This morning Nike ad Just Do It, popped into my brain while out on my Sunday morning ride.
First I'll say this is not an ad for Nike, I'm more of an Under Armour guy myself. But the campaign that Nike launched all those years ago was brilliant in its simplicity.
How could three little words sum up so much. But another famous phrase I Love You is only three words and says so much. Good things sometimes come in small packages, which should be encouraging to all my vertically-challenged friends out there.
Just Do It popped up in my brain this morning and it got me thinking, how many times should we just say to ourselves, not even out loud Just do it! Just do it Wes! Just do it when it hurts, just do it when you want to be lazy, just do it when you'd rather sit in the recliner and veg out, just do it!
The strange thing I've found over the past 5 months of F3, is that at some point I don't have to tell myself to just do it. I want to do it.
In the past two days I've been called an Iron Man (the athletic version, not the metallic clad billionaire variety) and an athlete. An athlete? Me? It boggles the mind. But as I look at the definition above, I realize I am an athlete now and I'm loving every minute. My friend Jason many times called us athletes at boot camp, but it's really sinking in.
As I sit here writing, my legs are in a state of serious repair. They are very sore from a hard boot camp, I helped partly lead yesterday, and two days of cycling. This is all being done by a guy that at the start of 2013 couldn't even run one-quarter of a mile. Which brings me back to my point, and I have one.
I'm frankly tired of hearing my fellow Americans tell me that they can't do this, or they can't do that. Yes you can! I'm not anything special, I wasn't born on Krypton. I'm an American, born in the South: home to fried chicken, sweet tea and Krispy Kreme's! Mmm...somewhere the hot donut sign just came on.
As I've advanced in my transformation this year, I've heard so many people say "I could never do that!". Lies! You can do this stuff! You can get off the couch and take better care of yourself.
Am I saying that you all need to run out and do a ruck, certainly not. But you can take better care of yourself, you can eat better, you can stop smoking or whatever your hangup is. We all have them.
Sometimes they manifest in the strangest ways.
People tend to go to extremes. They either workout too much, or not at all. They either eat like a health nut, or they eat fast food until they are bloated, sickly creatures who hate life. We need to find balance in our country and world.
There are people, by the thousands if not millions that struggle to provide one meal a day for themselves in our world. Sometimes you may pass them on the street as you drive to Starbucks to buy your $5 mocha latte whatever-they-are-call-it.
I'm not here to guilt trip anyone, and I'm not here to say its wrong to be able to afford Starbucks every day. But I am here to say in my own small way, that you and I need to find balance in our lives.
This doesn't mean just health, but if your health is lacking then eventually you will have to stop life in general just to try and survive. How many people do you hear of that don't take care of themselves and one day they have a heart attack or stroke? Many of them could have prevented a lot of pain, suffering and financial woes if they'd only found balance in their lives.
I heard one of the best quotes recently, and sadly I can't recall the source: When people are young, they spend all their health to make money. When people are old, they spend all their money to make themselves healthy. It's so true, and it's so sad.
Our society seems to be on the brink of a major shift. The gap in the upper, middle and lower classes seems to be broadening in every respect. It seems many in the middle class do think of others but many are struggling to achieve success in this world and make it to the upper class and therefore they lose focus on others. In many cases some of the most giving people in our country are the poor, the ones that can least afford to give.
I'm not here to bash the 1%, I'm saying we are all the 1%. I heard in a sermon recently that if you own a refrigerator, you are in the top 5% wealthiest people in the world. Read it again, in the world.
I am going to point (in a very nice way) a finger though at the rich. What are you doing!? I don't care if you have millions, but what are you doing with those millions?
Why do you need a new luxury car every 3 years, or 2, or 1? That luxury car is a lie. It tells you that you've succeeded, that you're better than your neighbor, or the guy at the office.
That car will one day rust and rot in some landfill, and your body will rot and decay in a grave. What did you do with your money that helped anyone else? I'm not trying to bash the rich. If you have money and you help others with a portion of it, and give of your time to help others I applaud you. You are certainly in the minority it seems. Writing a check is all well and good, but what did you do that got you down in the trenches with the rest of us that are struggling to keep a roof over ourselves?
I come back in conclusion to this really long post to say this, Just Do It. Whatever your battle is in life, whether its greed, obesity, depression, laziness, drugs, alcohol, apathy, whatever it is, just take today and just do something about it!
Battles are rarely won in an instant, they take planning and many times patience. I challenge you to get in the battle for your life. Make your life a better one, then you'll be able to improve someone else's life and when we all start to do that, what a wonderful world this place could be.
Until next time... please sit on your sandals!
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