Fear or Laziness: What's your excuse?

We get it. Most folks are not up for this. It’s not their cup of tea, their boat doesn’t float on these waters, they don’t like the cut of our jib. Sure, fair enough. Hard work is… well… hard.

But tribal survival, either against the zombie attack or against mass communication ennui (can we really survive on a diet of continually declining dialog skills like Twitter or baby-talk language decline like ‘where u at’?) will depend on a little hard work. Physical work. Tough play.

Heck, some of us actually enjoy this shit. We embrace the silliness of picking up something heavy, only to put it down again. Rinse. Repeat. A recent conversation I eavesdropped on had a pivotal utterance of “now it hurts NOT to move.” The profound idea behind this was as metaphysical as it was physical, but the simpler meaning was the acceptance of the craving for some intense celebration of what the body can do.

Can you dig it?

Here’s some ramblings from a real old post that I’ve expanded on a bit…

Here’s a thought: Any reason you can think of, any little story you have to tell yourself and others, any ‘out’ you might use to get out of this brand of fun that we ironhads and movement junkies lather onto ourselves like physiological/psychological shampoo - any excuse you have falls into one of two categories, Fear or Laziness.

Let’s play a little game and see which of the excuses from these lists below fit into which category (and keep an eye out for any that seem familiar to you):

The lack of resources list

I don’t have…

… a gym membership
… my favorite sexy headband
… every piece of super cool equipment I need to pump my pecs
… time

What you really ‘don’t have’ has nothing to do with external resources, but rather attitude and education, since a dash of both of those will overcome any of the above.

The self defeating list

I can’t…

… find the time
… handle the exercises
… stand the smell of burning muscles
… get around to washing my ’special strength’ undies. I NEED them, or I won’t be strong.
… get to the gym
… because of injury

Can’t or Won’t? Replace Can’t with ‘not willing to’ and you’ll see the problem.

The identifying with your weakness list

I am…

… scared
… weak
… tired
… in pain
… totally baked, dude

You’re identifying with the crappy sheen of superficial self perceptions due to the fear that if you strip all that away to get a view of who you really are, you won’t see much. This is a bummer, since your foundation is probably a pretty groovy place, one that deserves coveting.

Now here’s a big leap for some to take. Could laziness simply be a form of fear? Often we’ll embrace laziness because we fear the alternative. The list above then makes more sense. Let’s NOT DO since DOING means having to face things we may not want to face. Clearing away the muck that we identify ourselves with will find the solid decent human underneath all that, but, as I’ve quoted many times before, “freedom scares you because it means responsibility.”

What’re ya? Chicken?