The Long Road

Just a list of marginally related thoughts.

The value of discomfort exceeds the results gained. Hard work is not merely a virtue on it's own but it imbues us with qualities we have forgotten to revere.

We admire those who do uncomfortable things, yet we consistently choose comfort as our top priority. We chose to live as we are. We chose not to want adventure, but to have adventured. We want the memories and the admiration. We don't want the fame, we want the trappings that go with it. We want Total Recall. In this way, we rob ourselves of the real value of those uncomfortable things.

You do things the hard way, avoiding the left hand path of quick aesthetic results, and you come out the side as something more. Tougher and stronger certainly, but also filled with a greater reserve of will and spirit. It is not the results that grant you this, it's what you went through to get them.

Now days you're a bad ass if you get off the couch and do anything that involves a barbell. Deadlifting 135 pounds for reps is some kind of feat. 

We all have the same attitude you see so often in online games; anyone I can beat is a noob, anyone who beats me has no life and spends too much time in the gym. This is why bad asses can get away with deadlifting 135 for reps.

Sometimes working smarter is working harder. Being able to deadlift 540 once does much more for someone than being able to pull 135 for 20. If your goal was to set the all the plates on a thigh high platform, it would also be more efficient.

Most people understand what they need to do, you just have to convince them that it really is that simple. Lift progressively heavier things, do progressively harder aerobic work, eat well, don't push it too far and be consistent. Give people guidance on how to do this safely and you can get 95% of us to our goals.

Buying a DVD that tells you you'll lose weight by waving your arms in your living room is simply preparing an excuse for failure ahead of time. You should have bought a book that teaches you the value of arm waving instead.

Paleolithic man didn't have it right, he just didn't have the same opportunities to get it wrong that we do. Give a cave man a loaf of Wonder Bread and I have no doubt he'd eat it.

Agriculture isn't inherently bad, it's misused. The same could be said for grain.

We have forgotten that discomfort and boredom are often a fact of life. This is the best thing we can learn from contemplating Paleo man. If your choices for a bed are  a pile of leaves on wet ground or a pile of leaves on dry ground, you're going to be able to deal with being uncomfortable much better than people who use Sleep Number mattresses.