Over the past 2 and a half months, I packed my schedule with hours of physical activity and discipline. During December of last year, I saw that even one set of dumbbell curls had given me detectable biceps a week later. This coincided with my belief that my physical state at the time was unsustainable. My physical activity had dropped to one and a half hours of basketball practice only once a week in addition to a one hour game. Once New Year’s came around, I slowly began going to the gym. It started at 3 times week. After becoming comfortable with my new schedule, my friend asked me if I would consider joining the Lacrosse team. Outside of an athletic summer camp designed for kids called Camp Blue, I had never touched a lacrosse stick. However, when my friend elaborated on his question, I learned that even people who didn’t play would be accepted without tryouts. I thought that joining a school team would be cool, so I said, yeah. After a long process of diplomacy and negotiating with the athletic director, I joined the team. I considered that this would strip my hours of gaming, however, I determined that discipline in addition to exercise was what I needed. So I became a machine; at its peak, my schedule was up to 19 hours of physical activity a week.

My commitment to lacrosse played a big role in my transformation from lazy to active. For a competitive sports team, our coach wasn’t too harsh or demanding of us. He was rather laid back when it came to practice. However, we were all still competitive. In addition, as a player who was joining the team 3 weeks late, and had never played a game of lacrosse, I didn’t want to be a liability. I had a serious approach to the game, even though during practice messing around, blithely taking poor shots, useless drives, and excessive checks were commonplace. This made me useful, because coach often got tired of letting sloppy players have big minutes. To be fair, I also made a few disastrous mistakes, but the coaches didn’t find reasons to rage at me. Out of all the mid-field players, I was one of the newest and most reasonable guys. They gave me some leeway, and instead of showing anger when I made mistakes, they supported me. Overall, my commitment to lacrosse inspired me to be more active and healthy. The structure and investment I had in the team drove me to be better.

Part of my discipline, something that has bled over into other areas of my life, came from me draining myself at the gym. Why? Of course for the reasons of attaining functional strength, aesthetics, and health. I developed control over my schedule, and became adamant about making sure I went to the gym. This was, and still is, tested by my friends, who ask me on a daily basis not to go to the gym, but to get boba or play video games instead. The fear of losing gains and the knowledge that I may someday not have access to a gym are at the heart of my resistance towards taking regressive days off. I also became a little bit more strict about my diet, eating less junk food and drinking more water. I became fearful of sugar and other unhealthy, harmful substances. The way my decision to become more active by joining a sports team bled into a few different aspects of my life, is comparable to how one bad decision can lead to a plethora of harmful choices. An example of which would be saying, “screw it,” putting off the gym and eating an entire box of Oreos at once. The effects of making a single bad decision may not physically impact you as much as it will influence your self image. Habitually cheating yourself can place you in a bad mentality, making you feel like a loser. This leads on to worse and worse habits.

Changing my lifestyle and draining my energy on a daily basis did have great benefit. Getting off of my butt, playing an alien sport, and departing from my comfort zone changed my mentality, self-discipline, and self image for the better. Before my transformation, I had little regard about my self-image and health. However, after a massive overhaul, I now consider myself disciplined and in good health. I no longer cheat myself, and am experienced at maintaining consistency.