[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
Good post. I think it’s funny when I see someone who has been lifting weights for 6 months or guys who are seriously underdeveloped talking about what a “passion” they have for weightlifting. I don’t even feel comfortable talking about myself like that quite yet and it’s pretty apparent to everyone I meet that I lift weights.[/quote]
It is pretty easy to be passionate for something in the beginning. Its easy to be passionate when you have continued success. Sometimes peoples passion is demonstrated when they keep getting up and when they are knocked down. The first two are easier to see than the third.[/quote]
The alternate side to that is that if very little success is actually perceived from someone when looking at their progress as a whole, no one will care how passionate you think you are.
Someone can be passionate about full contact fighting all they want to be…but if they only get knocked the fuck out every time they try it, should the rest of the world consider them to be serious and make allowances for them?
In weight lifting, unless you are in a weight class, your progress is very visually evident…and if it isn’t, then you have failed more than succeeded.
If you are very serious and seeing results, your spouse shouldn’t have shit to say. if you see little in the way of results, even if you THINK you are serious, no one else will treat you that way.
That is how the world works.[/quote]
I did not equate passion with success. Rather I said it is easier to be passionate about something you have had success at.
Success really depends on the end goal, whose standards are being used to judge, whose judging (and probably some other things as well.) Following your explanation, you would guess you would agree that in a race the successful runner is the one who wins - that seems to follow cultural convention (how the world works). But suppose other two runners fall during the race. One chooses to quit, the other one gets up and limps towards the finish line. They both have lost. The winner is already receiving accolades. The limping runner has a different perspective on the race now, is running for something other than success as generally assumed (to win). I think there is something important in the desire to finish when winning is taken away.
Since I know you have had distaste for analogies in the past, let me bring this back to weight training. I know there are some (not many) on this site that have not missed a workout (or missed very few), plan their meals and do what is needed to be done to be successful at the sport. They at times had to make difficult choices to achieve their goals. Their effort are to be commended and there bodies are testaments to their dedication.
However, there are those as well who had the choice to train taken away for extended periods - they did not chose to miss their workouts - the option was gone. At this point in the body building race they have lost. The choice then is whether to get back to the weights or not. To the winners this (may) mean nothing, to those who fight to get back to the weights the effort means far more and there can be a different kind of success in that. It is a different perspective.[/quote]
No offense, but is the goal to sound like a get well card?
This isn’t about how valiant someone is if they fall down and get back up. If you didn’t know it, there are TONS of people in gyms all over making ZERO progress…and it damn sure isn’t because of how PASSIONATE they are.
In the grand scheme of things, no one cares if you tried really really hard but always failed. You still failed. If you tried really really hard in Med School but failed every class and got removed from the program, how much does it really matter that you TRIED really hard? You still won’t be a doctor.
Yes, for the people that fall again and again…AND THEN SUCCEED, there is a story of struggle there that some may want to know about.
For the people who simply fail and never succeed, no one cares how much you struggled…or how passionate you claim you are.
The simple fact is, if you don’t LOOK like you are serious in weight lifting or aren’t winning anything, haven’t gotten that strong, aren’t that big, and haven’t made any significant progress in anything measurable to anyone else, then don’t expect for other people to consider you to be very serious.
I mean, get real, if you lift weights for 5 years like in your earlier example only gaining 5lbs a year (as if you missed any newbie gains), then your progress SUCKS. That type of progress is GREAT for someone who is already big and has some real size on them. It is HORRIBLE progress for someone who is still small and never really put on any real size…especially since it is very rare to see someone make CONSISTENT progress that slowly when they aren’t carrying much size at all.
I mean, it is like some of you are really arguing that your progress doesn’t matter.
In bodybuilding, it is pretty much ALL that matters.
In powerlifting, your weight lifted is pretty much all that matters.
Therefore, if you are still small and weak, what the hell have you done?
Being slightly bigger than sedentary people doesn’t exactly count when it comes to why your spouse doesn’t get why you need more gym time.
