Tag: time

No Time To Train

The biggest reason most people stop going to the gym.

With anything you want to prioritize, the hard part is getting it to the top of your list of important things to do. Work. Love. Meals. Rest. Hobbies. Sleep. Sometimes it’s a wonder we ever used to go to the gym.

There’s a lot of cost in exercising. The gym membership. The changing into workout clothes, the drive there, the energy needed to do a workout, the drive back, and the shower, on top of everything else that needs to be done in the evening. Training is not happening because it’s hard.

Even with the benefits you’ve seen in the past, it’s hard to get yourself to do it regularly again. It’s hard for most people. That’s why you don’t see many fifty-year-old’s with six-pack abs. Let alone thirty-year-olds. Speaking of abs, let’s go back to the part about the benefits.

From the start, going to the gym was about the benefits. Having a trim belly, growing muscles, feeling strong, feeling your body thrive. Moving through space by your own strength, and speed, and agility.

With anything you prioritize, you think of the benefits of getting that thing done. And the benefits outweigh the hardship of doing it. Being fit is amazing, but after a while other things got in the way. Your body changed, and suddenly it feels like all that hard work in the past was for nothing. The hard work seems too hard to do now.

That’s because the benefits have faded. If you’re stuck in the mentality that you’ve already done it, and already reaped the rewards, you’re going to have trouble getting in the mindset that you are no longer in that same position of success. Yes, you were once athletic. You were once fit. You were once able to perform well.

But if it’s not true anymore, it’s important that you adjust yourself to that reality. This is the first step in getting to the place where you can dream of the benefits again. And you can dream and visualize and thirst for the success of fitness to the point that the hard work is tiny in comparison to the reward you will reap.

See yourself clearly as you are. See yourself clearly as you will be. See it, and see it, and see it. Think on it, dwell on it, dream of it. And commit to the hard work in between you and that success.

You’ll notice later, as you look back on this moment, that time has shaped itself around training.

Live powerfully!

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

Stay Close to the Center

Time is funny. I still think of it as a line, with dots along it. And those dots are the times to do things, or the times that things happen.

But then I think that a line is made up of infinite dots. Time is made of infinite moments. Depending on the context, the number of dots varies. I would see a few dots when trying to remember what I ate for dinner two days ago. Or twenty dots if I’m trying to remember where I last left my phone.

The string of time spirals, too. I’m moving through a life made of days. Each day begins with a sunrise and ends with a sunset. Each morning I am different from myself the morning before, yet very similar. I move through the cycle of the day, experiencing, learning, growing, moving with my mindset and goal and dream. To the close observer, I appear very much the same as I was yesterday. And I probably am.

But in a wider perspective, although I move in cycles, I move forward. Each day I am slightly different. Each day I am one step forward from the propulsion of my mind. I may not notice day to day, but if I suddenly step back and look, I’ve come a long way. Each day looked like the last, but really it was in a new place.

It’s exciting to see how far we’ve gone. It’s thrilling, if we haven’t looked for a long amount of time. We see our academic and career accomplishments, family building, and the money and things we’ve obtained. We see how we’ve changed the world. We’ve gone so far toward our dreams. And it’s important to remember that we’ve gone there along a spiraling path.

As we move forward, we are ever close to our origin. Who we were yesterday is very close to who we are today and will be tomorrow. If we ignore that, if we keep a perspective that’s too broad, we’re only going to see a straight line from past to present to future. Too focused on stepping forward linearly, we’re going to lose track of ourselves.

Thus we embrace ourselves, and trust our will and heart to bring us step by step toward the future. We decide to remain close to the core of our being, and thereby take a more direct route to our dreams.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

A changing perception of time

NL84 Bali Inn The Brilliant Beast Blog

Flying, diving, hiking, eating, eating, and more eating in Jakarta and Manado. What a whirlwind of experiences! After the flurry of fun with family, we moved on to Bali.

The vacuum of quiet was a bit overwhelming at first. We were really on our own. No family with us, foreign surroundings, and a stretch of time ahead to do with as we pleased. It was exciting, and it was what we wanted. But I felt a lot of weight on my shoulders. It was up to us now to determine what to do, and how long it should take. Strange how that can actually feel like pressure.

Aside from the initial stall, it was nice to just enjoy the day to day. It’s surprisingly hard to do, though. After eating breakfast and making coffee one morning, I didn’t know what was next. We had no activities planned, no meals to take care of, no one to meet. I felt a bit tired so I just sat in the cool air-conditioned bungalow. When I got bored of that I moved outside into the humid afternoon and sat there. I read from my book, I wrote in my journal, and sipped on my coffee. I allowed myself to get bored, and then to go beyond that. Every time I felt bored, though, I remembered the great tropical fauna and flora that surrounded us.

Trees reach up and out with leaves bigger than my body. When the rain pours over them, the collective pattering is both thunderous and soothing. The sun shines very bright in the morning, flinging straight up above the horizon. Chirps, coos, and cackles from an endless variety of birds fill the warm, breezy air from every possible angle and distance. Roosters crow from dawn until dusk. Geckos burp from the ceilings at night. Motorcycles hum past on the street. Children’s laughs and shouts have a charming hoarseness. It comes from growing up playing outdoors.

Long term travel is a huge playground to exercise a different perspective of time. I practiced taking my time back home. I exercised full immersion in things like walks to the park. The different textures of the sidewalk squares, new flowers on trees and bushes, bugs and birds and lizards that crossed my path or caught my eye. Everything, even in my own neighborhood, day after day, could be interesting and of the utmost importance for at least a moment. I created immortal moments by giving myself to these little things with no reservation. I tuned in to eternal moments by allowing everything to soak into me. It was great practice for this open-ended travel adventure.

No matter how long a traveler is in a place, there’s never a completion point. And on the other hand, there’s no point in thinking that one’s experience is ever incomplete. It simply is what it is. There’s no way and no reason to do it all, and what transpires, no matter how great or small, is the essence of life. Time slows when things are appreciated. And when time slows, life becomes more dense.

Yesterday we moved to a different inn because we couldn’t negotiate a more reasonable price with the owner. We wanted to stay longer since it was such a nice place, but we also wanted to try something new. So we said our goodbyes and moved on to a cheaper, but still very decent, abode. Had we been time starved, though, we might have panicked and either paid the higher price to stay or decided to leave Bali sooner than we really wanted. I don’t think we’re quite ready to hit the hostels.

Walking on a daily basis in Bali has been great. We’ll soon be ready to do some more exploring, but it’s been decompressing to just stay local for several days.

Live powerfully,

Steve

Processed with VSCO with s5 preset

Never

Never is time as well.

Because every time, you decide to not do it. Or not say it. Or not think it. To do something never, you build an ever growing series of outcomes from not doing it.

Never is therefore infinite. It is gargantuan. It is consequential. Never is like always. It may even be more.

Deciding on never as the time is less scary when you know that it is actually just the next time that you will need to act. Or not act. It is not all of infinity that you claim. It is now.

Take responsibility for just the next time. The next point on the line. And if you’ve done that, good. That’s great. Worry only for the next moment.

What have you never done? What do you never do? What will you never do?

Live powerfully,

Steve

Read TheBrilliantBeastBlog via email