Be the Stream

“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins, not through strength but by perseverance.”

— H. Jackson Brown, Author

 

It is funny that this quote came through my email today, because I was just having a conversation with one of our esteemed athletes today about fitness/life/work/energy. The conversation came to light because this athlete was in the middle of a very real struggle that hits all of us from time to time. I’ll use the name Jill for this student for story purposes, although Jill is not this persons name. Jill is tremendous at what she does for work ,and not only that, she is very passionate about it, as well. She’s constantly wanting every detail to be perfect. Most of us can probably identify with this in some way.

Jill is also very passionate about her fitness experience. She has seen tremendous gains, and is not planning on letting go of this pace either. Well, these things are sure to collide at certain times. And, this conversation was at the collision grounds. Jill had been working out, and noticed that she was not really feeling up to it on that day. She had opted out of the workout, and wasn’t super happy about it. I can’t blame her. I just happen to sit down next to her at this moment, and she explained the situation. She had been working for something well over twenty-five days straight, in something that she loved. But, even the passionate and driven become weary and she was there.

I feel like it is very easy to get caught up in the day to day, both in work and in our fitness. But, here’s the thing. We all have one energy tank, and this houses all of the energy for all of our endeavors. It seems to make more sense if we talk about this energy like money. If you have $100 to spend and you have to buy a shirt for a work meeting and it is $82, and you favorite fitness class is $25. There is just simply not enough money for both. Energy is the same way. Sometimes we just run out.

The thing to remember with this fitness thing is that it’s a journey that is going to happen over years. Your performance today in the context of ten years is negligible. The important part is that you move. How you move, how fast you move, how long you move for, well, these become quite trivial when viewing them through the lens of the long term approach. Neither of us (you or I) are going to gain all of the fitness in a day. Much like this quote says, fitness is like the stream. Your win here is through perseverance. The struggle with work is a rock. Take the the time, and let yourself off the hook a bit.

I am not telling you to mail it in and just not show up, but maybe taking it easy on a few workouts isn’t going to make you miss the fitness you desire. Just stay with it and keep showing up. There will be some days down there road where your workload is light and you can come in a crush the workout. Taking a bit of time to take care of your responsibilities can make life a whole bunch less stressful and exhausting. Don’t beat yourself up for lacking in one area a bit, while killing it in another area of your life.

Rock on!

 

Danny Lesslie

@dannylesslie