Once more with feeling

[EmilyQ]

@SvenG

I’ll paraphrase something that @T3hPwnisher has said time and again all across this forum that really helps me frame @EmilyQ’s observation:

I happen to have handy some of @T3hPwnisher’s excellent words, along with some by @TrainForPain, because I know exactly when they said them to me: it was when I had to ask what I was doing, and why, thinking it was impossible for me as a consistent thing. It was the holiday season two years ago, and I’ve been consistent for that long. @BethB I don’t know if we’re doing a T-ransformation Challenge this year, but it was a lot of fun. (Fun-ish. You know how it is.) I let myself gain weight when I was 6 months in, by the way. I feel FANTASTIC. I felt happy to pick my diet back up after my endoscopy fast- I love my Italian chicken vegetable soup and grapes and dark chocolate. I love not smoking and hydrating and going outside and spending miles on the move.

Here are the excellent words, which I think apply here. You run 3 miles like it’s nothing, Beth. You constitute the exception now. But it doesn’t mean you have to be perfect! We all have to learn to fall off and then get back on. Except for @davemccright, who I believe was joyouly strength training as a toddler.

@TrainForPain

Now the question of “why push it so hard?” I’ll be the annoying rhetorical that answers a question with a question: does the grind make you happy? If not, I don’t think you should do it. If yes, then you certainly don’t owe not doing it to satisfy a preconceived notion on trips around the sun. You certainly don’t owe anyone looking a certain way; it should just be what makes you happier?

I think either answer is equally valid and neither is perfect. I tend to ask myself which manure I want to shovel, because I’m going to be in one field or another.

@T3hPwnisher

Flat out: the average american is NOT healthy. Not at age 18, not at age 30, and absolutely not at age 60. You are, by definition, exceptional if you are healthy. To be so at 60 makes you superb.

It’s too easy to hang out on Tnation, AMONG the exceptions, and consider yourself average, but perspective needs to be maintained here. The weakest link in our chain here is stronger than the mightest average person. And you’re far from our weakest link.