I recently mentioned on my Facebook page that I spend about 2 hours a week working towards a middle and front split. I think it is a good practice, but I have no hope of actually doing the splits. Nor do I care, rather, it feels like a good way to seriously stretch. (I’m following a program with Gymnastics Bodies). Someone commented that I might be surprised that I will get there with consistency.

I laughed the comment off. I am very far away. But additional evidence that I bring to this is: I have been doing it for nearly a year with little improvement.

Then I realized that while ‘nearly’ a year can feel like forever within our lives, it is such a tiny amount. I have decades of not stretching to counteract, not to mention that I regularly workout and re-tighten my tissues. So, maybe, if I work at it for another decade, maybe I will be an adult in my 40s doing the splits. And maybe not, which is okay too.

We are not all so good at visualizing the long-term future and planning for it, but with awareness we can work to counter act our short-term tendencies.