I get home from work after nine o’clock at night for the second night in a row and start to wonder if this roll out the mat challenge is such a good idea right now. Of course I still need to eat dinner and then get back to work, so I feel pretty validated in my skepticism. Who has time for this kind of thing? Certainly not me. The laziness kicks in. I eat dinner slowly, distracted by work. I put the challenge out of my mind. I work. I finally decide that’s enough work for one day. Not like the whole world’s going to fall apart if I mess around on the Internet for awhile. I dink around on my blog. Read a few blogs. My wife goes to bed. This would be the perfect time to throw out my mat, but it’s almost as if I purposefully avoid what I know is good for me. Commitment. So overrated. Midnight rolls around and I’m still sitting at the kitchen table poking at my laptop. Better get to bed if I’m going to get up for an early morning run in the rain. My back hits the mattress. Eyes closed, I think about the cardboard boat race scheduled for tomorrow night. Anything but the challenge. The challenge. The challenge. The challenge. All of a sudden it’s all I can think about. Screw it. Wait, I take that back. Suddenly I remember that the only thing I challenged myself to do is unfold my yoga blanket every day. Too easy. I fall out of bed and fumble around in a dark guest room until I find my yoga towel. As much as I just want to be “lazy” and stay in bed, I feel equally, if not more, compelled to not miss a day of the challenge all of a sudden. And then of course, next thing I know I’m stretching around on the floor in a dark room, and the breath deepens and I discover again the magic of keeping one simple commitment. Filed under: yoga , yoga challenge