I recently joined a new gym. I was quite happy with the old one but unfortunately, my bank account wasn’t. The new place was cheaper and offered more classes that I’m interested in so I made the switch. But man was I in for a surprise! The old gym is a family owned place and I felt welcome and respected and received more than adequate levels instruction and value and I can’t say enough good things about it, again, except for the price. Now that I’ve experienced the new gym, however, I can say that the old one is definitely what I’d call a “townie gym”; it’s quietly tucked away in a residential neighborhood and fairly regular dudes go there to take classes. When I say “dudes”, I mean that in the most intentionally vague and generalized way. These are not professionals. They are not athletes. They’re just dudes from the neighborhood who go and do a thing in a fairly average way. No doubt, some of them have extremely high skill and fitness levels but that’s only in comparison with other average Joe’s. These are the best guys on your intramural soccer team; the guy that played baseball in college who now consistently outperforms everyone on the company softball team; the girl at your office who can do the splits and your cousin who has six pack abs. They’re at the top of their game. But their game, is the game of the regular guy; the game of the enthusiast; the hobbyist. If they were to compete against people who do it for a living, they’re not even competition for the most losing-est guy on the team. The best basketball player on the court at your local YMCA would be smashed to bits in a second by the weakest NBA player. The most advanced jujitsu practitioner at your average BJJ school would be choked out in seconds by the lowest roster of the UFC. That dude you see at your gym who’s benching nearly the entire rack is definitely strong but he’s not competing in the World’s Strongest Man Competition because he’s not even as strong as the weakest of the world’s strongest men. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with townies at a townie gym. I’m one and very likely, so are you. You probably go to a townie gym and I did too until recently. It was only after much pain and suffering I realized that my new gym is just the other side of the spectrum; It’s full of professionals. Some of whom are championship title holding people who do what they do not just for fun but as a way to make a living. It’s purely accidental that I ended up in this gym and definitely NOT because I can hang with them in any way. With no false modesty or playful self deprecation I can say that in every class I’ve taken, I’m the oldest, shortest, fattest, weakest, least technically skilled and on every measure, the worst in the entire gym. To say that I’m intimidated, doesn’t even begin to capture it. To say that I’m in over my head is laughable. To say that I’m drowning would be an understatement. To say that I have already drowned and that I float around the gym as a stinky, bloated corpse that acts as an annoyance to others doing actual serious training comes closer to it but not quite.
Despite everything I just said, I can toot my own horn and say they haven’t ran me off yet. I’m a tough son of a bitch and I don’t give up easily and if you’ve read some of my other blogs talking about therapeutic nihilism, stoicism and existentialism, you’ll know where some of this persistence comes from. But as I’ve also mentioned, it doesn’t always work. I accept that I’m a 44 year old dude with dad bod who’s not the least bit athletically inclined but it’s still really hard to go to this gym, get smashed every day, come in dead fucking last on every possible metric and still walk away with some self esteem in tact. One morning before heading to the gym, I attempted to use some of the philosophies mentioned to give myself some motivation and make myself feel a little better about the whole situation. But it just didn’t work. I was slow to move, I was filled with fatigue and soreness and dread. Honestly, I was even a little scared to show up and act like I belong in a place where I so clearly don’t. The only thing that got me moving was my frugality; I had already paid for the membership and come hell or high water, I WAS GOING TO THIS DAMN GYM. That was enough to make me throw on my gym clothes and get in the car but it didn’t make me feel better and neither did anything else. Then the ironic aha moment happened: Give up. Stop trying to make yourself feel good about something that isn’t good. Its okay to feel bad.
Feelings are important. Not just the pleasant and fun ones but all feelings. We evolved emotions for the very same survival reasons we evolved opposable thumbs and upright locomotion. They’re a good and useful thing and they’re part of what it means to be a human. To not allow yourself to experience unpleasant emotions is not only unhealthy but also renders you only a partial participant in the human experience. It’s unnatural to be content and happy all the time and your attempts to be so may be part of the reason you are not content and happy; you’re attempting to live in a manner that goes against your nature. Evolution has endowed you with feelings for a reason and they are neither good nor bad, not positive or negative, they’re just experienced as pleasant or unpleasant. Cutting ourselves off from the “bad” feelings makes no more sense than chopping off our own hands because sometimes we use them to hold weapons. As Americans, we live under the delusion of toxic positivity; “Try your best…Look on the bright side…Just keep a positive attitude…”, etc. It’s one of those cultural traits whose aim is great but completely misses the mark in its current version. Being fully human means accepting, incorporating and experiencing the full range of emotions and the idea that you must still be happy even when things are terrible is a lie and it’s harming you. Sometimes stuff just sucks and to an extent, it’s healthy to feel bad about it when it does. Sometimes life just doesn’t work and you have every right to feel bad and every right to not even try to not feel bad about it. Sometimes things are bad and there’s no deeper meaning to it and you simply have to sit with the misery for a while. Its okay to not be happy all the time. It’s okay to feel bad sometimes.
Unrelated Book Recommendation: To Kill a Mockingbird. A classic that I’m just now reading. Does anyone else remember the movie though? I think it was one of the lawyers who was opposite Atticus…he sat, in a court of law, with his leg flung over the arm of his chair, lounging like a slob during most of the courtroom scenes. It always bugged the hell out of me. Maybe I haven’t gotten to that part of the book yet?
Unrelated Song: Eye on the Finish Line by Pedro the Lion. I don’t know what this song is about but that mournful tone gets me every time!
Brandon Peters, LPC 