It only takes a little imagination, some generosity, and we smile not with arrogance, but in celebration of our shared humanity, with its frailty and tenderness.
What does any of this have to do with health and fitness, our focus? Well, there is a fitness and a health that isn't just physical. Of course we all know that, for all that reminders come in handy. It's just about appearance, though. It's so very important. You know it's true. That's why they sell magnifying mirrors. Yikes.
Nowadays we can banish our baldness with plugs and suck out the fat from our thighs and transplant it into our cheeks and tie off our stomachs and change the shape of our noses and the color of our eyes. Brave new world. What we cannot do is become more fit by taking pills or having operations. These can change us, but not in quite the same way that nature or its maker intended. To achieve the level of fitness, of physical health that makes living in a body a joy and a temptation to arrogance, we have to do, DO things differently. That's not the same thing as having someone else do something to us -- inject botox or apply spraytan. Aside from misfortune, the formula is simple: health is earned.
What do we have control over, if not our bodies? All those muffins and sodas, somehow finding their way into our hands and thence to our mouths. What insidious force motivates them? It's inexplicable. Surely we ourselves cannot be held accountable. Other than in our mere health, that is. And health hardly matters at all. We will live forever, after all, in eventual paradise or perdition, or we will be extinguished like smokeless flames -- take your pick, and live accordingly.
As for this other sort of health, emotional or spiritual, there's that venerable adage: Act as if you have faith, and it will be given to you. We live in bodies for a reason. It shapes the reality that our emotions feel. That's power. Change your behavior and you change your perceptions.
Physical redemption is about changing behavior. Effective exercise patterns, sensible dietary practices, and attention to an overall balanced lifestyle. Yes, we just love to look great naked. How gratifying. But when they bring out the magnifying mirror, none of us gets a pass. What we don't want to be is a magnifying mirror for the people around us. We take people as they come, and maybe try to make a bit of a difference. There should be no maybe about it. It's a mission.
It's like what Marley's ghost said to Scrooge: humanity is our business. Not just a no-man-is-an-island thing -- something to do with being human. Something to do with mens sana in corpore sano. It can't be all that complex. Everyone after all knows how to be human. It's just a matter of choices.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
Posts
