How Yoga Ruined My Life
Time was when I enjoyed watching soap operas and reading magazines themed around celebrity cellulite and how to get a man to fall in love with you in ten minutes (essentially all you have to do is suppress your personality and wax your lady bits. Simples!) These were the halcyon days when all I had to do was worry about losing weight and whether I was driving the right car or eating in the right restaurants.
Then I discovered yoga, and it all went to s**t.
I quite enjoyed my first class. I don't know why, but for some reason I felt compelled to keep doing it- after all, I have also quite enjoyed trying such things as archery and blue cheese pasties, and I never felt compelled to start doing them on a daily basis. Within months, I remember distinctly a moment when I noticed a moth on the doorframe at home and stared like a slack-jawed simpleton as I realised how beautiful it was. A moth! Who cares about those? Most people just squash them, don't they? This sentiment continued when, to my horror, I was watching a documentary about lizards or some other ugly nature thing and I realised that I could never again eat a sentient creature. What the frig? No more ahi tuna or Gourmet Burger Kitchen? I was on a downward spiral where I was increasingly feeling more connected to things.
Next came the realisation that I was just as responsible for the planet as everyone else. WHAT? Suddenly I am taking empty containers home with me because I can't find a recycling bin. Let me ask you a question, people; what's more important- the 'environment' or 'the inside of my handbag when it's had a dirty sandwich container flapping around in it on a hot summer's day? Exactly! I just want to be able to put all my rubbish in the same bin and not give a s**t. What is this terrible affliction?
And don't even get me started on 'other people's problems'. No one is meant to have problems bigger than mine! I am the original tortured soul and my pain is as vast as the Grand Canyon, only more littered with broken dreams and angry text messages. How can anyone be in more pain than me? Who ARE these 'refugees' and 'people who can't afford to eat'? And how dare they upstage me?
And why, now that I have started all this yoga nonsense, can I not just stop caring about all of the above? Truly, I feel as cursed as those reality show stars who never stay married to the same person for very long. I don't know what I did to deserve this. I went to those classes in good faith. I don't think this whole empathy business suits me, but now that it's happened, I can't seem to undo it. Can't I just sue someone?!
