There is no secret
routine, no magic number of reps and sets. Where there is, is confidence,
belief, hard work on a consistent basis, and a desire to succeed – Steve Justa
So it’s the middle of March, about two and a half months
into the new year 2013, and there’s a question that I would ask myself and
perhaps any one reading this: How’s your New Year’s Resolution? Have you stuck
with it, or did you throw it in the garbage along with the pounds of chicken
wing bones after the Super Bowl? This is not an accusatory question nor is it meant
to manifest guilt or shame. The next question is: do you observe Lent? What
have you chosen to give up as your penitence? Have you kept true to that as
well or have you faltered?
Many of you may have read my previous post about my path
from obesity to my current state of relatively healthy living. Being a skeptic
to many weight loss infomercials and success stories I hear and read about on the
news, online, or magazines, I would guess at least one person still doubts my
story or sees it as a unique story. Somehow, I had that extra help, or that
extra something, that special thing that made it easy or attainable for me to
lose the weight and keep it off. Was it pills? Was it an eating disorder? Was I
secretly really athletic and lean, and I injured myself, got fat, and then
easily lost it again?
The answer is no. I did not use pills. I did not have an
eating disorder where I deprived myself of food nor did I purge my food from my
body. And no, I was a fat kid growing up; you can ask my parents, my relatives,
and my few friends I still have from middle school and high school. There was
no secret silver bullet for me. I did not have gastro bypass or liposuction. I
didn’t jump on the fad crash diets or the diet pills.
I succeeded because I
DID NOT GIVE UP.
Giving up is a very easy thing to do. It does not take much
to skip that next work out. It does not take much to stop flossing. It is very
easy to no longer say your prayers, go to church, say “I love you” to your
parents. It is easy to forget to call your best friend (guilt of this so
often). It is very easy to say yes to that third brownie or that fifth Girl
Scout cookie. It is super simple to look past fruits and vegetables and aim for
the sodas and candies. It’s easy. And I am guiltier than the average person
when it comes to this.
So what is the danger in giving up on those things? What is
the danger in giving up my New Year’s Resolution(s) or not taking part of
whatever I gave up for Lent? It does not hurt anyone nor does it cause any
cataclysmic issue. It’s just working out. It’s just healthy living. It’s just Lent.
What if it becomes something bigger? What if you give up
your pursuit for that promotion? What if you give up your passions for whatever
you want to do in life? What if you no longer play at 100% because you’re
afraid of a slight chance of being injured? What happens when I start giving up
on the bigger things? I, as a human being, am a creature of habit. My habits
are a large part a definition of who I am and what I will do in the future. So
if I give up on the small things, the easy things, the things that don’t have
cataclysmic impact on my life, what happens when the big things begin to get
very tough, get harder, press me to the point of my breaking point? What
happens then?
Will I give up? Will I find an excuse to use? Will I justify
it with something easily refutable with the simple answer of “We make time for
what’s important to us”?
There are days where I hate getting up at 5:45 in the
morning to start my routine, to get coffee ready for Emilie, to take Cornell
(our dog) out to the bathroom, and then to also start working out. There are
days where I don’t want to go to Cycle X. There are days where I don’t want to
do something, skip something, and just give up. There are many days, more than
I would like to admit, where I just blatantly disregard what I know I should be
doing and do the exact opposite without a good reason. And what makes it uneasy
for me is that, most of this, is the easy stuff. Like getting in a workout.
The Real World out there, with its exponential
responsibilities and pressures, its cutthroat nature, and its unrelenting forward
movement, is a reality I face everyday. I may not face it full force like my
parents do, or the way full-time people experience it, but I see it and feel it
a little more each day. And the consequences and rewards of my actions will be greater
and more intense.
What does it say about me when I give up so easily? When a
simple resolution to myself, I cannot or will not follow it? What does it say
about me if I know the things I should be doing, but I do not do them? What
does it say about me when I do not make time for the things that are important
and make time for the things that are not important?
What does it say about me if I give up on the little things
in life… what will that tell people about what I may do when the big things in
life come up?
Perhaps I need to look at myself more, and look as to what
holds me back.
Is it a lack of confidence? A lack of belief? Am I just not
a hard worker when things get tough? Do I take pride in my work and myself? Do
I have a desire to succeed? Or maybe… what am I so scared of that makes giving
up that easy? Hard things to face. Even harder if I never face them, and they
come back to hit me very hard when the consequences get bigger.
Do you know what the
future is? The future is just a bunch of what you do right now strung together.
And what does that mean if you’re giving up right now? Trust me, there is no
future in that. I hope you don’t give up this easy in life, because it gets a
hell of a lot harder than this. - Christopher Fan
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