As I was bouncing around on Twitter the other day, I saw someone ask the question, “What do you do for your mind, body, and spirit?” It’s easy, of course, to answer that question with three answers. “Oh, I’m cleaning up my diet, I exercise a few days a week, and I meditate.” Nothing wrong with an answer like that… it means you’re looking after yourself.
But being the between-the-lines kinda guy that I am, I wanted to answer the question not with three answers, but with one. And so naturally, my answer was “CrossFit.”
Now, I never would have answered that question with any other fitness/exercise/sport that I’ve done (except maybe Nomadics), and I’ve done tons: intercollegiate rowing, yoga (bikram’s, ashtanga, hatha), triathlons, tai chi, full-contact martial arts, bodybuilding, you name it. Why?
Because you’ve got to embrace the suck.
Jon Gilson of Again Faster says it excellently in this must-read article:
When the knurling scrapes your shins, and your traps bunch into knots, you’ll make a decision, one that will affect every aspect of your life. Give in to the agony, and you will always give in. Cave to demands that crush you, and you’ll always cave. Roll to the floor, and you’ll always exist beneath those who choose to stand.
In order to make it through gruesome ordeals, you have to find a place in yourself that wants to overcome. Rising up to meet a challenge, toughing it out when high tide comes your way, and gritting your teeth and not giving up are the price of admission to success.
When you dig deep and muster up a performance that you weren’t sure you had in you, that teaches you something. It teaches you that you are strong, that you can withstand Shakespeare’s “slings and arrows”, and that your character, being what it is, is sufficient to the task.
“Embracing the suck,” then, is the hallmark of a champion. If you can look at a challenge, know it’s going to bite you in the ass, and still get yourself up to the starting line, then you’re playing the game for real.
You may not like it, but it’s true.
I know this may not sit well in today’s personal growth culture, where you can’t take a strong stance without the words compassion! and empathy! being hissed at you like you’re a demonic drill sergeant, just waiting to pound anything soft within range into cold, hard submission.
Now, before you write me off as a heartless bastard, know that I fully understand the roles of compassion, empathy, and proper timing. Too much, too fast, and you’ll burn out your engine, whether it’s your physical engine or your spiritual one. There are times when pushing means pushing too hard, and you do need to back off and give yourself a break.
But if you’re always giving yourself a break, and don’t have a mechanism in place that will take you past your comfort zones, you’ll never grow. And in my estimation, that would be worse than having never pushed too far.
It doesn’t have to be CrossFit, of course.
I’m not saying CrossFit is the only way. I’m not saying the path of the heart doesn’t have a thousand manifestations. And I’m not saying that there’s any one way to truth.
I am saying, though, that you have to find a way to go beyond who you’ve been. And in the rounded-corner world that most of us live in, there are precious few opportunities to see the kind of person you are, and forge yourself into something more.
If you can look at a challenge, know it’s going to bite you in the ass, and still get yourself up to the starting line, then you’re playing the game for real.
And personally, I happen to love physical exercise. I love the movement of muscle and bone, the expression of intention through physical activity, and the grace and poise that athletics can bring to its devotees. Maybe it’s because I grew up overweight and sedentary for so many years that I’ve come to appreciate the joy of feeling my body do what it can. I don’t need to ruminate on it anymore, honestly, trying to find a concise “why”; it’s a joyous, happy part of my life, one that I’m immensely grateful for.
Again, from Jon Gilson’s article,
Remember that the walls of the gym are nothing more than physical barriers, meant only to separate us from the elements. What you do within those walls will echo in your daily life, and you would do well to choose your actions wisely.
And that’s just it, isn’t it?
What you do in one area of your life echoes through the rest of it, doesn’t it? You can’t compartmentalize anything. It all plays together, it all makes a difference, and it all matters.
How you rest is how you eat is how you work is how you dream is how you love. What you bring to one, you bring to another.
Image by Malingering.
Wow, either this one offended people, or the picture scared you all away…
I enjoyed your perspective on this one Adam. For me, personally, since I’ve pushed so hard and know my strength, resilience, stamina come through for me as a first reaction rather than a learned one – I lean more towards the empathy, compassion, trusting myself point rather than testing myself to see if I can jump one more hurdle.
Hurdle jumping is something I’ve always done and I do naturally. Trusting myself is what really shows me what I’m made of at this time in my life.
This has been pretty much my nature all my life:
“If you can look at a challenge, know it’s going to bite you in the ass, and still get yourself up to the starting line, then you’re playing the game for real.”
The harder part has been trusting myself to create challenges that I really want to work with and THEN finding my stamina and strength. Creating in essence – rather than being a victim or reacting to others.
It’s never one or the other as you know. That’s why we have up and down, in and out, yin and yang.
It makes sense to me. . . though I may not have articulated it too clearly. It is a great picture though – and I’ve been in that spot many times before. Thanks Adam – I learn a lot from reading your stuff.
Thanks, Char – and you make great points about the yin/yang of the whole process, and how we go back and forth between times of relative ease and hardship.
It’s the waxing and waning, I think, that gives us balance – not trying to control our lives to always have it peaceful and easy, which many do (try, that is, not have it easy!). Learn/grow/push, then rest – for it’s in the rest times that we actually get stronger – and then push/learn/grow again. Expanding our boundaries through mini-cycles of on-again, off-again.
Oh well, I may not have explained that so well myself, but I think we’re on the same wavelength.
It’s refreshing to come across individuals like yourself. I am inspired by your post. It’s just recently (months) that I’ve arrived at this very insight – that the way to transcend my current reality is to boldly confront and challenge my fears; and enjoy the terror of discomfort and insecurity. It’s simple: One cannot move to another level if they insist on staying at the level they are at. As I read your post, it reminded me of a section in Steven Pressfield’s awesome book The War of Art, in which he asserts that being an artist is comparable to being a Marine – you have to love being miserable. That’s the same as your saying Embrace the Suck. This is what he says: “The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humilation. The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any solidier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.”
Thanks Adam. Bless.
Thanks, Glenford. I agree totally with what you said:
Sometimes there’s just no way around the fear, and the only move we have is to fasten our seat belts and go for it.
One of my long-time favorite quotes is from David Lloyd George, who said:
Thanks for joining in!