I wish I could tell you otherwise. I wish I could fill your days with new barbells and kettlebells and beautiful, inspiring PRs. I wish I could tell you that the path to success is shiny and bright and sunshine will come out of your ass.

But that’s not going to happen. And stop listening to the people who feed you that bullshit. The world is a much darker place. There are no fucking unicorns. Just horses with pointy shit glued on their noses. And yeah, the world can be a cold place. And vicious. And sometimes seemingly devoid of any real meaning. You can lose yourself in the world, searching for soul.

But don’t.

There is soul and you know how to look for it. You must look for it. You must find it. Just because the world is brutal doesn’t mean that you get to hide yourself off from it and live the life of the complainer, the person who never gets a break, the suckass whiner with the perpetually doomed viewpoint, certain that life’s suckerpunch is always headed for them. Don’t search for pity. Don’t settle for consolation. Fight for victory.

Salvation sits right at your feet.

The world is brutal, and you must be brave. But you have a barbell. You can do something. And then another thing. And another. You change. Things change. We change. Get the fuck on it.

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)

We talk so much about being efficient in our movements in the gym, about using our bodies wisely and purposively, about making each motion count … but do we think about that in our daily lives?

How functional are the daily activities of your life? The passing of the hours each day … what do you do with each one? 24. We all get 24. Each and every day. Do you use them well? Or do you squander them?

It’s probably safe to say you should not be like me. I am driven by the days, haunted by the hours, constantly reminded with each breath that the words will never all spill onto paper, that there are not enough minutes on any clock to hold all these thoughts, that life will time out while I am still struggling to express all that is in my head. Not everyone should be this way. It is, most likely, a bit unhealthy.

On the other extreme, I used to have a lover who passed so many hours and days with nothing. Mindless hour after hour filled with fluff and mayhem. I would ask, “But what are you doing with this time?” The answer was always the same: “I’m not like you. I can’t produce at that rate. I have to have downtime.”  Yet the downtime was not paired with much uptime. There was production of … almost nothing. Day after day. Month after month.

The lines of life challenge us all. Where do we draw them? How do they help us? Hurt us?

There must exist in this life, somewhere, an in-between, a sanity zone, a place with production and rejuvenation. We have this concept in our physical lives — our bodies demand it — but how to find it in our personal life? Our work life? Our love life? How do we tame our mind and will? How do we harness all we have and convert it, sanely, into what we so desperately want to be?

Some people will read this and take it personally, become defensive, feel the heat on the back of their neck and the need to justify their life and actions. Be not one of them. I stand in judgment of no one but myself. I merely ask you to take a look and think about your days and your life and your love …

How do you spend your days?

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)

The trouble with karma is that it takes so long to arrive sometimes …

We want everything NOW.

Justice? Now. Results? Now. Oh, and forgiveness now and maybe some total memory loss too, when we’re on the wrong side of the finger-pointing.

Just like we want our pull-ups NOW, and then our butterfly pull-ups, and now our new levitating butterfly pull-ups. (There’s no such thing. I’m just f***ing with ya. Don’t email me for tips.)

Anyhow, the point here is that the answer is to have patience in the gym and in life, but that’s sooooo damn boring. Telling people to have patience is like telling them to like vegetables. (Oh, wait, we’re CrossFitters. We like vegetables, even the famed dreaded Brussels sprouts. Turns out that if you roast them with bacon, they’re delicious. Although this might be true of almost anything. Roasted bark with bacon — recipe coming to your Paleo blog soon!)

So, the trick is not to think of it as patience. It’s just breathing. Pausing. Recovering. Taking a moment to gather your strength. It’s not waiting, it’s not lingering, it’s not stupid downtime that you hate so much like the fact that you have to sleep every night and miss fantastic things happening in the world. You were born to act and make shit happen, not sit on your ass like some fool letting life pass you by!

Oh wait, that was just me again. Never mind.

But, seriously, you have to learn to breathe or you’re going to pass out. You have to learn to pause, to have patience, to rest, or you’re going to burn out. Don’t be in such a rush all the time. Be smart. Stop. Learn. Listen. Maybe even do nothing — absolutely nothing — once in a while. It’s not going to kill you, or derail your plans for world domination. It’s actually going to help. Keep working hard, but sometimes learn to just breathe. Everything will come in due time. Or it won’t. And life will go on …

And he pulled us all up.

Chris Spealler, a small man with the strength of a bigger man, a Bible tattoo on his chest, and a megawatt smile, lifted us all up on a Sunday afternoon and made us feel, for one bright, sunny afternoon, like life was fair.

He got third place in the South West Regionals of the CrossFit Games. Third place. And yet he overshadowed the first and second place winners. Why? Because he wasn’t supposed to be on that podium. Because he came from  behind. Because when all else was dark, Speal was light. Because one man, one small man, working harder than ever, managed to pull out the performance of a lifetime and make the last spot in his region for the 2012 CrossFit Games.

Speal will be going back to the Games for the sixth time: the only person to compete in all six CrossFit Games. That in itself is remarkable. That he was also the 2010 CrossFit Games “Spirit of the Games” award winner is remarkable. That he managed to push that big honking sled in the 2011 Games is remarkable. There is pretty much nothing unremarkable about Chris Spealler … except that he’s a regular guy, a husband, a dad, a CrossFit affiliate owner, a CrossFit Level One trainer, and just about one of the nicest guys you could ever meet.

And, so, one Sunday afternoon in the beginning of May, we huddled around our laptops and our iPads and our phones and waited breathlessly for the next updates, the next words, the next news coming from the Regionals. Could Spealler do it? Could he make it when all the odds were against him?

He did. And we all yelled and cheered and cried when he did. One man. Exercising in a gym in Colorado. And yet it was important, so important.

Why?

Because of this crazy CrossFit thing. Because CrossFit inspires us in ways we never dreamed of before. We go to the gym and we become better athletes … and then better friends, better parents, better people. And it all starts in the gym, doing CrossFit together. We have learned this now. We know that CrossFit is more than a workout, more than a name, more than one person, or ten, or a hundred, or a thousand.

Who would have ever imagined we would be there like that? Huddled around our phones and laptops and iPads, reading tweets and updates and wondering how it all ends, or continues, for a little guy from Utah? Who would have thought our hearts could hold so much hope, so much joy, so much love?

Thank you, Chris Spealler, we needed that.

(Image courtesy of Mary Pantier Photography.)

“That’s just the way it is.”

Ugh. Raise your hand if you hate that saying.

“That’s just the way it is.”

What an excuse for mediocrity. A rationale for piss-poor performance. An acceptance of crap.

Those words are a symbol that you’ve given up, or that you won’t try harder, or that you just don’t care anymore.

Don’t do it. Don’t use those words. Don’t surrender. Fight for better.

Ban that statement from your lexicon. When you find yourself defending the status quo with vague nothingness, instead of searching for a way to improve whatever “that” is, stop yourself. Slap yourself. Do burpees. Do handstands. Do something to wake yourself up and pour some oxygen into your brain and realize “Just because something sucks doesn’t mean it always has to suck.”

“That’s just the way it is.” 

Oh yeah. For now. But that doesn’t mean forever. All of the world’s improvements came because somebody refused to accept the way things are, and had the guts to start working on the way things could be …

There is no such thing as an overnight success. There is only the dream of the overnight success: the myth, the legend, the want that we all have.

Lasting success is the result of hard work. Period. Dot.

If you want something, go get it. But don’t think it will come overnight. It never does. Be prepared to work hard, for years.

Expect to be attacked. Expect to be ridiculed. Expect to be ignored.

Breathe. Hurt. Suffer. Smile.

And maybe, one day, you’ll find yourself wondering how you got so lucky — and you’ll realize it wasn’t luck at all.

Now, get back to working on your dream.

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)

I’m like you — I’ve got a list idling over there on the “Ignore” setting. And a whole list of lame excuses to go with it: too busy, too many commitments, too much blah blah blah.

The real truth (don’t you love that phrase? Real truth? Like there could be fake truth?) is that the list sits undone because we don’t want to do those things. It’s simple. We don’t want to do them, so we don’t do them. And then we sit there, guilty, eating chocolate and watching “House” instead of doing hill sprints or filing all that paperwork. (Oh wait, sorry, that was just me.)

Kick yourself in the ass. The day — and the week — will only get better after you do.

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)

We tell ourselves all sorts of things.

“This weight is too heavy for me.” “I’m not a fast runner.” “I’ve never been agile.”

Well, f*** that.

Every time you tell yourself bullshit, you’re limiting yourself. Just because something was, doesn’t mean it has to be.

I’m slow as hell when I run. What’s that mean I should do? Run more. Get better. Get more efficient. Get faster.

You’re weak at the front squat. What should you do? Front squat more. Get better. Get more efficient. Get stronger.

Then work like hell to become that.

(Image courtesy of Nicole Bedard Photography.)