Why do we do this?

As I was lying nauseated and sweating on my yoga mat last night I kept asking myself why am i here? Why do I PAY to torture myself and be miserable? For free, I could be happily lounging upon my couch enjoying my evening readying myself for American Idol. But then again, that is never really the case once we have the knowledge that we should be active, we should release stress in the form of a heinously hot yoga room in order to thwart disease, the days of blissful, ignorant lounging come to an end. I've decided knowing too much is detrimental to one's ability to have real fun; to have down and dirty laziness accompanied by mass amounts of comfort food. The truth is if I could suffer and immediately walk out of the room looking like Heidi Klum's body double, I'd be happy to torture myself in the name of pure beauty. Instead the payoff looks something more like maybe I'll live to 80....without a humpback....without an extra 50 pounds....without pain. And there is the fact that I just lost my father to cancer. And the fact that my mother is scheduled for surgery tomorrow to remove a potentially malignant tumor. And the fact is...this runs in my family and I better do what I can now to avoid this outcome...so I will continue to suffer in the short run...hopefully purging my body of all things toxic...because I know it works and I know the alternative is not an option.