Enjoy My Pain
This year, instead of a new year’s resolution to exercise more, I settled on just harboring a negative body image equivalent to a 15 year-old girl with an eating disorder. This self-loathing has worked in a way that resolutions never have. I am now playing volleyball several hours a week and even volunteered to coach a boys club volleyball team. I highly recommend self-loathing as a motivational tool.
I am sure the Germans, the people that brought us schadenfreude, have a word for “motivational self-loathing”.
I am sitting here on the couch with ice packs on my knees. I have floor burns the size of silver dollars on both knees and my right hip, and I can’t lift my right arm higher than my shoulder. My right index finger is jammed and swollen to twice its normal size. It hurts, but in a pleasantly nostalgic way. I have spent a good chunk of my life like this, jammed fingers, ice packs, floor burns… it feels right.
Do the Germans have a word for “pleasantly nostalgic pain”?
I am thinking that learning German will help prepare me for this “washed-up former athlete” stage of my life.
Well, well. I see you’ve been reading a bit of timesandseasons.org! I had to look that word up myself.
I’ve decided the lessor of the two evils. Keep telling myself I will lose a few and get in shape and then realize it’s already October, again!
Good luck on your quest!
I don’t think the Germans already have words or expressions for those things, but let’s give it a shot: Selbstabscheutrieb-motivation based on self-loathing
Schöner Sehsnsuchtschmerz-‘nice’ nostalgic pain
The self-loathing will work just fine until your inner 15 year old girl turns 16. If she matures or something, you may have to adopt a new one. I hear it’s a lengthy, time-consuming, and emotional experience. Good luck with your bruises, floor burns, and jams.
I know what you mean Josh. However, my inner 15 year old likes to eat and has a faster metabolism than I.
Speaking of German. For a long time I looked at your message to “Die Spammers! Die!” For some reason I thinking it was some sort of German saying, but…well…ya know.
i think you are suffering from “autoschadenfreude.”
So do you run around squealing about black and white photos of cute chiseled guys holding babies, while self inducing your last meal (Taqueria la tormenta)?