With it being my birthday the other week, that marks 25 years that I’ve been driving.
Well, officially, on roads at least.
My Dad first let me drive his pick-up in one of the fields aged 13.
And I could drive pretty well by the time I was 17 already.
But, yeah – a quarter of a century on the roads.
My first car was a burgundy Vauxhall Nova.
It wasn’t long till it needed some work doing.
Just a few weeks after passing my test, I parked up at Springfield Stores – the convenience store on the way back from town.
And as I was walking towards the shop, an older guy who’d just got into his car, reversed straight into mine.
He immediately took the blame – my car was parked and had been since before he started his up.
The damage wasn’t massive but it needed the bumper replacing.
The quote came to £175.
The guy balked at this.
Thought it was ludicrously expensive for a low speed bump.
But that’s what a bumper replacement with accompanying work cost in 1997.
Seemed very reasonable to me.
But his frame of reference to the cost of things would’ve been set a good 60 years earlier than mine.
Because that kind of feels like the age you were when things “cost what they should” doesn’t it.
17 plus or minus a few years.
You’ve started earning your own money.
You know how long you had work to to earn the money that something would cost.
And you start to form these frames of reference.
Much like we do for lots of things when we’re young.
If exercise is a fun thing to do with friends that you feel better for doing…….
Or if it’s something you shy away from twice a week.
Maybe coming up with “reasons” you can’t do it this week and / or hiding at the back.
If it’s “healthy eating” and has connotations of tasty, fresh foods that help us look and feel good………
Or if it’s restriction, confusion and frustration.
If it looks like people being happy and full of energy………
Or nearly in tears staring at the scales beneath their feet.
If exercise and better food choices are about what they bring to our lives……..
Or about what we have to force ourselves to do or do without.
Sometimes we then spend the rest of our lives with those frames of reference.
And they shape how we see the things we might do throughout adulthood.
Seeing things as restriction, hard work, boring and things we need “willpower” and “motivation” to force ourselves to do………….
Or seeing them as decisions that aid the quality of our lives and bodies.
Things that we can do in a way that we find enjoyable (or, at the very least, sufficiently tolerable).
These ways of seeing things feel set.
But just like reframing how much things cost, we can reframe how we see other such things.
We can just make that choice.
We can accept that that’s just been our way of framing the situation and not a cold, hard fact.
That it’s been shaped by our experiences and upbringing.
And we can “try on for size” a different way of seeing things.
Might feel unnatural to start with.
But, like anything, only becomes more normal by doing it.
Much love,
Jon ‘I do get constantly surprised my how much stuff costs – not only has everything approximately doubled since then, but we’re now paying for six’ Hall
P.S. Reply to this with ‘Great’ if you’d like having plenty of energy throughout the day and having a body you like the look and feel of, to become your new normal.
——————————————————————-
RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
