Reflections on Exercise: It’s Not How Much You Have to Exercise, but How Much You Want to Exercise

I. It’s Not That You Have to Exercise, but That You Want to Exercise
You’re overweight, you’re in poor health, you sit too much—you have to exercise. -> But you’re lazy, you procrastinate, you lack perseverance, you can’t follow through. -> You’re worthless.
This vicious cycle of inner conflict further drains people’s mental energy and capacity to act. (See my earlier essay, “Procrastination Is a False Concept.”)
People possess innate wholeness. The body naturally wants to move, and the heart naturally seeks truth, goodness, beauty, and light.
The body loves and craves movement.
Just look at children: running wildly, chasing one another, roughhousing, shouting, playing football until dark. This is human nature.
Sometimes we stretch and let out a little groan of pleasure. The body needs this.
If you don’t want to exercise, it’s like seeing a child who is listless and doesn’t want to go outside.
We need to care for that child: What’s wrong? What have they been through?
When your body doesn’t want to exercise, ask it. It will tell you that it’s too tired, that it wants to rest, that it wants a gentle stroll.
This is also the attitude toward the body found in psychology and inner work: feel your body, establish a connection with it, trust it, and cherish it.

II. The Tyranny of the Shoulds
Psychologist Karen Horney’s “tyranny of the shoulds” is very helpful in healing a “harsh superego” and the malaise of small-town exam achievers. Small-town exam achievers often internalize a very harsh superego, a taskmaster, including when it comes to exercise.
They believe that “human nature” is inherently “lazy” and requires a “harsh superego” to keep us working by “hanging our hair from a beam and pricking our thighs with an awl,” driving us ever harder. If you don’t want to exercise, you have a terminal case of laziness and need to “give yourself a push.”
This framework is completely wrong. Zhang Xuefeng’s tragedy also shows us that it is dangerous.
See my earlier essays, “Care for Yourself Like a Loving Grandmother” and “How Connection Breaks: From Children with Innate Wholeness to Lonely, Bewildered Adults.”
From “Small-Town Exam Achievers”:
Many people are caught in a vicious cycle: “Exercise means running and perseverance (an understanding instilled from childhood) -> I don’t want to run -> I force myself to run -> I can’t keep running -> I put myself down.” Occasionally, they feel good and have a good experience, and say, “Running really is good. Forcing myself really does work.” As hard evidence of how long I forced myself, I ran many half-marathons while living in this prolonged state.
The belief “exercise = running = perseverance,” stamped into my mind, was reinforced by the atmosphere in finance and Haidian circles, where everyone competed over mileage, half-marathons, and triathlons. “You have to run, you have to run a half-marathon, and then post it on WeChat Moments” was the obsession driving me.
Over the following ten years, I opened my diaries from those years countless times: intense challenges, anxiety, scarcity, setbacks, trauma, stress, and so on. I had severely depleted myself. Weight gain from overwork, hypothyroidism, insulin resistance, pharyngitis, gastritis, a suspected anxiety disorder, and so on. And then my harsh superego kept whipping my exhausted, dispirited self.
I really don’t like running.
There are physical activities I enjoy. Since childhood, I’ve loved hide-and-seek, chasing and roughhousing, beanbag games, football, playing in the water and swimming, badminton, ice skating, and skiing. Why didn’t I pursue these? Often, they required arranging to meet other people, which meant confronting the thought that “if I can’t find anyone to join me, I’m not doing well in life and people don’t like me.” So I would subconsciously avoid them too.

III. Ordinary People Don’t Need to Choose Exercise That “Uses Up Willpower”—Choose Something Fun
Willpower and mental energy are outcomes—the outcomes of cultivation and nourishment. They are not produced by training or effort.
See my earlier essay, “Effort Is a False Concept”: effort is an outcome; positive feedback is the key. The luckier you are, the harder you work. Choosing matters more than striving.

IV. It’s Not How Much You Have to Exercise, but How Much You Want to Exercise
Now, if neither tennis nor basketball is available, and there’s nowhere to take a stroll, I “have to” exercise because I sit for long periods and need to manage my blood sugar. I still won’t force myself.
I no longer think, “How many reps do I have to do?” Instead: How many can I do right now? How does my body feel? Where is it uncomfortable? Where does it feel weak? What exercise does my body want? What exercise does it need?
I’m moving from being led by the petty ego and harsh superego back to being led by the body.
“Stepping outside your comfort zone” is a false concept. Move from one comfort zone to another.
Pull-ups leave my back muscles feeling great and satisfied; squats feel great in my glutes and legs. My heart and lungs feel great too as they pound away. The muscles and the body have their own comfort zones. The good thing about a gym is that you can choose the right weight, so your body feels comfortable, just like playing a game.
If I can’t manage Bulgarian split squats, I switch to reverse lunges. If I can’t be bothered to do push-ups and don’t want to get dirty, I choose incline push-ups. If I can’t pull myself up, I do Australian pull-ups with my body at an incline.
I don’t force myself or blame myself. I just listen to my body and see what it wants to do. Gradually, it comes alive and tells me it suddenly wants to run for a while. Then I excitedly run a few dozen or a few hundred meters, filled with the spring breeze. The frailty of youth can never compare with roaming in the prime of life.
Running into the wind is a human instinct.
As with exercise, so with work and life: listen to the body and the deeper mind. See my earlier essay, “The Structure of ‘I’: The ‘Real Self’ Accompanies the Libido.”

V. Why Do Psychology and Philosophy Matter?
Many basic understandings rest on fundamentally different foundations: whether human nature is evil or good, lazy or industrious; whether to strive and struggle or follow the natural course.
Zhuangzi, “The Essentials of Nourishing Life”: “Follow the natural patterns; go by things as they are.”