More on being a lifer - Digging your own grave

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”  ~ William Gibson

I love this quote, and used it as my facebook status last night.

One of the key tenants about life control, is understanding that you get all of the power in how you let things affect you.

At first this sounds very simple, almost like one of those sayings I hate, such as "everything happens for a reasons" or some such bullshit.

It's not.

Life is 10% of the shit that happens to you, and 90% of the way you respond to it.

The great thing in that is, YOU get to decide how you are going to respond.  There will always be things that happen to you over the course of your life, that are completely out of your control.  However, the great majority of your life, you get to decide what kind of life you are living everyday, from a mental or emotional standpoint.

For example.....

You've been busting ass everyday at your job for the last year.  You put in for a promotion that you know you deserve.  Then your boss brings you in and tells you that it was given to someone else.

What is your reaction to said news?

Anger, sadness, bitterness..........

And you tell yourself that you are justified in feeling that way.

Of course you are!  Why not?  You busted ass for a year for that promotion.  You know damn well you were qualified.  You also know that this assclown of a boss has a personal vendetta against you, as well.

Now you're really pissed off.

But you really make a decision to be pissed off about it, don't you?

To hold a grudge.  To be bitter about it.  This is your CHOICE.  And that's ok.  If you want to make the choice to hold a grudge, to live with venom and bitterness, that's fine.  Just own up to the fact that you are making the choice to do so.



You could just as easily say "well, that's that.  I have decisions to make.".  You could give zero fucks about it, and not let it ruin your day.

When you decide, DECIDE, to let it stress you out, you put the shovel in the ground, and help death dig your grave just a little faster.............

From the mayoclinic -

The long-term activation of the stress-response system — and the subsequent overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones — can disrupt almost all your body's processes. This puts you at increased risk of numerous health problems, including:
Heart disease
Sleep problems
Digestive problems
Depression
Obesity
Memory impairment
Worsening of skin conditions, such as eczema

That's why it's so important to learn healthy ways to cope with the stressors in your life.
Basically, choosing to be stressed out, pissed off, and butt hurt kills you.

Literally.

This shit can just as easily be applied to training.

You've trained your ass off for the past 3 months trying to hit this goal.  You go into the gym, feeling good, feeling psyched.  LET'S DO THIS!

You go for it..........and miss.

If you have trained long enough, you've had this day, and you've also probably let this failure do all the same shit to you, that ol boy who didn't get the promotion do to him.

Pissed off, stressed out, mad at the world.  Day ruined.

Why?  Over a god damn PR attempt?

Was that it?  If you didn't make that attempt your family got killed?  Did you contract cancer because you missed it?  What happened other than a missed PR attempt?

Oh wait, NOTHING.  It's a missed lifting attempt!  Something you can try again the next day if you wanted.

Chalk it up as what it is.  A missed PR attempt.  It's not the end of the world, or even the end of training.  It's just a learning experience.  Quit sweating bad workouts and missed PR attempts so much that you literally allow to steal hours or even days of joy from your life.

Worth dying for - 


Stress management can be pretty easy, if you want it to be.  Part of your code to live by.

Just ask yourself a simple question.......

Is this worth giving up a piece of my life over?

Is a job worth dying early over?

"Missed a PR attempt?  I shall come early, then"

What about the break up of a 6 month romance?

Someone who cut you off in traffic?

A creditor calling your house?

Missing a PR attempt?

Not being as "big" as you want to be?

Not being as lean as you want to be?

Defending your loved ones?

The death of a loved one?

Watching your son leave for war?

Giving your little girl away in marriage?

What is WORTH giving up a piece of our life over?

Do you see how some things clearly stand out, and others seem quite stupid?

Now step back, and realize how stupid it is to let certain things ruin minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months of your life.

This is a lesson I am learning daily myself.  This is not a "preach" session.  I write most of my opinion pieces as reminders to myself.  How I need to be living, and what is worth giving a shit about.

And part of being a lifer, is learning how to decide how much energy we are going to put into the things we cannot control.  This is why I always talk about not giving a shit about what someone else can do in the gym, or how they look compared to you, or any of that shit.  You have ZERO control over it.

So why the fuck invest energy into it?

Deciding to be apathetic doesn't mean you are lazy.  It means you just decided to give a shit about the things only YOU can control.  It is NOT the "average joe" mentality.  Every Average Joe gives WAAAAY too much of a shit about what everyone else is doing.

A lifer is elite.  Because he trains without a care as to what anyone else is capable of.  Because it doesn't pertain to him.  He trains to perform at the highest level he can.  He constantly asks himself how he can get better.  Not how he can be as good as the next guy.  Because there is someone better than the next guy....and there is someone better than him.  It pertains to him not.  So his world is his own.  And he trains to dominate there.

Part of dominating in that landscape, is making choices as to where your energy goes.  It's hard to be a fucking lion when you're all butthurt because you missed a PR attempt or aren't as jacked as the guy you saw doing curls in the squat rack today.

Never seen an engraving that read "still kicking ass"

Stop giving a shit about things you have zero control over.  It only ends you early, and it's hard to kick ass in a grave.

Back to the quote......

The next time you think your life is in the shitter, that you suck and your life sucks and your job sucks......ask yourself how much of your life REALLY sucks, and how much of it sucks because you think it does because you CHOOSE it to be.

Those are very different questions.

Ask yourself if you have people around you that make your life better, or if the people in your life bring you down and want you to live in the emotional abyss they do.  Remember that misery loves company.  Most people don't want to watch you rise above them, and above the place they CHOOSE to live in.  Leeches will always choose to try and hang on, all the while sucking your life out of you.

Cut them off.



And then make a choice, A CHOICE, to decide what is worth dying for in this world.