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 Zen of Iron Lesson #5
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| Author | Topic: Zen of Iron Lesson #5 | ||
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Amateur Bodybuilder 
Posts: 207 |
More on the Zen wisdom of lifting that I've collected and that I find transfer well to other areas of life. Working out in the gym has impressed several of these lessons on me. The first four lessons - (1) Good results take time - and they're worth working for!, (2) Consistency is Everything, (3) Men Can Nurture One Another, and (4) There's No Single Right Way - were posted to this board earlier. Here is the fifth moral lesson in the Zen of Iron that has come my way. As before, I'm not trying here to articulate things I've learned that apply only to lifting, but rather things I've learned from lifting that help me understand other areas of my life. Iron Zen Lesson #5: Masculinity emanates from the inside, not from the outside. The most annoying, and in some ways the most effeminate, guys I know are the ones who strut around the gym with their chests thrust out like pouter pigeons, their arms akimbo like they're carrying a volleyball under each arm. You all see these guys. Sometimes they're really big, but mostly they're pretty average. They think they're putting on a real macho show, but the only ones they impress are themselves. By contrast, the most macho "guy" I see in the gym is a scrawny little gal whose right arm ends halfway between her shoulder and her elbow. This is a pretty serious congenital defect, but she does hack-squats, front squats, flys on a Cybex machine, killer sets of crunches, and in general works around her physical defect to be, not a famous specimen, but surely the very best specimen she can be. Imagine being a bodybuilder with only one arm! Well, you never notice her in the gym, she doesn't take up much space, but man!, she's there, every day, and her workouts kick ass! The strutters think that toughness, masculinity, machismo, is something you wear, like a shirt. They seem to think that these qualities are something you can put on like a garment, perhaps because these qualities are only laid on their characters as deeply as a garment is laid on - that is to say, very shallowly. Let me tell you, bros: The gal at my gym lives her toughness. She knows that machismo emanates from the inside, not the outside, and believe me, you could never separate her from hers. Now, I've never talked to this gal, and she's not physically impressive, mind you, but I have no doubt about who I'd want on my side in a fight, you keep the strutters and the pouter pigeons. She'd probably blush if she knew that she gives meaning to my motto, "Become someone's hero!" Watching her work out has helped me on the job and in my private life to identify the guys who are real standup types, real heroes, and those who are just pretending. You bros, you strive to be the former, not the latter, okay? Bjaarki ------------------ BECOME SOMEONE'S HERO!     | ||
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Cool Novice 
Posts: 40 |
amen...amen...and amen... And have you noticed that the pouter pigeons never hang around long, and are NEVER consistent, never really dedicated. Instead of weights before dates, it's the other way around. Bjaarki, I've mentioned my outlook on lifting before: this isn't something I'm doing for a little while just to bulk up, it's a lifestyle. It's something I've done for years but only recently gotten serious about. I think the really macho guys are the ones that are there, day in and day out, lifting when the motivation is not really prime, putting in the time because they know the end is worth it. But, along with a lot of other things in life, it's not really the end that's most important. It's the journey. Because most of us here are focused on the END, we lose sight of everything else included in the mix: the diet, the rest, the endless tons of steel moved over and over, the gallons of sweat; the sacrifices made to be in the gym, to eat right, to get enough rest, to heal, to learn, and to help out. The quest to be not the best there is, but the absolute best that I can be. That's why I lift. And macho ain't it. |
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posted August 21, 2000 04:55 PM