Quotes of the Week from Me:

“Pain and suffering are the siblings of commitment and progress.”

“Shit’s gettin’ heavy real quick.” – Mid-workout thoughts.

“Silence is peace.”

“Know your history. It’s important.”

“The flowers in the driveway taunt me.”

Quotes of the Week from Others:

“Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue.” – Zeno of Citium

“As we live our lives, we find ourselves confronted with a brute fact about how little we can know about our futures – just when it is most important to us that we do know. For many big life choices, we only learn what we need to know after we’ve done it, and we change ourselves in the process of doing it. I’ll argue that, in the end, the best response to this situation is to choose based on whether we want to discover who we’ll become.” – L.A. Paul

“It always seems impossible until it is done.” – Nelson Mandela

“If you make listening and observation your occupation, you will gain much more than you can by talk.” – Robert Baden-Powell, Founder of the Boy Scouts

Quick Optimism:

No results? Keep working.

Bad results? Keep working.

Great results? Keep working.

Full Newsletter

Great conversations.

This past week I had a great conversation with my colleague about choices and the overly saturated worlds of cooking (her interest) and life pondering, exercise, and more (my interests). We both agreed that the same things can only be discussed, posted about, and dissected so many times before there is boredom and/or lack of quality (quality in presentation, execution, and consistency).

She actually follows my newsletter and didn’t know I’d be talking about her (Shout out, Steph!). We had one of those great conversations where you are actually getting work done but it also feels like bonding; one might even stretch to say the benefits mirrored a counseling session.

Anyway, she mentioned a book that I have not read, The Paradox of Choice, written about a topic that I have read about: choices. As we know by now, life is full of choices, like what I decided to include in this week’s newsletter.

I thought about discussing how these types of conversations with colleagues are good for team morale or how they can add a nice twist to your work day. But instead, I am going to talk about flowers.

Flowers

They are silent and beautiful. They are symbolic. And quite honestly, they have been making my day recently. But how should I demonstrate their meaning in the context of a workout? How direct or creative should I get? This is where questions get in the way of creativity. I fear at times I am flirting with delusion or over-thought. But then again, the flowers in my driveway have been taunting me.

As you can tell, I like to dabble in the dramatic while staying committed to simple explanations and thoughts. When it comes down to it, the most important things to me are happiness, healthiness, and appreciation.

These tend to go hand in hand with awareness, observation, and exploration, but if I throw down too many generalizations, I will absolutely get lost in my own world, galaxy, universe of thought.

“The flowers in my driveway taunt me.”

Talk about a great opening line for a book. Again, I am mystified by the infinite potentiality of words and writing.

Like flowers, I believe exercise is a work of art. And this week, they offer a new look at the relationship between hard work and relaxation. On second thought, they represent completely different versions of beauty and grace.  

Each morning, I wake up and walk downstairs into my garage. It is usually around 4:30am. Still dark. My favorite.

It is also silent. The day has only started for a small percentage of people and I know I can focus on me.

Just around 5:00am, the first hint of light peeks into my windows. I start to see other houses and my car in the driveway. I can usually get a good sense of the weather, but the first thing I always notice is nature. The flowers in my driveway. The birds chirping to the beginning of another incredible day.

After an hour of exercise, the minutes feel like days. I have pushed toward my breaking point. Just a few more minutes, a few more reps, and I’ll be satisfied. But the flowers are taunting me in my driveway.

They slyly swing with not a care in the world, calmly colliding with each other in the wind while I have mine drawn out of me. The orange pedals bounce up and down, but it’s just from the completion of another rep. Two pieces of nature seeking different outcomes.

In the back of my mind, I can hear my college baseball coach, “You should be fully focused. Fully focused on your reps, on the task in front of you.” Yeah, well my mind doesn’t work that way all the time. How could it? No matter how motivated or disciplined, I am convinced that we are tempted by completion. Tempted by rest. Not only during exercise, but during parenthood, our professional careers, and more. We hear stories about day-long surgeries without breaks, professional athletes training for 10 hours per day. I still think the temptation for relaxation is there. Is pushing back beneficial? As always, it depends on the situation.

The flowers remind me of relaxation, lying down in the sun. They are playing, laughing, bouncing. Life is not all about hard work.

As the flowers play and laugh in the morning light, I am reminded of my struggle to catch my breath. Humor and hyperbole surround the weight of a flower’s symbolism, just as is necessary when in pain and suffering through a workout.

Funny enough, those are signs that you are doing it right. Pain and suffering are the siblings of commitment and progress. Pushing back on relaxation and rest, although necessary to continue in the future, allow us to achieve incredible things. I just happen to appreciate the beauty of the flowers in my driveway while pushing myself to get better.

I have yet to identify with one style of prose, one style of exercise, one career path, or interest. The trending term online is “hybrid”, a complex compilation of trying to be the best at everything. But this week, the flowers in my driveway reminded me that it is okay to rest, to appreciate beauty, and also to push back when the temptation of relaxation comes knocking. The most important thing is to be consistent.  

Make it a beautiful Monday.