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Wants, Needs and The Quest for the New Shiny

iPhone 4SBig doings today in the world of tech as the overlords of Cupertino, California (Apple) rolled out the newest/shiniest/most-gotta-have-it device in their arsenal, the iPhone 4s. I will be the first to admit I am definitely a bit of a gadget/computer sort of nerd where all the newfangled gizmos and doohickeys fascinate me. And yes, I know that’s some heavy jargon to be using, but I just can’t help myself sometimes.

But for just a second… let’s get past the hype of the announcement that surrounds any release by Apple and the near-endless debate between the cult-like followers of Steve Jobs and those who hate anything Apple because… well… it’s Apple.

Instead, let’s focus a bit on something that I can barely believe my fingers are typing out this very moment… what in the world is really necessary?  I know, it’s borderline heresy as a gadget geek to focus on necessity versus “Dude… that’s just freakin’ cool as hell.”

What got me thinking about all of this was a post by Leo Babauta (of Zen Habits fame) on his refreshingly stripped down blog mnmlist.com, which if you have never seen, is devoid of nearly everything but text.  Heck, it’s hard to even tell Leo writes the thing since you have to search around a bit to figure that part out.  I should know… I just did that myself.  Leo wrote something today on the release of the iPhone 4s and it’s accompanying fanfare.

But it was one line, in particular, that stuck out at me more than most:

Five years ago, the iPhone didn’t exist. It wasn’t a need in your life. You were able to live perfectly without it. And now that it does exist, all of that is true.

There you have it. If I sat here thinking critically about the numbers of things I’ve purchased and truly thought about what I could live without… yikes. It’s not a short list.  True, I really enjoy my iPad 2 and use it all the time, but it’s not as if my life would have a gaping void within it absent it. I am not somehow a different human being for having that device… or my XBox… or my big screen TV… or… you get the idea.

As silly as it may sound to some, I think my gym equipment has allowed me to make fundamentally positive changes in my life in a way that the nearest replacement (belonging to a commercial gym and paying dues for the rest of my life) does not approximate. That feels like a pure win to me, even if it was not a cheap investment.

But overall, it’s rare for me to find many things… scratch that… material things that I simply could not go without if required. I learn this lesson most acutely a number of years ago when I looked at a credit card bill with a balanced that had carried over for a little while and thought, “Damn… I’m not even sure I can remember what I bought that I am still paying off.”  People, if you cannot even remember it, how critical could it be? That was one of my big financial epiphanies for certain… it’s bad enough to buy with credit… but FAR worse to still be paying for them when you can’t even remember what those things are.  Just… I mean… ugh.

This will remain part of my struggle going forward… fighting the allure of the shiny bauble of tomorrow. My self-awareness is good on this, but certainly not great. Hopefully it just gets a little better all the time.

In spite of the glossy finish, sharp lines, crisp details and seemingly unbeatable functionality found in any new gadget that is rolling our way down the consumer highway… if we let it pass by, we usually only “miss out” on something we never even knew we “needed” in the first place.

And that’s a curious place to be indeed.

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Bed Blogging: Random Thoughts to Conclude the Weekend

The incredibly clever title of this post stems from the fact that it is a Sunday night and I am typing these words from bed. Sometimes I get creative and sometimes… well… it feels like enough to just state the obvious. Tonight is most assuredly the latter.

A few random items on my mind, none of which felt like I currently had enough mental horsepower to transform into full blog posts.

1) My first New Year’s Resolution for 2012 will be to completely avoid negative people as much as humanly possible. Honestly, I’m not really waiting for January 1st to kick this one into high gear. As a generally positive and optimistic character, my patience for the chronically negative is short and gets shorter every year. See yesterday’s post on “My Worst Day” to get an idea on why the eternally whiny cause me to spin on my heel and head in the opposite direction.

2) I always feel better when I blog consistently. Blogging is now being added to that slowly growing list of activities that I truly regret when not engaged in with regularity. This would include
– reading
– going to church
– cooking my own food
– going to museums (something I am really whiffing on big time and yet I ALWAYS enjoy them when I go… which immediately begs the question of why I don’t go more often and for which I have no good or rational answer).

I don’t include exercise on this list because I do that with regularity anyway. However, this list gives me an interesting view of where I need to spend more focus to reap more benefits.

3) At the end of many weekends when I’ve gone a few blissful days without a razor touching my face, I give thought to letting some matter of beard grow in. You know what stops me? It’s a combination of (a) pure vanity; (b) liking how I look clean-shaven (while hating the actual act of shaving); (c) itchiness; and (d) the fact that growing a beard has suddenly become a “thing” in the lifting community where you are somehow not fulfilling your manhood potential if up are not sporting a full-on Grizzly Adams special.

In the interest of full disclosure, rebelling against (d) should not be a very strong reason to avoid growing a beard, but it is shockingly compelling for me. I hate the idea of doing it because someone is basically challenging my manhood if I don’t.

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But I do look ruggedly handsome when it starts to come in. I mean, that’s just objective fact. Like gravity… or the deliciousness of Chik-fil-A. Don’t question it.

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My Worst Day

A topic very near and dear to my heart is perspective – why it matters, how people lose it, how to get it and how it just frames the every day experience of life so beautifully.  It’s just one of those things that when I am doing my best at cultivating it, I feel unbelievably blessed to have the life I do.

I have bad days, just like anyone else. Days where I feel beaten down or stressed out or lacking motivation or just feeling a bit sad.  I just generally accept this as being part of life, but I do my best not to dwell on these kinds of moments… at least not for too long.  Stopping for a moment, clearing my head and gaining some of that valuable perspective is always the best way to move past these kinds of events and feelings.

Why?  Because when I do step back and look at my life objectively, how can I not see how good I have it?

This video excerpt from the CBS show “Undercover Boss” does a perfect job of showing why perspective matters:

 

 

Boom. If you’ve always had it good, it gets reaaaaaally easy to not appreciate the fact that it’s not always that way for many people.

And the video is also a perfect and powerful reminder that the absolute worst of the worst days I experience in my life are a dream to hundreds of millions of people.  Not hundreds. Not thousands. Not even millions… but hundreds of millions.  And it’s not because I am just so amazing and everyone should aspire to be me and that I have the ultimate secret to success.  I don’t and I would hardly qualify as anything amazing… but I like to think I qualify as someone with a healthy sense of self-awareness and understanding of my place in the world.

I hope and pray I never lose sight of that fact so that it keeps me grateful, humble, balanced and reflective with a willingness to always help out those around me.

Perspective defined

Because if the above oft-shared poster is even half true, I should never, ever have something to complain about.

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On Being Smart and Pacing Your Passion

So I am doing my utmost right now to actually be smart. I know, I know… why start something so radically different for myself now? Isn’t it a little late to show up to that party?  Probably, but I’m also a crazy dreamer.

My decision to engage the rational and logical parts of my brain for a change (as opposed to the parts enamored with XBox, muscle cars and the supreme hilarity of Tosh.0) stems from a bit of a setback in my training program.  A few weeks back I was absolutely ROLLING.  Things seemed so free and easy and new records (at least on several on my important lifts) were coming almost every week.

Heck, I even was able to reach one of my all-time goals of hitting a 500 lb. squat.  I have video of it, but I am debating about putting it up just yet.  Why?  Because once I finish the set and realize what I just accomplished, I lose my collective mind like an utter fool.  In a positive way.

Ahh… but what cometh before the fall, my children?  Pride, of course.  I just hit a 500 lb squat!  Who knows what mountain was there to conquer next and yield to my steely will and chiseled handsomeness?  So I kept pushing at the same pace… umm… and I decided I should try to get ready for soccer… and I started sprinting a few times a week… and hey, wouldn’t it be great to be a little leaner too?  Yeah, yeah… throw that into the mix… plus the utter hectic pace of work.

Whether you realize it or not, everything I just outlined is a recipe, but not a recipe for some kind of completely decadent pumpkin cheesecake of goodness.  Oh, tut-tut my friends.  That would be crazy talk.  No, this recipe would be more like a steaming 5 lb. ball of rat poop.  Deelish, n’est-ce pas?

That’s when my lifts were going down instead of up.  And while I mean that in terms of overall performance, I also mean it like “I tried squatting that weight and on my 2nd rep, the weight went down but… uhh… it didn’t go back up.  Yeah, not so much.”

And that’s when the conundrum of this site’s very motto… “Relentlessly push yourself forward”… found itself a wee bit out of sync with how I was feeling.

And therein lies the issue for so many people with passion for something: how do you sometimes pace your passion?  This is a real sticky wicket for a lot of people who are all about weight training (especially guys who have an easy time letting ego, pride and machismo get in the way of using an ounce of simple common sense).  We can be excellent at going at something full bore, but what about then easing off the throttle and collecting yourself for the next round of fun?  Hmm.  Maybe not my best quality for sure.

What's that body? You have something important to tell me?

What it really got down to was a lack of listening to the signals my body was giving me loud and clear to chill the hell out.

Our passions move us. Drive us. Give us the chance to risk big, fail big and (hopefully) win bigger than we could ever imagine. They should… no… must be celebrated and cherished.

But it’s also OK to give them a few moments of respite so they can soak up their energy anew and burn oh-so-brightly again.  They won’t hold it against you.

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The Fine Line Between Possibility and Stupidity

People who lift weights… I mean really lift weights… tend to get viewed through a certain lens by a large bulk of society. Muscle = moron in a lot of contexts. You need look no further than your average Planet Fitness commercial. It’s as if there is an inversely proportionate relationship between size and smarts. It’s fairly ridiculous, but since it tends to make for an easier way to categorize or pigeonhole people, then hey… why the heck not? There are certainly people I’ve met who reinforce the view that weight trainers are not even as bright as the iron they throw around, however, there is also an inherent sense of wisdom in those who take their lifting seriously that I don’t think anyone outside of the lifting community ever really understand.

Let me see if I can illustrate a bit.

I stroll into my basement gym on the day I will be doing deadlifts. Now, the deadlift is a fairly straightforward exercise: the bar is on the ground and your job is to pick it up off the floor to a standing position. There is more technique to it than just that, but at the end of the day, that’s about it. Bar on floor. Bar being held in standing position. Ta da!

Bar waiting for a deadlift

But the deadlift, like many big lifts in weight training, is also a greater truth serum that sodium pentothal. Either you can pick up the weight or you can’t. There is no debating with it. There’s no reasoning with it. And the beauty… perhaps the misery… of the deadlift is that when the weight is too much for you, it stays completely stuck to the floor. On a lot of other lifts, there can be a modicum of movement before you bomb out and sometimes you can pull the bar a few inches up in a deadlift before all hell breaks loose… but much of the time, there is absolutely nothing.

That’s humbling. It never feels good. You know what else it is? An incredible learning experience in the shape of steel and iron.

When you get pretty serious about weight training (as I believe I generally am), there is a pursuit of pushing yourself a little further all the time and over a period of time. You are continuously pushing the outer edge of what you believe to be possible for yourself. I could deadlift 405 lbs. before and suddenly… huh… I can lift 425 lbs… and now I can do 445 lbs… and I never thought I would get there. Then one day… BOOM! I’m stuck. I can’t get any more than 445 lbs. I know exactly where I stand at that moment – again, the weight simply does not lie.

But what I am trying to do is move past that limit and see what else I can accomplish. At it’s most basic level, when I go down into my gym and lift weights, I am constantly looking to see what my limits are and how I can exceed them. It’s as if the entire activity has nothing to do with getting bigger or getting more muscle or any of that and everything to do with learning more about who I am, how I handle adversity and whether I can pick myself up when I get knocked down. It’s a constant learning and testing experience when done properly. In some ways, those who take this activity so seriously have a finer understanding of who they are than 99.9% of the people on the planet.

It’s certainly not just weightlifters either. Endurance athletes looking to run farther and faster or the Crossfit devotee who is looking to finish their WOD with more weight in less time fit the bill as well.

Everyone in this community who takes training (not just working out or going for a light jog or looking to “tone” up for Summer) seriously is always walking the fine line between find out what is possible and pushing themselves too hard to potentially get hurt, burned out or maybe just get funny looks from family and friends. To many, all of it looks more like stupidity than possibility. But sometimes you need to risk a bit in the search for greater self-knowledge. And trust me… I don’t want to get hurt (been there a bunch of times) or burn out (I am there right now because my ego outstripped my recovery ability)… but I must confess I do enjoy the funny looks from time to time. 🙂

So before you see someone who takes their weight training incredibly seriously as basically a semi-evolved primate… stop and ask yourself… when was the last time you put yourself in a situation where you were forced to figure out what was truly possible? And then think about what it would be like to do that 3… 4… 5… maybe even 6 times per week.

If you realize it’s been a while, then I would prescribe a little bit of iron therapy. You would be amazed at what you will discover about what is possible within you.

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Mother May I?

There can really be a lot of gates in this world.  Just a variety of places where you need to stop, seek out permission/validation/approval before you can really do… well… anything.  It’s not exactly the kind of thing that inspires you to go bigger, reach higher and do tremendously amazing things, is it?

In some cases, the world of permission is just an inherent and unavoidable part of life.  I think of life in the corporate world that I know oh-so-very-well.  My workaday life is filled with policies and permission and forms and approvals processes.  You cannot do what I do (company ethics officer) and avoid that in any way… and honestly, you shouldn’t avoid it anyway.  Can it feeling limiting to people at times?  Of course it can, but it’s just a fact of big corporate life that one needs to accept and move on from.  It’s part of the understanding of being in Corporate America and if it’s something that causes you such an enormous amount of heartburn and stress, you will probably need to find a workplace more conducive to your style at some point, because I don’t see it all changing anytime soon.

form_permis

Ahh… but what about the life outside of work?  You know, that area in our personal lives where… in theory at least… we finally have the chance to freely choose what we do, where we go, what we read, with whom we associate and so on.  What about there?  Surely within the bounds of the law we must be unfettered in our ability to make our decisions, no?

If only.

Whether due to religious/social/family norms, we do still tend to live a lot according to the wishes of others.  Some of this is just lubricant to keep the gears of the relationship machine running smoothly.  Oh, you know what I mean.  The dinner you go to with your in-laws even though you would rather be home, feet up and soaking up a massive college football showdown in the SEC.  The helping a friend to move into a 3rd story walk-up.  It’s a lot of little things like this where you need to do someone a solid… but truth be told, you would probably like to do something else entirely.

But what about beyond that?  Are we limiting ourselves from things that would honestly make us happy because we worry too often what “others” (however it needs to be defined for the situation in question) will think?

Oh believe me, I do this as well, but I am getting just a tiny bit better about it all the time.  I still care (more than I probably should) what my parents may think about certain things I want to do or whether my friends or colleagues might find something I enjoy odd (pushing a Prowler in the snow, anyone?).2009-12-31 11.50.16

But damn… the more I move away from caring about a lot of the minutiae about who might… GASP!… judge me poorly and more about whether something will add a positive to my life… darn it all if I don’t end up being happier.  In a way, one method I can use to spot areas where I might find more happiness is listing out things that my friends and family might look askance at.  Chances are there are more than a few perfect nuggets in that list of things I darn well should be doing.

So take that as a little exercise for yourself as well.  Don’t alienate your loved ones just for the sake of being a complete jerkweed.  No one likes that guy and he’s just a completely ponderous fool (and we all know at least one of these dudes).

Find your Prowler in the snow.  Push the hell out of it.  And revel a little more in the fact that while no one else gets it… you love it.

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You Can Always Start Over

The scales of justice

It’s always interesting for me to talk with people about their jobs (or the jobs they hope to have one day if they are still in school) because the views on work are so wide-ranging depending on the individual.  One common theme that I always seem to come across is a sense of trepidation about finding just the right career.  I can certainly understand why.  I was utterly focused from my senior year of high school on that I wanted to be a lawyer.  Nothing could possibly dissuade me from that mission and, truthfully, no one really tried to anyway.  Why would they?  Despite all the jokes to the contrary, being an attorney is widely viewed as a very respectable career choice, so it was all systems go.

Well, it took me less than a year of actual law practice for me to realize I simply hated it… and that’s a pretty ugly feeling when you’ve spent the previous 8 years studying and preparing for that role.  Now what?

I think a lot of people fall into that same fear – what if I don’t like it?  What if I put in all that time, effort and money to pursue this career and it just doesn’t work out?  Believe me… I understand that trepidation and sense of caution.  Ohhhhh how I understand, gentle reader!

What got me thinking over all of this was an interesting piece at MSNBC about high profile career changers.  It’s actually quite the list and for a number of them, I never knew they started off doing something else beyond what they are so known for now.

What’s just so striking to me about the list?  The number of them who started off as lawyers and moved onto something completely different.

I suppose that really shouldn’t be all that striking to me after all.  While there is still a certain amount of glamour and sexiness to being an attorney, I can hardly count the number of conversations I’ve had with friends of mine from law school or just in the legal profession at large who talk a lot about how they wish they could get out.

From the billable hour pressures to the often soul-crushing nature of certain kinds of legal work (seriously, some of it is numbingly repetitive) to the cut-throat style of many larger firms, there are a just a lot of lawyers who wish they were something else.  And I don’t blame them one iota.  The worst part for many is they are locked in by the golden handcuffs.  They make an absolutely great salary, but their lifestyle is right up to the edge of what they can afford… and if they want to leave for something different, many cannot afford to do so.  Crazy situation to find yourself in, eh?

It’s obviously not every lawyer and I know a fair number who love what they do and find true meaning to their efforts.  Kudos to them for sure.

However, the point is not just about lawyers… that’s just an easy jumping point for me since that’s my own background.  Heck, I’m not sure I ended up getting completely away from the law given that I work within a corporate legal department now.

The point is that you always, always, ALWAYS have a chance to start anew.  It was really liberating for me when I did and heck, maybe I will again some day.  Even having gone through it before, there is still that scary moment at the edge of the precipice where it looks like a 1,000 foot drop to certain doom… but really?  It’s an illusion.

It’s actually more akin to that moment in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” when Indy has to take a leap of faith step across a yawning chasm… only to realize that there is a bridge there, cleverly hidden to blend in with the canyon below.  It was just a matter of steeling himself to take that step in the first place.

If there is one thing I’ve learned about taking that step is that if you truly need a change… if you really see some other path that utterly calls out to your heart and will not be silenced… the step is scary until you take it.  Once your foot lands, you would be surprised how quickly the ensuing steps will come.

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The Plank in My Eye

I think I’m like many people who can be a total ace at passing out advice that I then do a less-than-ideal job of following for myself.  I don’t think there is anything remarkable about that in myself or in others – it’s just far easier to cast the penetrating light of truth upon a situation removed from myself than it is to see that same case in me.

2011 05 01 09 57 26 946

Case in point.  This past season of coaching baseball, one of the things we implored of our kids was to be aggressive and not fear the consequences that would follow.  If they were going all out and made a mistake in the process, ehh… that’s fine.  More often than not, their aggressive on the baseball diamond would be rewarded with something good than a mistake.  Plus, we kept reminding them… this is baseball.  A game.  Something to have fun with and not something with the future of mankind perilously hanging in the balance.  I think we made a bit of progress on this with a lot of the boys and I hope it sticks with them.  If there is one HUGE thing I’ve noticed in youth sports, it’s that the kids who are either the most aggressive or the least concerned about making mistakes are the ones who do best (and also seem to have the most fun).

And God forbid it all be it about fun.  I know… that’s a pretty nutty thing to say about youth sports.  We’re supposed to be prepping every little Johnny and Jane to be Olympic-calibre athletes from the time they are 6 right? (I will now seek to turn down my sarcasm a shade).

Getting back to the notion of seeing the speck in your brother’s eye while missing the plank in your own.  Yeah… that’s right… I just went Biblical.

A few weeks back I was playing a game in my basketball league and I was absolutely awful.  I mean… just… wow… I was really bad.  My time on the court seemed to serve little purpose outside spelling a teammate who needed to rest for a bit.  I was tentative and second-guessing and awkward.  It was probably one of the worst basketball experiences I’ve had in my life, outside of some bad Nerf hoop experiences when super young.  You know those where you are just starting to learn to play, but have an older brother who just swats away every shot you put up with that puffy orange ball?  So yeah, besides that, my worst outing ever.

Then it hit me loud and clear and with no small amount of force: I was exactly like one of the 10 to 12 year olds I had just finished coaching who didn’t seem to get out of his shell and just be aggressive.  Boom – head shot.  I sat there as a coach and felt I was so wise with all my perspective on the value of being aggressive and how you not only play better, but have more fun… and yet I never saw it in myself.

I played again last night, freshly self-chastised for coaching one way and playing another, and guess what?  I played much better, was much more aggressive, had a blast and smiled throughout a lot of the game (even at some of the awful calls made by our fine officials).  Heck, we won too.

The lesson in all of this for me is simple and direct: If I have an insight for someone else… whether while coaching or with someone coming to me for advice… I need to immediately take an opportunity to then look at myself in that same vein because chances are, I will need it as well to some extent or another.  I hope to make this a habit and given the fact that my very job involves me giving guidance to people on a daily basis, I think I can get some mojo going on this point.

It’s time to get that plank out of my own eye and see things a little bit more clearly… at least when looking at myself.

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The Simple Confusions of Being An Adult

Coolest. Birthday. Card. Ever.

If there’s one thing people generally complain about past around… ohhh… age 28 or so, it’s about getting older.  You want to be older up until you are 20ish since there are certain milestones you will hit along the way that makes things in your life potentially better.  When you are really young, being older means more freedom, getting to stay up later, etc.  When you are 15, being older means 16 and the chance to drive or hitting 17 and getting into R rated movies all by yourself.  20 looks forward to 21 and rolling into a package store like the cock of the walk so you can buy your first (legal) 6 pack of beer.

Then you go through a few years where turning a year older isn’t too big of a deal, despite the lack of super cool achievement moments that age brings along.  Roughly around 28ish, you start thinking about… GASP! … turning 30!  Oh noes!  Not much to look forward to there, right?  That’s just the beginning of the slow, inevitable decline of all your mental and physical faculties, right?

Bah.  Whatever.

If there’s one thing I’ve found is that I would take being my current 38 years and change over my 20’s almost any day of the week.  I think in your teen years, the 20’s look like a golden time of being young enough to have energy to do 1,000,001 things, but old enough to have the means to do them.

I’ve also noticed 2 things that also change with age and I don’t think I ever came to fully appreciate them until hitting my 30’s.

The first is a true concept of what being a man is all about.  I used to spend a fair chunk of time on forums related to weightlifting, strength training and so on and was utterly horrified at how some guys seemed to view being a man.  It was all about machismo, posturing, getting in the face of others and chest pounding like some kind of silverback gorilla.  It got to the point where I began spending less and less time perusing these kinds of forums because it was just so pointless and brain-numbing.

That’s being a man?  Really?  Truly?  The ideas of:  walking with quiet confidence; focusing on inner strength as the path to outer strength; saying what you mean and meaning what you say; acting with respect and integrity… these were all just lost concepts.  There was such a lack of maturity in these views that I could only shake my head and then stop going to these forums all together.

The second thing is the notion of what it means to be “two-faced”.  It’s something I notice people still doing a lot now, actually.  Here’s what I mean: Person A really doesn’t care at all for Person B, but they travel in overlapping social or work circles.  When Person B is not around, Person A doesn’t have great things to say about them, but might not really say that much about them outside of an occasional passing comment about how they don’t care for Person B.  However, when Person B is around, they may chat with them and such in a fairly civil manner.

I’ve seen a lot of people describe that behavior above as two-faced and, truth be told, I probably used to describe it that way at one time.  You know what though?  That’s just being an adult.  There are always going to be people in your life that aren’t your favorite, but that you will have to interact with on a semi-regular or regular basis.  It’s not some momentous stand for your closely-held principles to completely ignore that person entirely or give them attitude when you do deal with them.  That’s just foolishness.  A huge realization of adult life is that you’re not going to have moments of orgasmic joy and utter fun every single moment of your day.  You will have to do things you’re not crazy about and sucking it up to do those things with a decent attitude is a sign that you’re not a punk kid any more.

Now at 38 I get to stare 40 in the eye and I’m sure I will even look back at these years some day, shake my head and think “Wow… I really had no idea, did I?” about something or other.  But for now, I’m just glad I’m here with a little bit of perspective and no small amount of hope for the years to come.

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Elite vs. Elitism: Know The Difference

Working to be the best is something I’m all for.  Heck, part of the point of this blog is to detail a little bit about how I am trying to do that with my own life… along with the requisites victories and stumbles that come along the way.  There is a tremendous amount of skill, dedication, discipline and sheer willpower that goes along with the quest to reach that pinnacle… to become part of the elite.  To say I admire those who make that commitment fully is an understatement.

However, elite is something that differs greatly from its annoying cousin that often likes to tag along with it.  That snot-nosed little brat would be the never acceptable elitism.  These two traits don’t always have to travel together as an inseparable pair… but damn it, sometimes they just do.  The sad thing is that they really never need to.

Allow me to illustrate a bit:

Music

This is always one that stuck in my craw a little bit – the way people tend to elevate one band or artistic while simultaneously putting down another for “pandering to the masses” or just being “meaningless pop”.  The latter category would tend to be for music like this from Ke$ha:

And the critically-acclaimed darlings would be something more like this from Arcade Fire:

I can almost sense the level of utter disgust from some reading this post… even though you are doing so in the future.  Yeah, I’m kind of a seer like that – freaky right?  My point is that regardless of why someone may like Arcade Fire and feel repulsed by Ke$ha, I have pretty much zero patience for those who sneer at others for listening to “lesser” music.  If you don’t like Ke$ha, don’t listen to her and the world will just continue spinning along on its merry way with nary a blip in the scheme of the cosmos.  It’s the fact that elitists really are looking for a means by which to set themselves above and apart from others… in this case via their musical tastes… that simply falls flat.  Ke$ha sells a lot of MP3s and albums because people like her music (even if they don’t want to admit it to their friends).  If people like it, why is that such a bad thing?

Fitness

Elitist!

Hoo boy, does this ever happen in the world of strength, fitness, training, exercise and so on.  It’s not enough to be looking to improve yourself or get stronger/leaner/faster/healthier/more awesomer… far too many people are compelled to take that next step from shooting for elite to acting like the elitists will all know and love.  Powerlifters do this.  Bodybuilders do this.  Crossfitters do this.  Triathletes do this.  Hell, I’m sure this even happens in curling, Wiffle-ball and lawn bowling (as this photo proves to a weird degree).  Need I continue?  It’s a disease that doesn’t reside with any one particular clique.

Again, the difference between the two is that someone shooting to be the best is focused on doing what they can… or really… what they must do to improve while elitists focused more of their time on why others are less.  It’s as if the actual work to be better is too hard, so hey, we can look better if everyone looks worse.  YAY!

And truth be told… if you have to resort to acting like an elitist ass to make yourself look better or to feel better about yourself, that’s pretty much the first sign that you were never that great to begin with.

Be humble.  Be great.  Probably one of the most powerful combinations I know.