I'm trying to relax.

As part of my martial-arts study, I'm keeping a particular focus on relaxation this month. I reckon I'm about as relaxed, on a day-to-day basis, as I've ever been. Houston disagrees, contending that I'm never actually relaxed. "Perhaps," I say, "but am I more relaxed than usual at the moment?" He says no, not really.

I keep forgetting to do the things I'm supposed to do to work on relaxing more. I thought I'd try a few minutes of sitting meditation each day. I think I've managed it two or three days out of the month so far. I figured I'd catch up on my deadlines for the month, and that would relax me; and indeed, I'm significantly ahead of the recommended quota for Script Frenzy and there are no pressing deadlines right now as part of my Training Coordinator duties at SES. But it doesn't make me more relaxed in and of itself — instead, I worry about losing my Script Frenzy lead or whether I've forgotten something important at SES that I was supposed to do. (Which lends credence to Houston's theory that I'm never relaxed.) I did have strategies for improved relaxation during karate class, but a back that is not healing particularly quickly has required that I explore ways to stay relaxed in the face of the dreadful frustration of not being able to train. (Although any martial artist who's been training as long as I have ought to be able to keep in mind the truism that not training is also training.)

All this talking about relaxation is turning out to be quite counterproductive.