Today, I woke with a headache. I didn’t want to get out of bed and do tai chi. I could easily have slept another half hour. I wouldn’t have been late for work, but I would have missed my morning window for tai chi.
I got up and did the form and five golden coins and eight pieces of silk anyway. Where I found the strength, I don’t know. It was a bad run-through of the form. I felt better afterwards, of course, but that’s not the point. I didn’t want to when I first awoke, and then I did it anyway.
A lot of the stuff in the Western Mystery Traditions (and the eastern traditions as well, for that matter) begin from the assumption that will power is not a lot of fussing and straining. The Greek goddess Nike, manifested today in a shoe company of the same name, urges us to just do it. Today I did it, and I felt better. Not immediately, not perfectly, but better.
So if you don’t want to do some part of your practice, do it anyway. You’ll feel better.
