Not everything in life is chocolate cake. Take your first bite of chocolate cake, and you’re hooked. Kinda like heroin. You don’t have to force your children to eat it, you don’t have to remind yourself to want it. It comes easy.

Some things are just as good as chocolate cake, if not better but don’t really come as easy out of the gate. I was thinking about this today as I was sipping my morning cup o’ joe, and thought, “Why not blog about it?”

So here’s my list, but I’m sure it’s not complete; add your faves in the comments:

• Coffee: Since I mentioned it above, it’s first on the list. Coffee can be a bit, well, overwhelming at first. Especially if your first cup is black. I started with coffee flavored shakes, and now I actually prefer my morning cup with no cream or sugar. Puts hair on my knees, but it’s oh so yummy. Oh, and turns out, coffee’s pretty good for you. 
• Running: I’ve mentioned this before, but even with being an athlete most of my life, I used to hate running for the sake of running. I hated running days when I played sports (maybe spurred by my coaches’ insistence on using it as a punishment), and avoided it like the plague as a leisure activity. Then one day after organized sports and the military were behind me, I woke up and realized that I was fat and more than a little bit unhealthy. So I decided to run a marathon. Yeah, at first I HATED training. But then I grew used to it and before I knew it, I craved my runs. It was like some kind of miracle. Running’s one of the best things you can do for your health and is well worth the effort of falling in love with it. If you’ve never been a runner but have always wanted to try, check out the latest issue of Runner’s World (May 2009). It’s a special beginner’s guide edition.
• Red Wine: No, I’m not a wine snob (see the next item on this list), but red wine has so many health benefits and even though your first sip of a dry wine makes you think “cough medicine”, eventually your palate grows to love it. Unless your religious beliefs or addictive personality prevent you from enjoying alcohol, I recommend giving red wine a try. Stick with it for a bit. See where it takes you.
• Beer: C’mon. Nobody enjoys their first beer. But after a while it becomes your drink of choice when dining out or just hanging out with your friends. Again, your ability to partake of beer’s goodness depends on your religious beliefs and/or your tendency toward addiction, but if you’ve never made the effort to become a beer drinker, I highly recommend it. Not many things as fun for dudes (or dudettes, I suppose) than grabbing beers after a hard day of work, softball, or hiking The Incline.
• Water: For obvious reasons, water is the King of Beverages. But children don’t come out of the womb craving water over juice boxes or soda, and often we carry this taste-bud-driven habit into adulthood. But if you discipline yourself to drink water every single day, you’ll find that before long, you crave it every bit as much as you crave Mountain Dew. Seriously. Try it.
• Chess: So I noticed that 4 out of 5 things on my list were things you drink, and so I needed to add at least one more non-drink item. Only took a second for chess to pop in my mind. Chess takes “getting used to” because it’s so complex and it takes a long time of losing before you ever win your first match. But chess challenges your brain in ways that other games or challenges do not. It’s also one of the oldest games in civilised culture. Start online where embarassment is minimal and once you have a base of skills, impress your friends with your hoity toity cultural accumen. 

So what am I missing? Surely there are more things that are unpleasant to start, but are worth getting used to?

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Comments ( 3 )

Submitted Via Mail By @onewifeonly:

to add to your list…

1. Learning another language
2. listening to others
3. cooking
4. unlearning the principle of seed-faith

adminlove added these pithy words on Apr 18 09 at 16:59

I just got back from visiting family where I played a few games of chess with my brother and dad (2 wins and 1 draw). It sparked a renewed interest in learning how to play better. We’ll have to play a game sometime while drinking some beers and putting up our feet after a long run.

Cliff added these pithy words on Apr 23 09 at 19:57

Yessssss…nothing like impaired thought to make chess even more fun.

danial added these pithy words on Apr 23 09 at 23:02

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