Hands & Legs

In the ‘spirit’ of Easter - pun intended - I want to share a quote I heard recently for the first time. I grew up in a Christian home and frequented a very Biblically-doctrinated church home, so it was much chagrin that I couldn’t recall hearing it before. 

“When you’re hoping and striving for something you want in life, you must have the humility and faith to pray about it, but you have to ‘pray with your legs.’”

It’s not so much of a quote as it is an aphorism, but it hits home. It’s a pretty good synopsis for a famous passage in the book of James, which I highly recommend everyone read (it’s four chapters, a little over 2,000 words, is very practical and clear, and can take less than ten minutes to read in one sitting). 

This precept simply means that if you’re going to ask for divine intervention on your behalf, you ought to be doing everything humanly possible down here on Earth to get it done as well. The Christian doctrine states this because, in the words of James the Apostle, “faith without works is dead.” Regardless of your religious beliefs, this must resonate at a near-spiritual level and serve you as an axiom of wisdom in Truth with a capital “T”. The reason I can claim this is simply because we have enough evidence. Think about the last time you had something absolutely amazing go your way. Chances are, it didn’t just happen e.g. winning the lottery. For most people most of the time, you can’t simply wish for something to happen and it works out exactly how you want. If you believe in a god, and you pray for something, why do you think a mighty and powerful creator of the universe would put effort into something you wouldn’t? A good parent wouldn’t oblige to that, neither a good teacher, mentor, or friend. If you do a little digging, the most supernatural and miraculous feats that we memorialize have a long laundry list of hard work, or “legs” behind the curtain. Championships won by an underdog, someone overcoming cancer, full court buzzer beaters, a person coming back to life after their heart stopped, The Hail Mary (it’s a famous football play), the West winning the second World War. All of these things, no matter how amazing they seem at the moment, are backed by someone somewhere putting in a lot of work. If you want something bad enough to think, wish, hope, or pray about it, then it’s you who should be giving those prayers legs. After all, I’m pretty sure skipping leg day is a sin.

Personalities of the Elite

The personality and characterization of top level, professional athletes seems to be of great interest to the general population as a whole. From press conferences, to social media, to Netflix documentaries, we’re always hungry for more on what makes them the freaks of nature that they are, how they go about their practice of greatness, and what occupies their brain power and attention. The root of why we care may vary a bit. For some, an inquiry into the possibility of repeatable behaviors of success. For others, pure unfettered fandom. Regardless, we often discover that these athletes, whose personalities are so highly sought after, are actually either very boring, a little odd, or both. I have a working theory about why this is, and the good news is that if I’m correct it should give us at least some broad actionable examples to apply to our own lives and behaviors. 

The first, and not necessarily relevant, reason to us today why high-level athletes seem so prone to privacy and a reserved demeanor is actually quite obvious. Due to the nature of their career and culturally popular industry of work, they’re quite literally in a spotlight at all times. If possible, there is a camera recording their every move and documented immediately on the internet for the rest of foreseeable history. You’d be reserved too. 

Nonetheless, the more pertinent reasons why these elite athletes seem to live to the beat of their own drum have much more to be harvested. For a moment, imagine we’re talking about the world’s leading research scientist in a field that you’ve never even heard of. They realized at a relatively early age that they had a gift. Then, they had to figure out where in the world that gift could be of value. Then, they had to navigate the waters of a conventional education, practice, and career path. Finally, as they began their professional career, they quickly rose to the top of the industry and are now breaking the mold. Discovering things we didn’t know existed. Finding answers to questions that no one thought to ask. Their outputs are a combination of both their natural gifts and proclivities, along with their undying work ethic. Their lane of expertise is extensive, but narrow. It takes a very long time and much funneling of focus to become an expert or elite at anything. It’s granular work. It’s hard and time consuming. They have to become an absolute nerd about their specialty. They don’t have time to watch the new season of Drama Island or stay current on the hottest new Crap album (rap and country). They’re not consumers in any sense. They eat, sleep, and poop their specialty. They’re on a mission and they have the very realistic perspective that all is fleeting. It doesn’t last forever. They’re movers and shakers. When it’s over, then they can sleep. They can do the celebrity thing. They seem quite boring and uncultured because, well, they are. Outside of their specialty, they don’t know, or care about much else. Elite athletes are no different. 

The way I see it, there are only about 3-4 categories of your life that you can afford to really excel in. Things like your faith, family, education, career, and health can easily be one of those categories. If you have an exorbitant amount of resources, maybe you can have more. In 82 years, if you want any kind of return on investment for your time and effort, you have to have an elite level of dedication into whatever those 3-4 categories are. If you end up becoming elite in anything, there’s a really good chance that whatever that specialty is, will end up stealing time and effort from the other categories of your life, no matter how few or important they are. You can learn a lot from high level athletes, even if they don’t provide as much context as the pure fandom insists on. You just have to pay attention. Look at bodybuilders during their competitive careers, look at Tome Brady, look at Kobe Bryant. During their careers, they said and did very little outside of their specialties. But you can, and someone has, written a book about the value of what they did. There are many blueprints on what it takes to become elite, but there likely isn’t enough written on the price that’s required, and there definitely isn’t enough written about how those two things are the same.

Physical Expressionism

In our lifetimes, the promotion of individual expression has been on the rise. These ideas can mostly be observed in art. Who among us can adequately define art, but expression is a close shot. In fact, expressionism is a genre of art. We express ideas, emotions, feelings, religion, in mediums of fashion, automobiles, photography, painting, music, and drama. As youths, we even express ourselves physically in sports, dance, ballet, gymnastics, and all types of play. If you’re not around kids often, you should stop and watch the next time you drive by a playground. Kids don’t need a rhyme or reason, sets and reps, exercise programming and methodology. They create games, they express with their bodies. One moment they're whacking a tetherball around a pole and the next minute they're trying to swing off of the monkey bars as far as their buddy. Then, a dump of dopamine hits after they’ve won a game and they take off sprinting like Forrest Gump because they can’t contain their joy. At some point between then and now, whatever age you’re at, we’ve lost that. We view physical exertion as exercise. Something that must be planned and regimented. Something that is a discipline. We’ve completely lost the ability to express ourselves physically. We don’t play anymore, we don’t do the monkey bars, we don’t try backbends on the living room floor, we don’t take a break from the standard corporate position (in a chair, hunched over, staring at a screen) to skip around the building. We could go down the rabbit hole of why, and it will likely never see an end. Instead, I’m proposing a revival. A physical expressionism revival. I don’t mean for us to launch an online forum and schedule a conference. I mean in our individual lives. And in individual ways. 

Children don’t choose activities on the playground based on their body type or if they feel like they’re too fat or too skinny. They choose their modality of movement based on what they want to do. On what they like. As we get older and introduced to more sports and regulated modes of movement, we gradually figure out what we’re good at and what we’re not. Eventually, we get boxed into one specific position of one specific sport and ride that out until we’re not good enough to compete at the next level, or we get told that we’re not athletic at all and cease pursuing any and all physical activity. Clearly, some bodies are not meant to do some things at a high level. Unless you’re born in Kenya, you will likely never set the world record for the marathon. Unless you’re born in North America, Scandinavia, or Canada, you will likely not win a Stanley cup. If you’re tall and skinny, you likely won’t be a good weightlifter. If you’re short and stocky, you likely won’t go to the NBA finals unless you’re in the stands. Fortunately for all of us, the ways in which we move our bodies and the things we can do with them are infinite. There are many human physical archetypes and morphologies, but there is only one of you. There is also not a direct correlation between your body type and what you like to do. Typically, we like things that we’re good at and when we’re good at something we tend to enjoy it without much effort, but that doesn’t have to be you. Hell, if Spud Webb can win a dunk contest, I think you’re allowed to try whatever you want. Regardless of what you like and what you may or may not be good at, it’s your responsibility to find out. Nay, it’s your gift to try out. Even if you’re not good at something, you won’t know unless you try. You may find out that you aren’t naturally gifted at something, but you love the challenge. You may not be great at something on the first try, and later on after practice you find that you’re excellent. 

My point is, your physical expression should be just as prevalent as all of the other artistic expressions you partake in. Not because I’m an elitist meathead (even though that may be true), but because it’s healthy physically, spiritually and mentally. Because you’ll set an amazing example for the children in your life to not lose that creativity and quality. Because you’re stuck with your body for the rest of your life, and you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and your Creator to not close it off to its possibilities. So, dance, sprint, stretch, lift, carry, play, throw, catch, dodge, chase, jump. If you need ideas, really, stop by your local playground. But for everyone’s sake… don’t stop and watch for too long.

Honest Mirrors

There’s a pointed line of questioning that can be applied to anyone at any time which, given that the subject being questioned has enough patience, will reveal to you (and possibly even them) what they put their faith in. The matter of if someone has a faith or not is invalid and this line of questioning is evidence enough for that. Another nugget of evidence is the simple fact that most people in the world at this very moment haven’t given up entirely on life, on existing, on being. That’s the definition of faith: a believing hope in something that cannot be known. But this isn’t about faith per se, it’s about exhibiting the causation that faith has on things far broader than what you believe to be your greater purpose. Down to the last second of every moment of every part of your life. Below, the questioner’s identity is agnostic and the answers are my own. Take what you will from my answers, but pay close attention to the direction of the questions and feel free to use this tactic to help you understand the identity and motivations behind those who don’t find you too annoying in a fairly expedient fashion. 

The setting is a normal week day at my place of work, during a session, coaching an athlete. 

Why are you here? Well, we had previously scheduled a session for this time and place and I wanted to keep to that; they pay me to be here as well as I want to be able to provide my service to this athlete. 

What service do you provide exactly? Formally stated, I coach athletes in strength and conditioning so that they have a more robust and resilient tool (their body) to practice and compete in the sports they play. 

And what about not formally stated? That’s a long answer in full. In short, I hope to educate them both in training/nutrition/recovery/health as well as in life/relationships/responsibility/character/values/principles. I aim to make myself into a positive figure of influence and growth be it direct or indirect. 

So why are you here, doing this, instead of something else that would allow you to have more impact on the front of your non-formally-stated services? As a young athlete, I was talented and had a good work ethic, but I had little-to-no people in my life with either the knowledge or desire to guide me in the way of training or the importance of it. 

Why does how you train matter so much? Anecdotally, because had I been given the guidance of my present self when I was younger, I would now be healthier and I also would have had the opportunity to fulfill my athletic career potential.

And why does making the most out of an athletic career matter? What is the importance of training? That’s another deep answer. Deeper than most believe. The ones who do believe in it often cannot articulate it. 

Well, if you can’t articulate it, you can’t really answer my first question. Sports and training both have deep roots in the foundation of human experience. Each is slightly different, but their history and relevance in all cultures is evidence of their importance. Sports haven’t always existed in the sense that we understand them now, but competition and play have. Play is a psychological testing ground for how we fit into society. It has parameters like rules, winners, losers, strategy, the morality of cheating or fair play, and sportsmanship - which is generally the ability to best another or be bested within the parameters of the game, but to not allow your emotions on that result to negatively affect your character outside the parameters of the game. Competition is inherent to nature. It’s the same thing as survival. It’s colder. The parameters aren’t something you can manipulate. If you try, the consequences can be as severe as death or worse. It’s the way of this existence and you can’t get around it. That’s why training is important. It’s a microcosm of a growth mindset. The concept that regardless of who you are or what your place in life is, there’s room for growth. That means there are an infinite amount of improvements that can happen as well as work to be done. This can be daunting or exciting, but the fact remains that once you stop training, you stop living. Training doesn’t have to mean in a gym with weights, it doesn’t even have to be physical training (although we live in a physical world at the moment), but it does mean growth, improvement, constant death of self to make room for more and for better. 

If you’re right about ceasing to live once you stop growing, why do you continue to grow? What are you growing towards? Why does it matter if you’re going to die either way? My professional, moral, and relational growth are downstream from my spiritual health. Because that realm of experience is so peripheral, I often have to make judgments on who I am as a person based on the impact of my decisions in the real world. Bad people do bad things. Good people do good things. If I can look into an honest mirror, I can see the fruits of my labor clearly and determine what kind of place my heart and soul is in. On the matter of death, I believe that what we choose to believe in and what we do in this life not only echoes in eternity, but determines whether we experience more life, or an eternal death. 

So your principles pertaining to your profession, they aren’t integral to your identity? You don’t hold a religious faith in what you do as a job? No. 

So what purpose does your job serve, then, if it doesn’t directly reflect what you have faith in? I believe my job offers elements that serve as paths leading upward to what I do have faith in, such as fellowship, sacrifice, beauty, humility, and personal responsibility. 

Why are you here? To practice my faith. 

Please understand that this line of questioning is intended to pin someone down on their beliefs (or lack thereof) of their purpose, and that it doesn’t always end on a positive or even definitive note. You can begin with why someone is doing what they’re doing at any given moment. Whether we realize it or not, everything we do is founded on a basis of faith. Sometimes it's faith in something we don’t think we believe in or even realize. Sometimes it's faith in something we deem unworthy. You can even try this practice with yourself. Write it down. Take your time. Just know that honest mirrors are hard to come by.

Transcend Your Lexicon

The transcendentals are a funny set of subject matter. What I really mean is that it’s funny how we treat them in our regular daily lives. There’s a dramatic scene in National Treasure (2004) when Nicolas Cage’s character reads an excerpt of the Declaration of Independence followed by, “people don’t talk that way anymore.” In many scenes of that film, the average person will roll their eyes or cringe at the corny sentiment being communicated, but that’s exactly my point. People are uncomfortable with rhetoric and discussion of things that are true, beautiful, and good. Cage’s character is right. We don’t speak like that anymore. I even receive criticism from a few of my readers for using big fancy words or jargon-y descriptions. There are a few problems with the validity of these critiques. 

The first, being the reading level of the average American as well as the plummeting reading levels of school-children since the conception of the Department of Education. Good riddance.

The second issue is that of the actual comprehension level necessary to read MMM or the Declaration of Independence: if either of these pieces of literature are impossible for you, I’m afraid you are the problem. If this is the case, I’ll direct you to some more appropriate reading material here until these articles aren’t too much work. 

Lastly, the problem with criticizing organized thought or commentary on the transcendentals is that in order to discuss them, you must conceive of things greater than your common reality. The origins and nature of things like justice, identity, evil, pain, chaos, and the afterlife simply can not be discussed with the same vernacular you use to tell your group chat about the tweaker you almost hit on the way to work. In order to understand even an inkling about things of this magnitude, you must search the depths of your soul and hope to articulate what you might see. You can’t do that with the vocabulary that Urban Dictionary and rap songs can offer. There’s a very good argument for the correlation between your range of vocabulary and your intelligence. Many psychologists believe that a vital part of our capacity to think is dependent on our ability to express our thoughts and feelings with words. It’s very difficult to express anything of importance if you don’t know many words. 

Don’t take this stern opinion for a call to exclusivity. On the contrary, I wish (and aim for) a culture that can and will discuss the important things, things above, on a regular basis. I look to the ancient Greeks in this respect. We assume that because we live in so much prosperity now, that we know all there is to know. If that were the truth, you wouldn’t be reading this now. Discuss the transcendentals, but do them justice. Do yourself justice.

Broken Toes

I’m a relatively young professional, but I’ve been the new coach to several new gyms in my day. Additionally when I travel, I thoroughly enjoy visiting new facilities. For the better part of most of my personal exercise, I workout barefoot. You can only imagine the unsolicited attention this must get. Just imagine a large, long-haired, tattooed meathead throwing weight around the gym, grunting all the way. By far, the most frequent commentary I receive is “aren’t you worried that you’ll drop a weight on your bare toes?” 

Anxiety is an interesting thing. It’s generally categorized as an emotion, and I would agree with that. However, it’s also been labeled as a medical condition. In lieu of this, the weak in character and psychologically-manipulative in our population have weaponized the powerful hold that anxiety can take for their own personal gain. This manifests in the world through the normalization of the over-expression of emotional discomfort, victimizing everything and everyone who isn’t a beautiful billionaire, and placing trigger warnings on everything. You must tiptoe around these people and the sheep who have bought into their game… if you want to remain in their good graces. If you don’t want to be cancelled. If you want to be politically correct. If you want to be an “ally.” It’s truly an unfortunate state of affairs and it has transformed public discourse into an obstacle course. Even moreso, considering that in this day and age, we have more public discourse than ever before. 

Regardless of if that spiel pissed you off or invoked an “amen,” the fact still remains that anxiety is simply an emotion. I can’t think of another emotion that we’ve overblown to this extent. Emotions come and go, everyone knows that. To treat an emotion like it’s a disease is to give it the power to become a disease. We’ve given anxiety that power. Our safety standards and our cultural pasteurization and our silly invented words to appease the SJW’s. The most mind-blowing thing about anxiety is that the subject of the emotion is not part of reality. Think about the last time you had overwhelming anxiety about something. Next month’s rent you don’t know how you’ll pay for, a test coming up that you’re not prepared for, premonitions of a significant other acting unfaithfully. All of those things, along with all things we experience anxiety about, are either in the future, part of an unknown reality we’ve conjured up in our head, or both. Anxiety invokes the most destructive and malicious conclusions we can imagine. That’s exactly what it’s supposed to do. It’s a survival mechanism. It’s meant to drive us to action, to do something about our potential problems. Instead, we treat the symptom. We try to feel less. We sit on it. We bottle it up. We hope it goes away. Anxiety is fear of the unknown future. It is quite literally the opposite of faith. 

The inquiries about dropping weights on my bare feet used to confuse me, but I didn’t realize why, so I would just dismiss them with a chuckle. The more it happened, the more I thought about it, and one day while fielding yet another one of those silly questions it came to me. I replied, “well, when was the last time you dropped a weight on your foot while wearing shoes?”

Choose Your Difficulty

This may not be the first time you’ve found yourself downwind from my lambaste of our culture’s literacy, and it likely will not be the last. Everything is hyperbole (this statement included). From casual conversations and recollections of interactions, to drama in family and friend groups, sports “analysts” on ESPN, politics, occupation-related situations, and even theological concepts - people are dramatizing and exaggerating all the time. The question isn’t “Why?” either, because we know that drama and embellishment make things exciting. We also know that we live the cushiest lives that this world has ever seen, and truly exciting moments can come few and far between. 

I had a defensive coordinator in college who was not only a great coach, but a great leader of men. One of his favorite and frequent proverbs was, “Things don’t just happen.” While this may seem a bit vague, you can easily apply it to almost any subject matter of high or low resolution. Choose one listed in the above paragraph and try it. My coach is right. Inanimate objects, ideas, goals, dreams - they don’t just come to life on their own volition. Even powerful entities like spirits, energy and ideals need a vessel through which they can act upon the world. We are that vessel. Action and agency in this life must go through people. The only exceptions to this are likely God and nature. I’d like to hone in on a very specific topic, one that I deal with on a near-daily basis. 

Difficulty. “Easy” vs. “Hard.” In the context of my job, I hear the literal words of people claiming all the time that a movement, a workout, or their perception of physical exercise at any given moment is “easy” or “hard.” That’s never sat right with me, and believe you me I don’t let it fly. Ask any of my athletes. Things don’t just happen. Unerringly, exercise literally never gets easier or harder. It’s simple physics. Let’s take an age-old example: the conventional deadlift vs. the sumo deadlift. If two identical people both lift the exact same weight, but one lifts with a conventional deadlift technique and the other lifts with a sumo deadlift technique, you might say that the sumo lift was easier. I would say, more accurately, that the sumo lifter did less work. 

Conventional deadlift (left) vs. sumo deadlift (right)

For all of you that didn’t pay attention in high school physics, the formula for work is a simple one. W=Fd. The amount of work done is always equal to the amount of force applied multiplied by the displacement (distance, for our purposes). So in this scenario, the force would have to be greater than the weight on the bar so that the lifter can actually lift the bar against gravity. The displacement is simply the amount of distance that the lifter would have to take the bar to reach the top of the deadlift. Well, we already established that not only are both lifters picking up the same amount of weight and that they’re identical people, so you can’t argue that one is stronger than the other. So, the only difference is the distance that each lifter had to take the weight. Clearly, the conventional lifter had to go further. In every sense, the sumo lifter did literally less work. So, is sumo easier or harder? Wrong question. Sumo is less work. You have to displace the weight less. For my fellow meatheads out there, this does not in any way settle the debate of “is sumo cheating?” so don’t even think about propagating that I’ve attempted to make such a claim here.

Finally, let’s remove the variable of another person. Let’s talk about you. Take a task, any objective task that has clearly defined parameters that you do on occasion. Sometimes you perceive that task as “easy” and sometimes it’s “harder.” Why? We’ve already proved that tasks don’t change. You know the Work formula now, so you can’t claim that things get easier or harder. What’s the difference, what has actually changed? There are only so many variables to the equation of work in your life. The one that’s subject to change the most is you. You are the source of growth or decay. You get stronger or weaker. You become more capable or more incompetent. You become wiser or more foolish. The world doesn’t pass us by, we remain stagnant. You become more resilient or you atrophy. You have agency, sovereignty, consciousness, willpower. Stop using the words “easy” and “hard.” Take responsibility. Things don’t just happen.

The Duality of Human

Welcome to the season of layers. Hoodie and sweats in the morning, tan lines and sweat in the afternoon. As the leaves grow back and the sky gradients from grey to blue, the weather invokes ponderance on nature and creation. Seasons change, Earth rotates and revolves, the galaxy twirls, the universe expands - or so they say. Rains begin again, and somewhere else a hurricane is brewing. A volcano is spewing, tectonic plates are rubbing, a howling tornado is blazing a path. The weather is so perplexing. Ever-changing and yet it never ceases. There’s never nothing. We try to predict, protect against, and we’ve even altered it both intentionally and unintentionally… but only marginally. 

Plants have become background noise in the urban eye. In a way they’ve always existed in the background, though they only thrive in the light. They work their chemical magic to survive, and it just so happens that the by-product of their toil keeps the planet’s surface inhabitable. The air, the soil, our food - all dependent on vegetation. And we rarely come into direct contact with a plant outside of a supermarket. But animals, beasts, creatures - they find it more difficult to go unnoticed. In fact, many of them have suffered and even disappeared at the expense of our interest in them. And yet, the ones that are sill here adapt. Varmints now live off of overused frying oil, leftover Cheeto dust, and Red 40. Dangerous and endangered wolves have learned to migrate hundreds of miles to discover favorable conditions. Tuna now wear hazardous plastic waste as jewelry. Cows, receiving a more preferable artificial influence, manage the conditions of forced obesity into a soft tissue that’s now known as the most delectable steak in all of history. This obscure, increasing stimulus from mankind has given rise to some unbelievable feats of survival at all costs. Despite the inherent acknowledgment that your golden retriever has a soul, the only thing animals can act on is their instincts for survival. 

These elucidations can and should have brought forth a plethora of thoughts, ideas and emotions about creation as we understand and experience it. I don’t mean Mother Nature. Cosmic creation. Whatever conclusions you draw from your thoughts on creation, one of the more important revelations to explore is that of our place in it. The universe’s breadth, the weathers’ paradoxical and erratic movement, plants’ cornerstone provisions, and wildlife’s insane ability to adapt - all of these qualities apply to you too. Mankind is part of nature in this life. Not only this, but we have something else. Something indescribable. A soul, consciousness, a larger cerebral cortex, opposable thumbs, whatever you want to call it. It’s unmistakable that we have something more, that we are something more. This entitlement can cloud our ideals and judgement thereof. Our superiority can compartmentalize our primal nature away. Oftentimes, this can be a beneficial thing for us and for others. It can also serve as a road block, extinguishing those qualities given to us for defense, survival and competition. Don’t be that human. Don’t willfully invite ignorance into your list of problems. Manipulate the part of you that is nature as a pedestal to get the most out of you that is not. Be nature. Be something more. Be a human being.

The Real Meaning of Dad (and Mom) Bod

It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to claim that we live in a physical world. While it is still objectively true (disregarding the possibility that we’re currently in the matrix), almost all of our daily processes, our reputations, and our jobs are dependent on the many virtual realities we find ourselves engrossed in. But, what about the physical world? It almost seems like the only aspects of life that thrive on the physical things nowadays are the necessities like energy, housing and transportation, or the advancement of hardware that brings us closer to living in a virtual reality. What about the advancement of the human body? I can only imagine that the average person from 2025 would get their ass kicked by the average person from even just 1925. Don’t get me started on a dude from thousands of years ago. Not only that, but I bet those people would be more attractive as well. I bet they didn’t struggle with infertility or had to avoid gluten either. Being physically ept isn’t just about being able to open the jar of pickles or to assert your status in virtual reality. It has massive implications that reach far beyond the conversation of “natty or not.”

The term “sexy” has been overused and incorrectly used, at least in normal social settings. But those are the settings that drive culture. Therefore, instead of “sexy” referring to a person’s ability to procreate - an all-encompassing term that includes physical fitness, inferences to a person’s cardio-respiratory state, diet, muscle mass, psychological state, strength, cognitive ability, proclivity to have a family and support it, even dipping into the possibility of projecting values and principles, essentially a better term for “healthy” - it simply brings associations like “lingerie, perfume commercials, and porn” to mind. You don’t have to be in the physical upper echelon of people on earth in order to procreate, but you do have to maintain a certain bar of overall health. And that bar, respectively, is getting higher by the day. Every single system and pathway of your physical being contributes to that ability. Most perceivable attributes of a person point to this ability in a person, even down to the more subtle things like your gait, mannerisms, breathing patterns, and tongue color. Obviously there are exceptions and unfortunate circumstances that can cause a person to lose their ability to procreate that aren’t entirely dependent on their choices affecting their health, but as of now those are still statistically secondary. We may have to reconvene on those statistics in a few years. Regardless, the point still remains that the qualities that make a person “sexy” are also the qualities that point to a very well rounded human being. And again, it’s not just about intercourse or what you could bench press in high school. 

The next time you get bored, look up statistics on how well attractive people do in the workplace in both getting jobs as well as their performance. There’s a reason cliché’s exist (because they’re true), and one of the oldest in the book is the pretty girl getting whatever she wants. But why is this the case? We can speculate, and many experts on this topic have. But in my humble opinion, it simply boils down to how we view health in a different light. In my lifetime alone, the amount of open discourse on the subject of people’s bodies has decreased dramatically. Referring to fat people as “fat” is now a hate crime. I’m not advocating for bullying, but I’m not sure that this dampening of rhetoric that elicits shame has been a net positive. Even if people refrain from talking about your body in front of you, they still treat you differently. When was the last time someone asked you to help them move? Hit the links? Play pickleball? Go to the gym, for crying out loud? Human perception is an extremely complex phenomenon, as we’ve discussed in MMM on multiple occasions, and the beauty (or lack) of people’s bodies have a huge impact on how we view other’s character, identities, and souls.

No matter how great an effect a societal shame can have on this subject, I can’t subscribe to prejudice. As there are exceptions in everything, just because a person is clearly not physically fit does not mean they aren’t an exceptional human on the inside. Humans are resilient, if nothing else. Some of the most impactful of us throughout history have had terrible eating habits, physiques, substance issues and even physically incapacitated. That’s why I believe that the right steps moving forward are not to shame those who are struggling, but to highlight those who have understood this implicitly. Not idolize, but to promote their decision-making, inquire about their processes and encourage their healthy - or sexy - habits. A fantastic example of this is an Instagram account I came across recently that I can’t recommend enough. Enjoy… and invite a friend to the gym.

Outcome of Input's Output

I haven’t forgotten that I’ve committed to the realm of the transcendent for this editorial, but I am after all, a professional meathead. Therefore though I promise to deliver an important and unique thesis today, first I must use the analogy that birthed this revelation as it pertains to some nuances of nutrition. Following, I will give a few examples of physiology responding to dietary choices that will reveal a pattern for your recognition. Please understand that to avoid getting you lost in the sauce I’m attempting to keep it fairly simple, but there are many more proven similar instances and they are much more complex than I’m reducing them to.

In the wild, mammals that hibernate will often eat an increased volume of sweet vegetation like honey, fruits and berries as they approach the winter. This is not necessarily a conscious decision, as they rely mainly on instinct, but additionally because those sweet treats cause a hormonal response that affects the animals’ brain chemistry making them feel more hungry the more they eat. As well, these high-sugar foods give them the energy needed to consume the huge amount needed to survive the winter asleep. By the way, we may not hibernate, but we are mammals, and many foods (natural or not) that contain high levels of sugar affect us in a similar way.

Recent studies and anecdotal trends have been reported on exhibiting interesting examples of school-aged children having extreme changes in behavior when avoiding artificial food coloring in their diet. In increasing numbers, this narrative tells of a child with some sort of attention deficit, unruly behavior, or a combination of both. After exhausting traditional outlets for these issues, the parents of the child would then restrict the child to only eating foods without artificial food coloring. Within a matter of days, most of these stories revealed better behavior, focus, sleep and all around well-being. Some of these examples even reported a reversal of medical diagnosis in cases like ADHD. 

There’s a common misconception that ultra-processed foods provide you with less energy because they aren’t “natural” and therefore don’t digest well in our bodies. The fact of the matter is actually quite the opposite. These “foods” have fallen under scrutiny recently and the definition of what I’m even referring to may be murky. For simplicity’s sake, think of fast food, things that contain more than 3 ingredients, and anything with ingredients that you don’t know or can’t pronounce. These ultra-processed foods are actually more calorie-dense, meaning that they provide more energy than “natural” or whole foods. In addition, because digestion is a form of processing, these foods are actually easier and more rapidly digested than real food. Therein lies the rub. Finally, while these foods digest easily and contain more energy, they have far less micronutrients like vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytochemicals. Due to all of these variables, these ultra-processed foods are extremely well designed to be over-consumed as well as create the illusion of less energy through the lack of micronutrients. Therefore, we eat more of them, feel worse, and blame our metabolism, genetics or stress. 

While it may now seem like I’m yelling at you for your terrible diet, I want you to detach from that conceptualization and look at these examples objectively. Where’s the common thread? What I’ve recognized through these examples, along with many more like it, is that your diet is much more a game of knowledge, psychology and behavioral modification rather than simple discipline and good decision-making. You may have already opened up a few doors to things you didn’t have any clue about in regards to nutrition just in this blog, and that’s the point. But at a more fundamental level, this issue isn’t about science, calories, nutrients, or motivation. It’s about understanding what elements of the equation are inputs, outputs and outcomes. We view every bite that we take as a conscious decision, and whether we (or Science) deem it as good or bad, it’s unequivocally an input into the equation. That’s where most of us have gone wrong. A bite, a snack, a meal, an entire diet is not just an input. Depending on the chemical makeup of what we eat, it can (and most of the time it does) influence how we feel and affects our microbiome, neurological system, psychology, and in turn - our decision-making for the next meal. Without this articulation, we spiral into eating more and more garbage, continuing to feel worse and worse, becoming less and less motivated to exercise because we can’t keep up, and this rabbit hole can easily lead us into a storm that looks a lot like depression. That’s a subject for another day, but the point remains: inputs are not always just inputs. This very real concept can easily be spotted in patterns of other aspects of life, and it has. But this is where I’m going to leave you today. It’s up to you to determine the depth and breadth of your inputs in morality, exercise, business, school, parenting, religion, relationships, etc. Your actions are rarely 100% accurate. Many times their impact reaches far beyond your intended effect. Examine this, and you may just discover the current culprit in your life.

A Modern Maxim

Despite the universal ambiguity of yesterday’s game, the Monday succeeding all SuperBowls should be a national holiday. I truly think that would be one executive order that people from all walks of life could get behind. And yet, here you are. Either begrudging your morning routine, sitting at work procrastinating, or maybe you declared it a holiday for yourself and you’re avoiding your professional responsibilities today. Regardless, you’ve come to the right place. Today, I’m not going to take you on a philosophical rollercoaster or make references to obscure, seemingly-unrelated facts just to tie them up like a pretty bow at the end of some profound revelation. Today, I’m going to do my best to elaborate on one of my personal favorite adages that has been both fervent inspiration and S-tier comedy in modern meme culture. Preceding its utterance, I want to first give it meaning. A shape, a size, a vibe. 

The yang, or substantial, side of this concept reflects the spirit of perseverance within encumberment. It’s the attitude of a widely unpopular athlete who becomes not discouraged, but even more motivated when the scope of fandom conspires against them. It’s the embodiment of faith, hope, and destiny when there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I’m referring to the whole-hearted belief that there’s a way out of the dark abyss in the hero’s journey. It’s not just a belief, however. It’s the work, the planning, the account for contingency that’s necessary for a purpose within great adversity. It’s the lighting of a match to make your own light in the tunnel. It’s the incarnation of responsibility. It’s submission to destiny, but leaving nothing to chance. This idea is an enduring work horse that won’t stop until the job is done. 

The yin, or precarious, side of this concept reflects the spirit of a frat boy who’s discovered the spunk to streak across the field during the halftime show. It’s the personification of desperation without the psychological angst that comes with it. It is unprepared efforts approaching a giant endeavor that simply smirks and utters, “Full send.” This is the headfirst dive into the tunnel when you know there’s no light. This is also the unmitigated energy that Lady Luck favors. I don’t know why, and none of us can know. In order to put on this aura, you can’t know the odds. Like Han Solo, don’t listen to the stats or the dangers and risks or even the pertinent information that’s considered necessary. It’s too late for preparation at this point, and it’s going to be more beneficial for you to tap into a care-free, yet maximum-effort state of being. This idea is a feral mongoose leaping into a snake pit, without the knowledge or care of coming out alive. 

The elaborated sides of this coin are necessary, because had I begun with the phrase I wouldn’t be able to ensure you would take this seriously. However I assure you, these articulated thoughts appear in an amalgamation of excitement and motivation in my head every time I think or hear this phrase. Without further ado, I sincerely hope my description can help in some way for you to approach resistance today, because no matter how tired you may be or how much work you have to do or what the odds are against you, just:

“THUG IT OUT”

— A wise hoodlum

The Matrix is Nigh

The Enlightenment was a revelatory and revolutionary event for mankind. In short, the commoner discovered the value and utility in the practice of reason. It’s difficult to fathom the gravity of that event now, because it’s almost more than second nature to us now. In fact, reason is so natural to the modern westerner that we’ve developed endless pathologies that stem from this innate ability. Ironically enough, this phenomenon has rendered The Enlightenment null. The proof of this claim is the simple fact that we have more knowledge and information to empower our reason than ever before, and yet the most widespread epidemics of physical and mental disease are more than ever before. There’s no reason why we should have as much anxiety, addiction, obesity, cancer, suicide or war if we have more reason than ever.

Presently, we find ourselves (mankind) at the precipice of a new cognitive dilemma. If you search the Ngram of the term “worldview”, you’ll discover that we’re at the peak of a 45-year exponential interest in this concept. This is important for two main reasons, as far as I can tell. The first is that the term “worldview” likely didn’t even exist before The Enlightenment. Don’t even mind the difference in terminology, because the concept as a whole of “worldview” was the exact same thing as “perspective.” If the common man could not even reason for himself, he likely didn’t consider that he could believe something about the cosmos that he hadn’t experienced for himself outside of a faith in a deity. The second reason that the meteoric rise of the term and concept “worldview” matters is because simultaneous to its spread, the internet was born (1983). I don’t believe this is a coincidence. 

Your perception is extremely complex, but that deep-end-dive can be taken another day. For our purposes today, individual perception can and should be understood as the literal and metaphorical lens through which you experience the world. What you see, what you focus on, what interests you, what you feel, what your instincts tell you, how you react. It's a primal characteristic respective to your worldview. At least, it can be. Your world view has much more wiggle room. It’s articulated. It’s thought through to a degree. If you’re wise, it’s organized and methodical and can be supported and reflected by your highest values, principles, beliefs and actions. It can be manipulated. You can change it. It can adapt and grow, it can become infinitely more nuanced and high-resolution. If your perception is who you are currently, your worldview can be understood as the perspective of the person you will be in the future. Your distinguished thoughts about the world will certainly shape your perception as you aim toward the being that fits best with your worldview, intentionally or not. Thanks to the internet, we now have an overwhelming stock of lenses to try on. This is not a binary “good or bad,” but a catalyst for the outcome of our use of the internet. It is what you make it. Your perception of people, experiences, locations, ideas, theologies, discoveries, theories, etc. is subject to infinitely more than that of the pre-internet or pre-Enlightenment people. 

This immense library also influences your worldview. This is simply a matter of controlling your information input as well as sifting the wheat from the chaff. Basically: pay attention to what you pay attention to. If you’re not, if you passively consume the internet, you leave your worldview, and therefore perception, and therefore behavior up to the whims of the internet that day. Or, for however long you blindly consume the greatest expansion of information that this world has ever known. You may begin to assume that my charge to you this morning looks something like “avoid doomscrolling.” However, that’s actually not helpful at all. We’ve established that more knowledge does not transfer by default to more reason. We’ve also established that a broader perspective does not transfer by default to a better, or even different, worldview. My charge to you today was best uttered by someone else:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

— George Santayana

Every moment that you have perception is an opportunity to make a conscious choice on what to do with that datapoint. It doesn’t matter how much of your perception comes from the internet, as long as you can muster the gumption to filter it through your worldview. Even though a large part of modernity has rescinded The Enlightenment, you don’t have to. Become enlightened. Use your God-given reason to mold your perception into a path that leads you toward the role you want to play in your worldview. Because if you don’t, the third adaptation of The Enlightenment (AI) will provide a perception for you. It won’t be just a movie for much longer.

What am I?: A Riddle

I’m everything

I could be nothing 

My value is determined when you act

Forever bluffing.

A light at night, or 

A cloud overhead

Your disposition aims my direction 

You decide what’s said.

All that could be, and 

Even some that won’t

Do your worst, but you will never reach me.

But, measure me? Don’t.

I court hopes and dreams

I crush weak spirits

I’m perceived best by those whom I’ve deceived

Vague to those nearest

Everything and 

Nothing are only

My limits, for when you ascend or fall

You leave me lonely

Delusions of Better or Worse

We all know someone, or multiple other people, who have a few screws loose. The mentioned can often be qualified by chronic and consistent anxiety, tardiness, forgetfulness, sleeplessness, neglect, inconsistent physical health, avoidance of personal responsibility, victimhood, and overall failure to operate as a functional member of society. The word “delusional” comes to mind, but it carries such a nasty stigma. However, a deluded perception of reality is exactly what leads to any or every characteristic listed above. It may sound harsh, but debilitating delusions afflict many more people than we’re aware of, and you may be one of them. After all, being delusional requires you to believe you’re not in a delusion. As soon as you realize that you’re in one, you no longer are. 

The most direct and logical conclusion upon the articulation of this is one of practicality. How can I improve my life once I realize exactly what delusions are? In any endeavor, if you’ve stumbled upon adversity or even failure, don’t rule out the possibility that you’re delusional. Not completely, but maybe within a very specific part of your life. The human perception is not just a camera attached to a computer. We don’t see things as they are. We project our premonitions and emotional state onto our sensory inputs. Then, we must discern reality from delusion and act on what we believe is the closest thing to the truth. The next time you’re late, accept the potential fact that you’re either not as urgent as you think you are or that you don’t care about the purpose of the event as much as you may think you do. The next time you injure yourself in a workout, face the reality that you’re either not as fit as you think or your recovery routines aren’t as dialed as they should be. 

The next, and maybe most pertinent lesson that should come out of this conception is that of empathy. If the above paragraph or either of the examples make sense to you in any way, there’s a really good chance that we’re all delusional. At least for most of us, in our own little quirky ways. For some, in very serious ways that’s disastrous to their lives and to the lives of those around them. The point is, if you can find a small, seemingly insignificant delusion in your weekly life or even on a daily basis, we’re all susceptible to falling delusional about things big and small. Therefore, the next time you find yourself frustrated, hurt, or even betrayed by someone you know who you believe to be seriously delusional - consider compassion. They most likely don’t realize they’re delusional. If you care about this person enough, seek a constructive path for them to return to reality and responsibility. If you don’t feel a burden of responsibility for the person, proceed with caution or do not proceed at all. Uncontested delusions that have been allowed to flourish look like Nazi Germany, cult members, and people who trust the federal government. 

On the other side of the coin of delusion is a glimpse at the effort to imitate The Creator of the heavens and the earth. Our complex consciousness can serve to be a tricky place as we’ve discussed, but if we can see through the malevolent, prideful, and dishonorable spirits of delusion we can create a not-yet-real future for ourselves and others that’s exponentially greater than that which could be without this ability. Try to imagine the bleakness of a world where artists like Michelangelo or Van Gogh couldn’t access their muse. Try to imagine the primitivity of a world without innovators like Edison and Jobs. Try to imagine how much worse your life would be this moment if you hadn’t persevered in moments of hopelessness in your past. We’ve all had them, and the reality of our future was dark. But there’s something inside of us that allows us to imagine a world, a life that doesn’t exist. In this sense, it’s a delusion. However, if it’s properly managed, you can turn this hopeful delusion into a reality. Our consciousness, our sovereign desires and aims can literally alter the fabric of reality. It’s an amazing and terrifying thought. We can choose, at literally any moment, to break out of the matrix and hack the system. Right there is the difference. We must choose. Your proposed reality must be extremely intentional. If it’s not, that means something else is determining the intended outcome. I’ll let your mind run wild with exactly what that could be. 

You are not responsible for the initial content of your thoughts and feelings. But you are responsible for how you behave in accordance with those figments from the ether. Confront your life, your delusions, your hopes and dreams. Stare deep into the abyss that is your long-held perceptions of this existence. Ensure that they’re aimed upwards. Ensure that the false world you imagine you’re a part of is a world that’s better than the objective reality that we’re inevitably blind to. Use your humanity as it was intended.

Imaginary Things are Making your Life Unnecessarily Harder

We may be a little later than most places, but in Texas it’s starting to get chilly. Every year, when this begins to happen, it draws the mind to a grey place. Darkness, quiet, soup, clothing layers, fireplaces, snowmen, but mostly the cold. As the cold becomes more harsh, it makes me ponder the fact that ‘the cold’ is really only a figment of construct. ‘Cold’ is only a term we use to describe relatively low temperatures. It depends solely on the antithetically very real quality of heat. 

Such things as cold, like darkness, the quiet, white, vacuum, etc. are sometimes referred to as privatives. A great use of them in context  is this Einsteinian myth. In a brute fell swoop, privatives simply represent things that aren’t real. The concept is often only discussed in philosophical and linguistic cohorts, but I think I’m able to thread a slightly different and more relatable needle.

Aiming at a parallel, early in recorded human history, there was a teacher by the name of Quintilian who believed that what is not written in literature is just as important as what is written. This anti-privative approach to written works saves the reader from unnecessary details and allows for communication that’s clear and effective. While we would certainly be at a loss without words like ‘cold’, ‘quiet’, and ‘evil’, an observation of more concrete privatives will reveal how we participate in a lifestyle of excess with marginal optimization (at best) to show for it. 

This concept of lack, negatives, privatives doesn’t need only apply to science, philosophy or literature. When we’re faced with problems or even just slight discomforts in the modern world, we seek out a remedy of supplement. It’s another Kitchen Aid accessory, the newest colorway of Stanleys, the fashionista clothing box subscription, the latest ‘protein’ snack, your very own in-home cold plunge, the fitness smart watch that tracks your turd shape and size. Sure, these things can have a place in our life, but there’s a good chance that supplements in excess are actually detracting from your quality of life as a whole. As with any endeavor of value be it fitness, career, school, parenting, sports, mental health, etc., the variables that will move the needle 90% of the way are the actual disciplines of the thing that you’re doing. Not the supplement. You’ve heard “less is more” but have probably never understood it. Everything you do, every decision you make, every step you take is a trade off in some respect. Whatever you do in any moment is a sacrifice to all of the things you could be doing otherwise. But, if you can eliminate the supplements, wipe your slate clean, start over, you’ll gift yourself the opportunity to do life at a high level because there’s nothing to sift through to get to the issue at hand. I’ll leave you with this bombshell because it’s a conversation for another day, but anxiety is the most dangerous privative of all. Eliminate the privatives in your life.

The Secret to Success is Willingly Hidden

The concept of success is fickle. Instantly, monetary accumulation comes to mind. However, the definition of success is truly in the eye of the beholder. Most dictionaries will lead you to believe that it’s simply the result of a set aim or goal, and most of them aren’t too far off course. I like to imagine success being the relative accuracy between reality and an ideal or goal. However close you are to who you want to be is exactly how successful you are. When you conceptualize it this way, success becomes very clear and very scary. Immediately, it loses its appeal. Why?

When you view success as the fruits of labor, you’re looking through rose-colored lenses. This is a fallacy for two main reasons. The first being that on average, the time, effort and resources put into something meaningful will always tip the scales on what pops out the other side. This is not to discourage chasing a goal, it’s simply an existential fact. That’s why the old adage about “if it sounds too good to be true…” is so reliable. The second reason can be quickly proven by asking anyone you deem very successful why they do what they do. The answer will undoubtedly not be to reap the benefits of their labor. Those who chase success will fail. Highly successful individuals are motivated to provide, to create, to grow, to experience, to compete. The success is supplemental. In the Old Testament, God offered King Solomon anything he wanted. Solomon asked for wisdom. God gave that to him and much more. King Solomon is still believed to have been the most wealthy human that ever lived. So, while success should never be a person’s sole purpose, how is this discernment supposed to serve anyone? 

Let’s revisit and reframe the question from earlier (that I still haven’t answered): When you define success correctly, and now when you understand that the result of success should never be the aim, why does it feel far less attractive? The driving factor of success is responsibility. I don’t have to explain why that word makes you shudder. It’s expectation, it’s pressure, it’s stress, it’s accountability, it’s discipline, it’s respect, it’s work, it’s health, it’s details, it’s long days, it’s late nights, it negates excuses, it doesn’t point fingers. All of that from the person in the mirror. If you want to be successful in your life, you must retrieve a desire for something other than a trophy, and you must be brutally honest yet overwhelmingly nurturing to yourself.

Turning the P.A.G.E.

The momentum has slowed. The joy and excitement was built for over a month long. We did the thing, opened presents, ate candy all day, played with our new toys. Now for a whole week we’ve done nothing. The only reason you know what day it is now is because you’re reading MMM. Sure, you could go out with a bang in 2024, but I doubt anyone wants to start 2025 with a hangover. 

Before you start rolling your eyes, I’m not launching an assault here. With public editorial pieces, be it a nationally-subscribed newspaper or wanna-be influencer post, there are almost always one of two narratives. It’s either ‘Here’s a foolproof system for staying consistent with your habits to achieve your resolutions’ or ‘You should have already been doing what you’re supposed to do, so if you need resolutions then you have no discipline’ and there’s no in between. This post is neither. By all means, celebrate a holiday. Ring in the new year with a kiss from your sweetheart, drop the ball, toast the glass, eat the lucky peas.  Whenever it is that you’re ready to start the new year, please continue reading. 

If you’ve ever had a legitimate New Year’s resolution, or even any long term goal, you’ve probably heard of the SMART goal framework: Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant Timely. It can and has been a great tool for many to help outline a goal. The problem with this is that the system does almost nothing to help the user understand the daily, practical efforts that are needed to actually reach a long term goal. That’s what I’m here to do. I don’t claim to be any sort of expert life coach guru, but I do claim to be very good at my job which is to objectively make athletes better at their sport by teaching them how to use training in an aggressive, but methodical way. It turns out that this process that I use with athletes can be extrapolated to almost any other system in life because your body makes gains in a very similar way that your mind and your soul do. 

Without further ado: The Pragmatist’s Approach to Goal Execution (P.A.G.E.)

1 - Inception. This is where nearly the entire SMART framework fits in. This is taking your emotion, motivation, obligation, etc. out of the ether and being able to put it onto paper or on the calendar. Go ahead, do it. 

2 - Categorization. Now is where you place your goal into one of two paths: Lifestyle or Objective. An achieved lifestyle goal would look like a way of life that is brand new, different in one or many ways, and hopefully in a positive way. An achieved objective goal would look like a singular or cumulative measurement that can and will happen at a specific moment in time e.g. a dollar amount in your bank account, a promotion at your work, amount of weight lifted in the bench press, purchase of a home. Pick one.

3 - Appraisal. This step is a little more personal and requires a bit of discernment, so pay attention. Everyone has a value hierarchy (whether you know it or not) and determining which value[s] your goal impacts most will help determine how you go about navigating the next two steps. Look at the broad value hierarchy below, adjust the structure to your own life accordingly if needed, and insert your goal where you think it’s best suited in one of the 5 sections.

4 - Implementation. Based on how important your goal is to your life as a whole should determine how often you visit it within the routine of your life. Here’s the rub. If your goal falls into the categories 1-3, it should be a daily practice. I truly hope I’m not breaking this to you as news, but if you don’t interact with your faith, your family or your health in an intentional way on a daily basis, your value hierarchy is out of whack. If this is, indeed, hitting you in this moment, I’m glad to have been able to help. All of that to say, if your goal falls into one of these categories, your aim should be to practice it and set micro-objectives every single day to work towards your goal. Even if that means reciting a 15 second prayer, sending a text to a different family member each day, or taking a 10 minute walk after dinner before you lock in on HBO Max, then do it. 

If your goal falls into categories 4 or 5, the challenge now becomes gaining ground on your goal without allowing your practice to fade and simultaneously not over-doing it. Re-visit Step 1 (the SMART goal section) and find your estimated day of goal-completion. Now, break that time up in half. Determine a half-SMART goal time and put that on the calendar. Now, break those two sections each in half and do the same thing. Do this as many times as needed until you reach the highest resolution time period possible, be it every other day or once per month. This seems trivial, but every time you go to schedule your week or look at your calendar, it will be enough reminder or enough of a governor to appropriately sacrifice your time toward achieving your goal. Be disciplined in the sense that you’re as strict as possible with this. Not doing more or less that what you’ve already prescribed, as to not misplace this endeavor in your value hierarchy. 

5 - Adaptation. While the execution of Step 4 seemed fairly more complex than a SMART goal, Step 5 will really throw you if you’re not attentive. Let’s say, for example, that your goal fell into Category 4 because you want a new job that pays more. Let’s also say that you’ve determined that you need to apply to at least one new position every week until you’re hired to said job. Let’s then hypothesize that you were consistent for 5 weeks and then you missed a week because you spent the week traveling for a family event. Two notes. The first, look at the reason you missed your weekly objective. Family. Where is family in your values? Much more important than your career. Even though you missed your weekly objective, you can be grateful that your priorities are in order. Don’t allow this situation to dampen your time with your family. Secondly, how do you go about handling the failure of this situation? I see three possibilities. You can “make it up” by applying to two jobs the following week, you can simply resume the plan and let byegones be byegones, or you can let your disdain about your failure pull you into a downward spiral until your goal fades into the background. Speaking to the first two, as long as this plan of action doesn’t impede your value hierarchy and place your career above something that’s supposed to be more important to you, I see no problem with either. I won’t even address the last possibility. 

This is a specific, but relatable and practical example of how to adapt to objective failure or the regular curveballs that life likes to throw at us. Always refer back to your value hierarchy and stay true to it in your lifestyle. Otherwise, your goal will become your god. Then, when 2026 rolls around, you will have moved backwards in life. 

The possibilities of what this could look like for your life and your goals are literally endless. That’s the beauty of it. Anyone can use it for any goal. The problem with it is that it’s a model. It’s a system. No system is perfect. Think of the most powerful system you can imagine, and immediately you can conjure up grievances you have with it. If the most that this post does for you is to spark an idea to come up with your own model to accomplish a goal, then it did its job. You must have agency to accomplish a goal. You must have autonomy just to set a goal. Pay attention, be specific, be disciplined, and remember what you value. I’ll catch you next year!

Morals and Laurels

Humans are the most adaptive, and cognitively developed beings in the known universe. We got here through ages of fighting off predators, scavenging for food, learning use of tools like fire and the wheel, and trusting in our biological senses to survive and pass down our genetics. A small, but crucial piece of our genes is a unique ability to “run on autopilot” so-to-speak. By design, many days out of our year look 95% the same which saves us an unimaginable amount of energy for when it matters. That schedule of predictability is about to disappear (if it hasn’t already) and will not return for a fortnight. Interestingly enough, this sacrifice of our routines will be in the name of our traditions and celebration of the things we hold in the highest. Christmas - the birth of The Savior. Hanukkah - the festival of lights. New Years Day - a chance at change, a fresh start, and reflection. While this time is integral to what makes us human, those values can often be overlooked by the commercial versions of those holidays that are shoved down our throats with shopping, presents, sugar, vacations, etc. The schedule that each of us is about to endure will undoubtedly result in disarray, but only if we allow it to.

Entropy was originally discovered as a law of thermodynamics, but has been used in an analogous sense by philosophers, psychologists and theologians. It describes the process when things left to the will of nature devolve into chaos. 

Human nature may not be of the same salt that “regular” nature consists of, but it is susceptible to Darwin nonetheless. Left unchecked, if you give human nature two weeks of no responsibility, processed sugar in ungodly amounts, endless Hallmark trash, a cozy house filled with people they’re comfortable with, and billion-dollar-industries to propagate all of this, chaos will certainly ensue and entropy will take form. 

It’s a perplexing, paradoxical phenomenon, really. The transaction of sanity in the form of rhythm for dysfunction in the name of tradition. The trade of order in morals due to the Netflix-and-chilling on society’s laurels. 

To proactively dismiss any elitist, anti-unhealthy propaganda, this is not a call from David Goggins to go run an uphill marathon in the snow at 5AM on Christmas morning. Instead, it’s an urge to animation of the very values that are beholden in the foundation of what you celebrate. If you’re a Christian, celebrate the birth of Christ by acting like Christ; give to the needy, dine with sinners, spread His love. If you’re Jewish, celebrate the miraculous light by dining with family at Shabbat, remembering the path of your people’s history, and giving gifts. If it’s not religious by default for you, then use the time off of work and the opportunities of this limited, but uncertain time to direct gratitude towards the people and blessings you find yourself immersed in. If you’re a parent, give your kids joy. If you didn’t get a Christmas bonus this year, be thankful you have a job. If you’ve lost 50 pounds this year, treat your body like you’re thankful for it. If you’re deathly ill, treat every second like it’s your last. 

This season can and will be brutal for many. However, it doesn’t have to be. Celebration doesn’t have to look like self harm and substance abuse. It could look like laughing, praying, quality time with family, reflection, catching up on sleep, taking time to cook healthy food at home, and love - whatever that needs to mean for you.

This Christmas, behave as if you’re the recent lineage of the most evolved and complex being this universe has ever known and cultivate that divine gift for your life and those who are blessed to be with you.

The Mantle

If you’re unfamiliar with the term ‘Sunday Scaries’ then you’re in the fortunate minority. However, the regal Urban Dictionary describes it as, “the feeling of dread knowing that Monday is going to be rough.”

The word ‘motivation’ is used too often and incorrectly. It is spoken and heard contextually to bestow upon, as if it were a tool or a skill that can be passed on or gifted in times of need. Motivation comes from within. Its linguistic root is in the latin ‘movere’ which roughly translates ‘to move, provoke or arouse.’ While others can certainly spark a fire through encouraging a person, there must be desire for there to be motivation. No one else can force you to want anything. This is why love and desire are so enigmatic. 

Inspiration is different. Inspiration’s [not entirely] alternate definition of ‘the drawing in of breath’ piques a revelation. Inspiration is the vehicle that transports divine value from the realm of the unknown into the soul. It is the fabric of dreams. It is how we describe the holiness of religious texts. It is the white hot fire that surpasses desire and assumes responsibility. Inspiration is the purpose underneath the desire that motivation is ever-dependent on. 

Whatever your reason for fearing Monday morning, whatever your anxieties and fears, whatever duties lie in wait this morning, there is only one commendable way to approach it. This is not an attempt to negate, judge, or condemn the emotions surrounding the Scaries, but an introduction to a deeper and more pragmatic strategy to wrestling that anxiety. 

This problem of inevitable impending adversity has been answered by many men and women of much greater intelligence and perspective than I, one of those being Winston Churchill. He has recently taken on a new criticism in death, but I believe he will forever be regarded as a great man. Try to allow his words to encompass the theme this morning as they have for myself: “The earth is yours and the fullness thereof. Be kind, but be fierce. You are needed now more than ever before. Take up the mantle of change. For this is your time.”

“The earth is yours and the fullness thereof. Be kind, but be fierce. You are needed now more than ever before. Take up the mantle of change. For this is your time.”

— Winston Churchill

I’ve contemplated this quotation for years now and have yet to think of a single human that could not receive it in any way less than invigorating, motivating or inspiring. In the coming weeks, I will aim to follow in Churchill’s footsteps. Thus: Monday Morning Mantle. 

So, today and every Monday, welcome the morning, hail your duty, receive your inspiration,  take up your mantle.