Let Us
Let us resolve not to beat ourselves up.
Let us decide that each effort, fully given, is enough.
Let us not engage in self-imposed mental cruelty whereby we say to ourselves.
- "If only I had done it this way"
- "Why the heck didn't I do that?"
Over and over again in some kind of self-punishment circle of hell.
Let us not call ourselves names or speak poorly about our abilities.
No to:
- "I'm so weak"
- "I'm pathetic"
- "I'll never be able to do this."
None of that helps, really. We are who we are. We have what we have.
All we can do is give each effort fully, totally, in that moment.And that will be enough. It must be enough.Some days, we will be better. Some days, we will suck. That's life. Just work hard and try to get the hell over it.Whether it's in the gym, trying to eat clean, or in our lives as partners and parents and workers and sons and daughters . . . we must give all we have and then walk away from the effort.
- Learn what we can.
- Improve what we must.
- But not become our own worst enemy.
Life encourages competition – and we should embrace that aspect of ourselves that makes us want to drive harder and be more. That is good and healthy and real.But we must take what we should from an experience and no more.Mark Twain once said, "We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit on a hot stove lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore."
Many of us are what people call "Type A" personalities. We are achievers and leaders and inexplicable energetic forces of nature. The pressure is always on, the heat is always turned up. We only know this way to live our lives and not some other. But let us learn to turn that energy outward onto the wall-ball, and the barbell, and the kettlebell – and not inward to attack ourselves.
Let us be human to ourselves.
And let us go forth and kick ass in the gym, so that we may be kind in our lives.