What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness
nytimes.com
What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness
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Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness
#2Can’t read the article, but I did want to share that the title resonates with me.
I love running and now run again, but I started learning swimming during a knee injury.
One thing it re-taught me was how rewarding it is to learn or improve a non-work related skill dramatically. I picked up juggling (poorly) and jump rope since.
Two, I knew I was getting a stroke down when I knew when to glide versus to move or exert myself. Maybe a metaphor but practically it makes 40 laps enjoyable instead of torture.
Three, having one hour of somewhat sensory deprived solitude is great therapy.
Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness
#3Can’t read the article, but I did want to share that the title resonates with me. I love running and now run again, but I started learning swimming during a knee injury. One thing it re-taught me was how rewarding it is to learn or improve a non-work related skill dramatically. I picked up juggling (poorly) and jump rope since. Two, I knew I was getting a stroke down when I knew when to glide versus to move or exert…
Join the club - could not read the article.
Swimming was not my thing but I had to learn so I could do other watersports.
The Down Syndrome girl and others in her special needs group that were in the pool when I went were incredible inspiration. If she could smile and put in the lengths then I could too.
Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness
#4Can’t read the article, but I did want to share that the title resonates with me. I love running and now run again, but I started learning swimming during a knee injury. One thing it re-taught me was how rewarding it is to learn or improve a non-work related skill dramatically. I picked up juggling (poorly) and jump rope since. Two, I knew I was getting a stroke down when I knew when to glide versus to move or exert…
It is possible to read the article within the page source, albeit complicated by markup.
Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness
#5I’ve been doing masters swimming for the last few years, through waxing and waning levels of commitment and dedication. We do around 3.5 -4.5 k per session. When I’m consistently going 3+ times a week there’s no other fitness high like it.
Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness
#6I swim a lot, but find it quite boring.
I bought a waterproof Ipod shuffle + waterproof headphones from Amazon and it improved the experience 100x.
Note - use vaseline to seal the headphones into your ear, and wrap the extra wire under your goggle straps or you won't have a good time.
Highly recommend.
Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness
#7We are taught and continually retaught that discipline and hard work are the keys to success in life. Why would we not bring the same level of planning, anxiety and pursuit of excellence to our attempts to be happy? When you spend 40-60 hours a week trying to optimize your output at work it is difficult to not have an anxiety ridden vacation where you try to optimize your happiness.
I am sure many people can relate to the first 2-3 days of vacation being needed just to get into 'vacation-mode' where you can actually start to forgive yourself for 'wasting' a day.
Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness
#8>Ever the philosopher of the pool, Igor smiled and said, “You are all confused! Speed is not the goal; it is the result of perfect beautiful technique.”
>What really mattered to Igor was excellence — the efficient stroke. Once you mastered that, he argued, speed would follow naturally. Speed was simply the welcome side effect of swimming well.
>I’ve been thinking lately that there’s a lesson here that goes beyond the pool. We all wanted to swim faster and the more hysterically we tried, the more speed escaped us. The same goes for happiness. Everyone wants to be happy, yet the more directly we pursue happiness, the more elusive it becomes.
Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness
#9We are taught and continually retaught that discipline and hard work are the keys to success in life. Why would we not bring the same level of planning, anxiety and pursuit of excellence to our attempts to be happy? When you spend 40-60 hours a week trying to optimize your output at work it is difficult to not have an anxiety ridden vacation where you try to optimize your happiness. I am sure many people can relate t…
It's almost insane how social conditioning plays into every aspect of work life including how we take vacations.
Re: What Swimming Taught Me About Happiness
#10Can’t read the article, but I did want to share that the title resonates with me. I love running and now run again, but I started learning swimming during a knee injury. One thing it re-taught me was how rewarding it is to learn or improve a non-work related skill dramatically. I picked up juggling (poorly) and jump rope since. Two, I knew I was getting a stroke down when I knew when to glide versus to move or exert…
It is possible to read the article within the page source, albeit complicated by markup.
I’m on iOS. Never actually tried to look at source in iOS Safari.
However, before getting there, I was able to read it just by clicking the reader view in the address bar.