I have a hypothesis on hobbies: If you lie about the stuff you do, then you’ll eventually feel guilty enough to turn those lies into realities. 

Boxing was one of two hobbies that I had yet to start, and so I figured I could get myself into the aforementioned sticky situation by creating a sense of external pressure. I hung up two worn artifacts in my dorm to see if my roommates would notice: one, a tapestry of Mike Tyson and his pet tiger Kenya, and two, an inherited pair of dusty red boxing gloves, already branded with the alias “Tom Roberts” in Sharpie. I may have been living a lie, but I was ready to take on his legacy for myself.

UC San Diego Recreation must’ve heard about my top-secret experiment, because they began offering free boxing classes at Main Gym just a few weeks after my initial setup. Losing my old name in favor of “Honest Abe,” I immediately signed up for four weeks of classes and stood tall when I introduced myself to the folks I’d be boxing with. In honor of the truth, I gave away the details of my experiment when our coach asked us why we signed up. My answer about putting some “vintage decor” to use definitely raised some eyebrows in the room. 

I packed Tom’s gloves with me every Tuesday and Thursday. They blew up my bag to maximum capacity, and I sauntered around like a student-athlete, minus the blue backpack. Coach took us seriously, too, talking up a whole lifestyle around boxing. He gave lectures on pre- and post-meals, so I always had a banana peeled and chicken packed. He conditioned us with rounds of burpee-boxing-burpee 

sandwiches, so you know we worked up a good sweat. He also paired us up for shadowboxing rounds of imaginary fighting, which revealed my too-slow reaction time.  

Eight sessions later, I can visualize where I went wrong. My faulty reaction time was because of my less-than-ideal footwork, which I’ll add to my list of problems caused by the world’s weakest ankles. But I did leave with a great life tool: my left hook. If someone ever tries to come at me, you’d better hope they read this article before throwing the first punch. I’ve got a four-week-trained left hand, and it loves to do its thing. After a few more weeks of bananas, chicken, and burpee-boxing-burpee sandwiches? KA-POW! Not even I want to know what that left hook would feel like by then.

The off-season blues are hitting now, and I know I’m going to long for that boxing stink forever. The odor — akin to a middle school P.E. shirt forgotten in a locker over the weekend — didn’t only cling to our backs, but it showed up in our gloves and seeped its way into our dreams. The stench wasn’t the only thing th

at lingered either. Though I started boxing to fulfill my own lie, the class left me with a growing itch to get back in the ring. After all, I still have my footwork to fix and my left hook to strengthen.

All this to say, my hypothesis has now graduated to a theory, given this overwhelming success. I can publish this experiment, now that boxing has become a hobby that has crossed the line, from lie to truth. This transition required me to trek beyond my co

mfort zone, but it does feel freer here, on the side of the truth. 

Now, I just need to learn how to play the guitar. I’ll start by printing out some music sheets to dupe my new roommates next year. Don’t look at me like that — I told you, I’ve lied in the name of science before. By the way, if you want to co-author this experiment, make a list of things you already do and things you want to do, and just tell people you do it all. Then, slowly collect artifacts to amp up the believability. Get started whenever and trust that you’ll become the person you want to be. Tom Roberts, out.