Rolling Rock, not the beer

In high school, I had several great teachers.  One of them made me go look up Sisyphus, which back then meant going to the library, not just whipping out my phone and asking Google, which is probably why I still remember it.  Sisyphus, according to the myth, was a jerk.  The gods punished him by making him roll a giant rock to the top of a hill only to have it roll back down for eternity.  Pretty frustrating.  He must have been a really serious jerk for that to seem at all appropriate.

There is one way that Sisyphus can lift his own punishment.  He can like rolling rocks.

So at first glance, I appear to be advocating some kind of Stockholm syndrome.  Rolling rocks uphill is hard work.  Being compelled to do it over and over again doesn’t make it better.  But shifting perspective, choosing to love the strain of the muscles and the roughness of the boulder and the moment of success at the top and the careening excitement of the rock falling back down, can turn hell into something else.

Workouts, I hope, are not hell, but for those hellish moments, maybe we can try loving rolling rocks.