Take a step back

In the past few weeks I’ve been really focused on swimming for the high school team and for the YMCA. I’ve been spending most of my time swimming in the pool for hours every night and putting in extra time at home stretching and watching YouTube videos of Olympiads studying their technique. All in all, I’ve found myself working really hard at swimming but forgetting why exactly I’m swimming at all.

It probably sounds strange, but I forgot why enjoyed swimming. Practices had turned into a job, and it just wasn’t fun anymore. Now the season is over, and it was a really great year full of best times and new friendships, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I was burnt out from swimming.

So today I went to the YMCA and swam. But this is the first time in forever that I went and swam to have fun. That’s right. I swam for fun. Not for a work out. Not to fix my technique. Just to, for lack of a better word,  splash around in the water.

This story probably seemed completely pointless, but I’m sure everyone has been here before.

For example, someone who really enjoys reading, but had to read 30 pages  for a class every night, is going to eventually find reading unenjoyable. All of the reading for class burns them out, and they don’t want to read anymore. It’s sad but totally true, and now I’ve experienced it.

Back to my story, while I was swimming today, I was able to rekindle the love that I have for swimming, and not just competitive swimming, swimming in general. Although I know that swimming can’t always be fun-and-games, it was nice to be able to take a step back and just do something I enjoy to do without any pressure from anyone.

Moral of this blog: everyone needs to take a step back every once and a while and remember the things that are important to them and why these things are important to them. If you don’t, you could be risking losing your favorite things forever.