My friend called to talk about death. We talked about training. If you know me, you know how I am about training. There is not an option. In the chaos that is life I can control this, whether I wake up and train. Most days I wake up before my alarm. 0400. On the days that I don’t, I never plead to myself for a few more minutes, to just lay down and rest. I know there is work to do. Marcus Aurelius: “I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” It sounds like “Get up, is this what your built to do?”
I knew I enjoyed training. It has become an integral part of my life. Then Covid happened and it became apparent to me that not only was it something that I enjoyed doing but it was something that I needed to do. I found balance and a stillness in asking my body to do something. The world was falling apart around me, we all were going crazy, nobody knew what to do. I went into the wilderness and trained. I discovered that the voice in my head that was once a constant critic, started to become an ally, it pushed me, it led me to moments of peace, it calmed the waters that led me to a life that left me empty, divorced, broke and with a binge drinking habit. I leaned into “It” and blocked out the noise. I followed it. I prioritized the work that had to get done. People that trained EVERYDAY, stopped. Gyms mandated to close their doors. (I forgive the people that were scared, we were all scared, you proved to me what I always knew, people want the decision to be made for them. You were scared then and now dismissive of the actions taken in fear. It’s hard to forget how quickly everyone left.)
That is when I went full tilt, it made me feel safe, it made me feel powerful in a world that desired my unquestioned loyalty to be weak and afraid, relying on strangers from a screen to tell me what is best and how to live. The force infected my mind, my body and what I am learning to understand can only have been my Spirit. It compelled me to work. To run. I could not allow the world to catch up, I needed to leave behind a reality that was slowly revealing itself to the fear we all have had that the things we use to identify what we are, our job, our friends, and our time, are owned by something else. I fought back. I made a promise to myself that this would change me. That I would not allow the nonsense of those that spent their life consuming, complacent with the idea that what they have is enough, that whatever is given, is enough. I owe it to my sons to train, to show them that not only is a strong, skeptical mind necessary against the evil that persists in this world but also a body that can withstand the hardship that is living a life and not watching one, where you can physically become free.
Wake up. Sit down. Train.
Tilling time
