So when I was a young pup just getting into the fitness game, I had no idea what I was doing. I would just pretty much do what everyone else did and rely on whatever natural talent I had to get me the rest of the way. When you’re on a team, you can definitely get away with that. You can’t so much in individual sports like track and field.
In my first year of track, I pretty much worked out the same way I did for football. Made sense. You need to be fast in both right? True, but there’s football fast and then there’s track speed. The two aren’t exactly synonymous. But I digress. I was working out and doing the same thing over and over again and I wasn’t really getting anywhere. But the thing was, I was still faster than most people so it didn’t really bother me till I went to college.
There’s a story I’d like to tell before I go on that will give the rest of this here context. It’s an old story about a man named Abraham. In this story, Abraham lived a normal life. Kinda. He married his wife Sarah and took care of the land that his father founded. Only thing was that he was 75 and still living with his parents. One day, a realization finally came to him. He needed to get up and go explore. So he did.
Exploration Leads To So Much More
Now, Abraham had a pretty good life. He really had no reason to go exploring at all. He could have died happy exactly where he was doing exactly what he was doing, but he couldn’t because now he had a sense of adventure and he wanted to see what was out there for him. Long story short, life was not without its troubles, but it eventually turned out okay. Despite a few bumps along the way, including almost killing his son Isaac, Abraham lived a good life and he added to his family’s wealth because of his journey.
So why the story? Well, there are a lot of parallels to real life in this story. First, Abraham lived a good life, not unlike the version of me that was beating people on mere talent. However, that doesn’t always last for people. Rarely, is there a life well lived without a few explorations into the depths of our potential.
Potential
The thing about potential is that it’s not something that reaches for you. You have to reach for it and in doing that you’ll be taking action. Action, that very likely, is unlike any action that you’ve ever taken before and will undoubtedly take you where you’ve never been.
When I was training in high school I was training a certain way. It was the same workout every day. Bench press, squats, cleans, maybe some curls (you know why) and that was it. But when I got to college, it all changed. It had to change or there would be no way I could reach the potential I did in winning 6 All-American Awards and 3 team MVPs.
That’s the thing. You have all the potential in the world to be great. Most just don’t know for what. The thing is, the problem for most people, is that they are too afraid of the world to reach for their potential. They’d rather be comfortable, living a “safe” life. That’s totally understandable too. I mean, adventure is scary and it’s even scarier if you have no idea where that adventure will take you. But what’s life if all your experience is handed to you?
Life Well Lived
Could you consider a life well-lived a life in which you did the same thing everyone else was doing and never lived outside your box? Or worse, are you even living if you are doing the same thing day in and day out and all your problems are solved for you?
What’s a life well-lived?? Well, it’s a life in which your only regrets are that you didn’t start living your life sooner. Too often people get stuck thinking that someone is gonna save them and show them the life they need to live, or that someone will give them the answer to their problems if they stay helpless enough.
It’s not a conscious thought, but if you look around, people are doing it everywhere. Not living up to their potential and hoping either people won’t notice or the people that do notice will just show them the answer to their problem.
The Answer To Your Problems
The thing with this is that like with the story with Abraham, you can’t have the answers given to you. Abraham had everything he needed to be comfortable, but he wasn’t happy until he changed what he was doing and started to seek adventure. I’m not saying that you should go on more adventures here, but what I am saying is that if you’re not happy in life, you might want to consider looking to yourself for answers.
You see, in life, we are never happy. We can never win enough. We can never have enough money. Can never have the perfect relationship. But that’s what makes life great. The opportunity to improve on what we have. To sacrifice, put in the work, learn, execute, and improve.
What you have means little and if it was given to you, it means less. It’s rare that anything worth remembering is ever given to you. For it to matter, we both know that it has to feel like we’ve done something to earn it. Earn your way to a better life by taking action and venturing outside of your current way of doing things to find real solutions rather than hoping the solutions somehow come to you.
Jerry “helping your right now” Washington
P.S. Okay, I’ll give you a little help. Go to this link right here and click on Book Now to get yourself a free spot for our new stretch sessions. We’re blending traditional manual therapies (like you see trainers do for their athletes) and mobility training (traditional stretching techniques) in one powerful half-hour session. Use this free session all the way up until January 6th when we officially kick off classes and individual sessions…Talk soon!
