“The lights going down just before the movie starts. Dark plum jam bought at a fete. Your 80-year-old mother still taking your hand to cross the street. Chenille bedspreads at rented beach houses. Licking the spoon, turning the page, snuggling up, settling down, drinking it all in, letting it all out. Whistling. We can spend a lifetime in dogged pursuit of happiness that may lie under our noses, or our roofs. And when confronted by images of planes zeroing in on skyscrapers or walls of water sweeping outstretched hands away, we renew our vows to appreciate the little things. Then life’s rhythm returns to normal and we no longer hear its music. But what if we decided to revel in those moments? Stop our eternal quest for more verdant pastures and unfurl the picnic rug in our back yards, bindies and all? What if we chose, every day, to be truly grateful for what we have and what is around us? Hailey Bartholomew did, and it changed her life.”

The above extract is from Francis Whiting’s article in the Courier Mail’s QWeekend Magazine: From Little Things Big Things Come (April 2011). The article looks at the story of Hailey Bartholomew and how she changed her outlook on life by taking a photo of one thing each day for which she was grateful. The project became viral and is now being taken up by thousands of people around the world and even has its own website, Facebook page and many followers.

When reading this, my thoughts turned to our attitudes to exercise and how we often think of it as a chore and in a negative light. What if we stopped just as the article suggested and turned those early morning thoughts around from “Oh it’s cold I don’t want to do this” or “I am tired; just a little more sleep and I will exercise later” (later never comes) to “I am grateful I can exercise today and for the journey on which it is taking me”.

Because too often we focus on the task of exercise and not on the journey it is taking us on: