Lack of Inertia

My family suffers from a lack of inertia, myself included. Too often I come home from work or a workout and I suggest to my wife and children that we should go outside and ride bikes or go to the playground, etc. I am usually greeted with howls of despair at being forced to get up off the couch or to leave the television.

Being myself tired from a hard days work, I usually just relent instead of trying to create the momentum to get outside. But just like Newton’s law of an object at rest, tends to stay at rest, for every action there is a reaction. In this case the action is my family’s inaction, building a volatile rebellion inside me.

Yesterday, I decided that I was no longer going to stand for this lack of inertia and I was going to take my children out for some exercise whether they liked it or not. I had missed my active recovery run earlier in the day and I felt that doing an easy paced run while running next to my bike riding children would be the best way of accomplishing two goals: Getting my run in and getting my children off of their asses and away from the TV.

My daughter immediately started to howl like I just handed down a harsh punishment when I told her to get ready to ride her bike. My son started to follow her lead and began to complain as well, albeit not as much. It took a fair amount of yelling on my part for my kids to get their sneakers on and to get ready to leave the house. After about 15 minutes of ultimatums to get ready, we were finally able to get moving.

Pleasantly enough, the screaming stopped as soon as we started to move. I suppose the pleasure of being on a bicycle under ones own power proved to be soothing to the savage beast and my children were soon laughing and smiling as we entered the park.

I did have a few moments where complaints were uttered by my son as we hit some of the hillier sections of the park. However, every time he crested the hill, he would scream with joy as he barreled down the other side of the hill. My daughter was able to ride around the park on her own and I helped my son up the hills during the more difficult sections.

When we returned home, my children looked very happy and content. My daughter took the opportunity to hide behind a wall in the basement and scare the crap out of my when I brought the bikes downstairs. If she wasn’t such an innocent child, I would say she did that as revenge for making her ride. I think she was just feeling good and wanted to play.

My lesson learned for the day is not to let a lack of inertia stop me from doing what I know is right. Even if it means some yelling, screaming and inconvenience, I think I will be better off in the end. My children got some much needed exercise and I think they were very happy in the end to be outside with their Dad.