if I recall correctly, physics class is the only time I earned (use earned in a loose sense here) a 'C' in high school. Maybe that 8% test score wasn't such a helpful thing. At least I got my name right on the exam. Although the class was sheer misery for me- I did enjoy the thought of it or more specifically the laws involved in all that babble-for I feel like they tend to explain a lot about the world around us. So after I did some extensive Wikipedia and Google researching, I am going to explain how good ol' Newton's laws of motions relate to me. Because I'm fairly egotistical and I don't enjoy math equations this early in the morning...especially before I've had my second goblet of tea. 


Newton's Laws of Motion are--in so many words:


Newton's First Law of Motion: An object in motion stays in motion until acted upon by an outside force. An object at rest stays at rest until acted upon by an outside force.

Newtons's Second Law of Motion: The acceleration (a) of a body is parallel and directly proportional to the new force (F) and inversely proportional to the mass (m). Meaning: F=ma

Newton's Third Law of Motion: The mutual forces of an action and reaction between two bodies are equal, opposite and collinear. Aka- To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions.


Why would I reference Newton, who is clearly speaking in mathematical terms, you ask? Well, at work the other day, I overheard a familiar conversation happening at the hub of the office- the copy machine. It went something like this:


Coworker 1: ::lets out exasperated sigh: "Ughhhhh"


Coworker 2: "Ohh I know. Me too. At least it's Wednesday"


This conversation stopped me mid bounce on my fitness orb. Gasp! I could somewhat relate. I thought, "What does that even mean? Are we just 'getting by' during the week, schlepping along 40+ hours of each week (2,080 hours a YEAR!) just to do what we want on the weekends??" If that's the case, something has got to change. 


Que First Law of Motion
I could see where it would be easy to get into the habit of thinking like that and living for the weekend because the past few months I had a lingering feeling that I was in some sort of rut aka an object at rest. It was a comfortable rut, nothing was really going wrong, I had no big stressors or catastrophes. Things were ok and I had mastered the art of getting by. But on the other hand, nothing really great was occurring either.
Que Second Law i.e. motivation.
Upon realizing that I didn't want to remain in said rut motivation was the force that moved me to make some changes in my life. I didn't know entirely how quick these unknown changes would happen, but as long as I kept moving forward in the direction of change, I would get there eventually. (Which, by the way, is the first law of ultra running.)
Que Third Law of Motion:
Change did happen and with it more change. I scored two new jobs which meant I had to leave my job at AHA. And now- well in the future- will have ample time on my hands. Which I romantically assume I will spend much of it in the mountains frolicking about with friends- though I'm sure it won't be exactly like that. No matter what the future looks like, it will surely be different than what I was doing. 


Pointing at my future 
Change, moving on, growing- these are not things meant to be avoided or feared. They are all natural things in life. Laws even. Whether or not we want something to change, it is going to happen at some rate. Though if you do desire change, sometimes a little extra applied force helps to accelerate things. 

Our only security is our ability to change. ~John Lilly

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." -Maya Angelou

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