EMBRACING CHANGE, BUT NOT TOO TIGHT

Embracing change is all there is to do when something new pops up.

Either that or get miserable and bitter.

Go with the flow or drown fighting the current.

If you think this sounds like being a quitter, well . . .

Back in the day, way back, cigarettes were a mainstay of self-identity.

You could be nobody from nowhere, but if you smoked, always had a fresh pack and a back-up, you were in the club, the smokers’ club.

Extra credit if you had a signature lighter move you whipped out when anyone pulled a stick.

Everybody smoked. Indoors, outdoors, in the car, in bed.

The rules was smoke ’em if you got ’em.

But that changed.

In 1912, Isaac Adler published the first literature review about lung cancer.

He listed the known 374 cases mentioned in several European registries over the preceding 50 years.

Most physicians at the time thought of lung cancer as an extremely rare disease, and Dr. Adler suspected that lung cancer was underdiagnosed.

Not all cases were diagnosed by microscopy, but the number of reported cases had been rising since the mid-1800s.

 

Today identity is different. Smoking isn’t encouraged.

No one wants to be in the cancer club.

 

A Health Habit

Instead, people have shifted to fitness.

The most impressive people embracing change from doing nothing to doing something are those who never played sports in high school.

Not college, high school. Take it back to junior high and grade school.

Folks who never tapped the potential of their body until their fifties and sixties are excited.

It’s a feeling of being able to do anything, including playing sports in high school.

They would have been a great football player, a wizard on the baseball diamond, a whirling dervish on the basketball court.

And every workout proves them right.

Their feeling are proven correct when they see an old broken down war horse who has gone to seed in the gym but still racking 315 lbs.

Instead of being decked out in cruise ship vacation outfits, the old grinder wears a short sleeved hoodie and big socks folded down to their ankles.

He might be forty years old and tapping into his former glory days by being stronger now than he was then.

 

Guy 1: What do you get out lifting heavy weights. I workout for flexibility and range of motion.

Guy 2: Heavy lifting keeps me young.

Guy 1: But it’s not good for you.

Guy 2: It’s not all about me.

Guy 1: Who then?

Guy 2: Whenever a situation needs a strong man, I’ll be there. If the choice is run and hide or stay and fight, I’ll be there blocking the door.

Guy 1: So you lift heavy in case someone needs a hero?

Guy 2: Or a helping hand.

Guy 1: I never would have guessed.

Guy 2: I’m glad you asked. So what’s the advantage of your workouts?

Guy 1: I stay the same size and don’t have to buy new clothes. Also, not on any prescriptions. But most of all I like looking at my high school year books and imagining how I would have done if I played sports.

Guy 2: You didn’t play sports, but now you’re in the gym. That’s different.

Guy 1: I would have been good.

Guy 2: You never know.

Guy 1: Oh, I know. Believe me.

 

Embracing Change Is The Difference

Athletes across all sports agreed with Mike Tyson when he said, “Everybody’s got a plan until they get hit in the face.”

Until you put on the cleats, lace up the should pads, buckle the chinstrap of your helmet, and run out onto the evening field with the stands full and the band blowing full steam, you’ll never know how you would react.

I had a great coach tell me the reason he did what he did:

“For some kids the big time is right in front of them. They’ll never leave their hometown, and if they do they’ll come back because they miss it too much. What they miss is that moment in a game where they mattered.”

I remember this because of the support the community shows by attending events.

No matter the level of play, when the home crowd roars everyone feels it.

That’s their team, that’s your team, and it all comes together.

Non-sport fitness guys will never know that feeling and they can keep looking through yearbooks for it and never find it.

Some of them get testy about it if it hits young, like thirty. They have something to prove that can’t be proven and it makes them angry.

So they blame. They sling blame at coaches, teachers, parents, siblings.

If they can’t work it out, they find a cause, a movement, and pour themselves into it.

They find a job and make a load of money for revenge, but they can’t shake the feeling they could have been so much more.

You’ve seen these guys on TV, met them, maybe you are one of them.

They’re not asking for your opinion, your help, or anything about you. They already know.

They are happy in their delusion and may get angry if you say something like, “You seem happy in your delusion.”

You may have them tagged as physically soft and mentally weak, but that’s not how they see themselves.

They are the best they’ve ever been and they need room to shine. It’s their time.

It’s their brief shining moment to reflect on what they missed out on and how they would have made a big difference.

It’s them embracing change in real time and making another big difference to look back on.