"It is a disgrace for someone to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which your body is capable"
- Socrates
For the longest time physical fitness was important to me. It still is. However my views, as vain as they may be, are waning. I set goals and I go out and meet them. Establish a goal weight and I get there. The toll has been taken. For the past year I used the good ole American gym and got wrapped up in what it had to offer. Quick and agile used to be the name of the game. Functional performance per say. I said goodbye to that and told myself, "I want to do what they do". Its as if reaching numbers would somehow improve my life. Coming from a naturally lean physique I would often get comments like "youre a lot stronger than you look". Thus boosting the warpath.
Dedication got me to a 225lb bench, 350lb deadlift, 210lb squat and so on. By all means nothing extraordinary, just respectable numbers especially for my height/weight. Numbers that mean nothing. My life was encompassed by eating. Cycling through soreness. 4, 5 and even 6 days in the gym. Battling various injuries. Paying for the gym. In the end it got me nowheres. Maybe even a bit backwards. Here I lie, incapacitated by a cyclical sickness that voids my life of heavy physical exertion. At least for now. But thats a different story.
Suddenly I realize what Ive done. Mirrors were my undying competition. I can never beat them. You can always be better. The never ending struggle is real and now, I dont care anymore.
It amazes me how quickly my weight returned to an equilibrium. Im on the path of healing. Never again will I forget about functional, real world performance when it comes to exercise and fitness. Pushing and pulling heavy things did not improve my life. I lost time, money and physical longevity.
Theres certainly more to life. I found out how strong I can be and it revealed how weak I can be.
