Work ing Hard or Hardly Work ing?
I have the great luxury of meeting lots of new people in my line of work
Some people come and go
And some stay and endure into lasting friendships
For which I am eternally grateful
I like to observe behaviour
And examine cause and effect
Of course as an observational study my conclusions might be somewhat divergent of reality but I am not up for the science nobel prize here so my observations are merely for my own knowledge bank
I see people who work really hard
But make no progress
I see people are incredibly lazy
And make phenomenal progress – bastards right! ;-)
I see people who just get on with the basic stuff day in day out
Who do you think wins at the end?
Well the answer really depends on your outlook
But its the third one
The person who just puts one foot in front of the other and gets on with it
He has set backs, but understands that its part of the journey
He has highs but doesn’t get complacent, its part of the journey
He has times where he feels like nothing is changing, but he believes in the process
He has weak moments but reflects on the great moments that life has to offer and recognises that its ok to be weak if you also have strength
I met a man the other week
He came along to one of my university classes
These are classes that are usually packed with university level athletes so they are a fairly fit and agile bunch
The classes are designed to suit the needs of team sports
This chap shuffled in and he was a little hunched but he came at 7.30am
I was not about to deny him a good workout
I talked to him about what the class was going to entail
And he told me something phenomenal
He told me that he was recovering from a viral condition that had affected his nervous system
One day he could walk, the next day he couldn’t control his body
He had spent a year re-developing the control systems in his brain and body to allow him to walk in to my class today
This is a chap who was previously a runner, and habitual gym goer
Struck down with this viral infection out of the blue
And his whole life is different now
But he is still working hard every day to do things that actually, WE take for granted
We take it for granted that we can bound down to the gym
But how often are we grateful for this?
How often do we say, ‘ahhhhh well I can go tomorrow right!’
We take it for granted that we can jump on a bench, or lift a weight above our head
But when was the last time you stopped to think that actually its a privilege to be able to do those things!
He cant run half marathons like he used to
But he damn well ran around my sports hall with the students
He came back from this condition and is working on getting his life back to normal
He is getting stronger every day
He is working hard every day to achieve this
He values what he is going to get at the end of it!
Because actually that’s what happens if you work on something consistently
You will get stronger
You will get better at it
If you work on your will power it will get better
If you work on your squat it will get better
If you work on any of your abilities, they will get better
So next time you feel a bit lazy or like you want to sack off the gym or your routine…
Think about how you would feel if you didn’t have the option of going
Would you want to go then?
Nicola ‘pensive’ Rossell