I met a guy at the gym last week, and he’d been retired for about a year or so. A bit of chit-chat revealed that sometimes he spends 4 or 5 hours a day at the gym.
That’s no joke!
I asked him if he was training for something specific. He wasn’t, he just felt better after spending the day ‘getting after it.’
I pondered this brief conversation later.
It made me wonder if subliminally, he was using the gym as an escape from life. Exercise is absolutely needed and necessary. It supports a healthy lifestyle that helps us lift objects, bend, move, be flexible and strong to meet life’s physical demands.
But 4 or 5 hours per day seems a bit excessive (whether that be at the gym, or mindlessly watching TV all day, or doom-scrolling through social media). Escaping from a purposeless existence at home in retirement isn’t the answer. It seems this excess was a symptom of something that isn’t working.
Perhaps some deeper introspection or a session with our life coach might help him reorient and repurpose in his second half. Expanding his thinking beyond the safe space of the gym might be just what the doctor ordered.
It’s easier to go to our comfortable default.
Not having to face the facts or go to the effort of making your future bigger than you past… that’s work. That’s effort. That’s staying present in the moment, doing what’s needed for mental and emotional health.
Our comfort default is easy.
But it’s often not what we need.
Do the work. Do hard things. We need you. Humanity survives, even thrives, when you’re at your best.
Can’t figure it out? Seek help.
Make your future bigger than your past.
And live on purpose today.
