Limits and the impulse toward `overtraining'

They say I'm `retired' now.  Actually, I still have the luxury of work.  But I no longer have the burden of a `job.'

(How many times have we thought that a trained monkey could do what we were doing.  How many times have we `run out the clock' so that we could leave the job and get on with our damn lives!)

My situation is now reasonably safe and secure. Even predictable.

So what do I `make' of myself?

Do I invest myself in meaningful actions with the same intensity and resourcefulness as when I had a `job?' 

Or, do I seek engagement in random activities that consume my tension and anxiety, spending time and wasting myself. 

Do I `express' myself?

Or, do I waste/numb/distract myself?

The experience of having unstructured time on my hands has been somewhat confusing.  Not unpleasant.  Not even anxiety producing.  (It is good that I am a Clinical Psychologist at times like this :)

I have the luxury, for the first time, of not feeling the knife to my throat. 

But I do experience the need for something to be imposed upon me.  Sort'a weird, huh!  Something that will relieve me of the existential burden of making a choice, of having to think about and decide what is `important.'

I `want' a problem that will tell me what to do every day. 

Erich Fromm wrote a book about this in the '60's called `Escape From Freedom.'  It was a narrative of the German people in the first half of the twentieth century.  They gave over this existential burden / responsibility to a `Fuerher.' 

Friends.  That shit don't work!

And here is where `overtraining' comes in. 

• Overtraining occurs in athletes who are training for competition or a specific event and train beyond the body's ability to recover. Athletes often exercise longer and harder so they can improve. But without adequate rest and recovery, these training regimens can backfire, and actually decrease performance.

At least that's what Wikipedia says. 

I ... don't ... think ... so!

Overtraining is what we do to ourselves while trying to dodge raindrops in a downpour. 

We know it won't work.

But we `won't' allow ourselves to admit to our limits, to handle the anxiety of unstructured time. 

(Think Pantani).