Negative vampires will always exist in some capacity as long as everyone wants to create some drama. Monday morning quarterbacks will always tell you that you can't do it. We react to this by asking "what have you done with your life?" and we find that when we stack their accomplishments against ours, we win.
Goals take up a lot of time. We determine who we are by defining our dreams and what we reach for. In effect, we want our lives to reflect on the effort we put into what we believe in. The dreamer wants to be given credit for what he remembers seeing after he wakes up.
"Ignore the haters". It's basically doctrine at this point.
But sometimes, we come across someone that's indifferent to your goals, but for different reasons.
It might not be a hater. Rather, this person we come across might be very supportive of our goals. They may have done nothing wrong.
This is the one-upper. This is the guy at the gym who is currently on vacation from his Ivy League school who is also good friends with your girlfriend. This is the guy who knows more about movie trivia than you do, and he's friends with someone who has a direct line to JK Rowling/Michael Jordan/whoever your childhood hero is.
A lot of fear can come from the one-upper in that we find that whatever little amazing tidbit we have about life has already been discovered by this individual. This fear means that our identity and the goals of our life mean nothing because someone can do it so much better.
But, here are some things to consider:
You all have different starting points:
Some of us are born rich. Some of us are born poor. Some of us are born middle class and cannot get government benefits. Whatever the starting point is, life is not about where you were, but about where you are going.
Don't fold your hand before the game's over. The one-upper might get hit by a truck for all we know, and a vacuum might open up. Don't stop because someone else is leading you in the score. You're still in the first quarter. Don't give in.
No one brings baggage to the table:
Unless you're promoting a book exploring your battle with heroin addiction, you don't greet people talking about all your shortcomings and weaknesses. We try to impress people when we first see them. It's highly likely that one-upper's have an inferiority complex.
They could be hiding something. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but at the end of the day, we are all human. Batman gets scared until someone brings out the Kryptonite.
Set yourself against your goals, not anyone else's:
If you want to get better at math, you will always lose if you compare yourself to Stephen Hawking. If you want to get a better jump-shot, you'll never start if you compare yourself to Michael Jordan.
Goals are about growth. It's about getting better. If you're a competition junkie, knock yourself out, but if you cannot win against yourself, you won't win against others.
Step up to the challenge:
Sometimes we lack direction in life. Success can make us feel guilty. Adversity quickly changes that. Commitment to stopping the competition is a great reason to get up in the morning.
Or collaborate:
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. It's easy to see people as a threat, but if someone has the same tastes that you have and they want to make the same changes to the world that you do, what's not to love? See if you can contribute something to what they're working on. There could be an awesome chapter about you in the book of this guy's life.
Challenges stop us from being cocky. In any form of greatness, rivalries happen. Welcome it.
Showing posts with label weight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weight. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Weight Loss Terrorists: The Brain Is The Strongest Muscle
A lot has been said about the various diets, workout plans, and nutritional supplements that we are convinced will work like some elixir and make the fat go away. We have been led to believe that the quest for some "fountain of fit" will allow us to gorge our faces at the buffet while our chiseled abs remain impervious to the effects.
Even if you were to find such a thing, human nature would make you tinker with it. You would eat fried chocolate eclairs just cause you can. Your arrogance would be your caloric downfall.
There may even be a short period of time (after hard conditioning) where we find that this can actually happen. But, what goes up must come down, and you might find yourself at the bottom of a mountain that you now recognize as your stomach.
In order to live out your dreams, you need to have the right mindset. A lot of us have goals that we keep off into the distance. We fantasize about what we are going to do this summer vacation.
We say "I have little time to do what I want with my busy schedule, but when vacation comes I will do half of everything I've ever wanted to do ever", and yet when the vacation comes, we find that it's impossible to sleep all week and see the world at the same time.
Our dreams seem like an amazing picture in the background of our lives. We like looking at it from where we are, but the difference between achieving your dreams and letting life pass you by is that the achievers go out and be part of that picture.
Sometimes we are afraid to be part of the picture. It's one thing to look at the Empire State Building as a country bumpkin (or a city boy looking at a tractor...whatever), but going inside the Empire State Building does not seem as glamorous as it does from the outside. We find obstacles on our way there, people do not share the enthusiasm for something we find valuable.
We hesitate because for some strange reason, the opinions of idiot strangers matter to us.
In reality, you shouldn't care. If it's your dream to go to the Empire State Building, do it, and don't worry about anybody else, because believe me, no one's going to worry about you. The people in life who should take the second to overthink what evil they are about to commit are either a) never the ones that do, or b) thinking about it and doing it anyway
I'm not saying go out and pursue self-destructive behavior, but if your dream isn't hurting anybody, hell, if your dream is making the lives of the people around you better, you should pursue it like a rottweiler.
The only thing guaranteed in life is you, your dreams, and your deathbed. You want to not pursue something because a degenerate somewhere told you not to? That's ridiculous.
Great people have always had opposition. Superheroes have supervillains. Normal people aren't super, and neither are the haters. We all indulge in hating on people every once in a while. I have uncreative talentless hacks, it's the monster I wake up to fight every morning. Sometimes when I feel I've created something that doesn't feel unique enough, I even hate myself.
But when you decide not to do something to better ourselves out of some need not to hurt someone's feelings, what does that accomplish? Not much. You don't go to the gym because your older sister is fat, and she mocks you for working out? What do you accomplish by bending to her pudgy needs? Not much.
Two pudgy sisters, which isn't to say you can't work it, but your sister will then hate you for having a personality.
In my own personal experience, I find that bending to a hater's needs will not make them accountable in the future. They're not going to thank you for worrying about them, they're going to throw you under the bus and hate on you for being inferior.
So workout, develop a personality, become talented, do something with yourself in whatever little time you have left in the day. I hope you're doing some push-ups while reading this. I'm not, but I've been working out this week, which has been the first time in a while.
Baby steps still burn calories.
Even if you were to find such a thing, human nature would make you tinker with it. You would eat fried chocolate eclairs just cause you can. Your arrogance would be your caloric downfall.
There may even be a short period of time (after hard conditioning) where we find that this can actually happen. But, what goes up must come down, and you might find yourself at the bottom of a mountain that you now recognize as your stomach.
In order to live out your dreams, you need to have the right mindset. A lot of us have goals that we keep off into the distance. We fantasize about what we are going to do this summer vacation.
We say "I have little time to do what I want with my busy schedule, but when vacation comes I will do half of everything I've ever wanted to do ever", and yet when the vacation comes, we find that it's impossible to sleep all week and see the world at the same time.
Our dreams seem like an amazing picture in the background of our lives. We like looking at it from where we are, but the difference between achieving your dreams and letting life pass you by is that the achievers go out and be part of that picture.
Sometimes we are afraid to be part of the picture. It's one thing to look at the Empire State Building as a country bumpkin (or a city boy looking at a tractor...whatever), but going inside the Empire State Building does not seem as glamorous as it does from the outside. We find obstacles on our way there, people do not share the enthusiasm for something we find valuable.
We hesitate because for some strange reason, the opinions of idiot strangers matter to us.
In reality, you shouldn't care. If it's your dream to go to the Empire State Building, do it, and don't worry about anybody else, because believe me, no one's going to worry about you. The people in life who should take the second to overthink what evil they are about to commit are either a) never the ones that do, or b) thinking about it and doing it anyway
I'm not saying go out and pursue self-destructive behavior, but if your dream isn't hurting anybody, hell, if your dream is making the lives of the people around you better, you should pursue it like a rottweiler.
The only thing guaranteed in life is you, your dreams, and your deathbed. You want to not pursue something because a degenerate somewhere told you not to? That's ridiculous.
Great people have always had opposition. Superheroes have supervillains. Normal people aren't super, and neither are the haters. We all indulge in hating on people every once in a while. I have uncreative talentless hacks, it's the monster I wake up to fight every morning. Sometimes when I feel I've created something that doesn't feel unique enough, I even hate myself.
But when you decide not to do something to better ourselves out of some need not to hurt someone's feelings, what does that accomplish? Not much. You don't go to the gym because your older sister is fat, and she mocks you for working out? What do you accomplish by bending to her pudgy needs? Not much.
Two pudgy sisters, which isn't to say you can't work it, but your sister will then hate you for having a personality.
In my own personal experience, I find that bending to a hater's needs will not make them accountable in the future. They're not going to thank you for worrying about them, they're going to throw you under the bus and hate on you for being inferior.
So workout, develop a personality, become talented, do something with yourself in whatever little time you have left in the day. I hope you're doing some push-ups while reading this. I'm not, but I've been working out this week, which has been the first time in a while.
Baby steps still burn calories.
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