past self

today i got back to the gym after 2 years of neglect; i used to exercise regularly (like for a year or two), was in my best shape, but life happens and i stopped going to the gym, gained lot of weight and after nearly all my clothes refused to be worn by me, i said stop and decided to go back to the gym and lose weight whatever it takes.

the weird thing was, i know, hitting back the gym after a long pause is not easy; but i was picturing myself, my past self, exercising like a champ. i thought, i used to bench this, do x amount of push ups, it won't be that hard to get back—and bam, first exercise, 5 min and i’m cooked… i was flabbergasted, disappointed in myself. reality was hitting me like i did something wrong.

it makes me wonder, we are full of “i used to do this”, and we honestly think we still can do this thing we used to do. sometimes we even say, it’s like learning how to ride a bike, we can't unlearn it. but we confuse technique and readiness. i’m not thinking solely about sport. take programming, i’m a developer but ai has been writing most of my code since idk when; still i think i can still write code by myself; i’m sure, trying to build something without ai today, will be too much disappointment for me to handle in a single night.

i’m not saying we should go back and do everything we used to do, again, to prove ourselves that we can. i’m just saying, we should be more humble, when thinking about past self, because it’s not sure we are still on top when we are doing the thing anymore, no matter how hard we used to do it.