If I were to pick up a brick and throw it at a tempting plate-glass picture window just begging for it, that window is going to shatter in a spectacular waterfall of glass.
Don’t ask me how I know this.
Another example:
If I fill my garden with the seeds of the poison ivy plant, I should not expect to harvest a bumper crop of corn.
These are familiar and relatable examples of cause and effect.
If I do thing X, I can reliably expect thing Y to happen.
In the absence of thing X, I should not expect Y to happen.
Simple stuff. Kids get this.
Many adults do not.
Can you take someone seriously who says they really really want to break that giant plate-glass window, but refuses to pick up a rock?
“Rocks are too heavy and dirty. I’ll just sing to it instead. That’s way more fun and motivating.”
There’s no mechanism connecting singing to shattering a window. There is no plausible pathway from that action to the intended result.
Based on my exact calculations, about 98% of people who are “interested in fitness” think and reason exactly like this.
They say they want to build muscular, athletic, shapely, tight, fit, well-performing bodies.
And they’ll explore possible option to reach that goal…
… except for the causes that create that effect.
Pick up weights a few times a week. Eat a protein-rich, calorie-balanced diet. Fill in the margins with a few short intense condition sessions.
That’s about it.
Do you know how many arguments I’ve had with people about this?
Don’t try to guess.
The number is ample.
Grown adults are free to do what they like with their lives. I’m not one to nag or lecture.
But if you want a goal, while refusing to do what it takes to get to that goal, you’re going to fail.
There’s no way to sugar-coat that. A lifetime of sugar-coated excuses are part of the problem.
It’s cause and effect.
Throw the rock, break the glass.
The way I figure, most of the real work of a fitpro is dealing with this perverse psychology of the causality deniers.
These are the people that know what to do…
… refuse to do it…
… and then complain to anyone with ears that the entirely predictable and foreseeable results happened to them.
The audacity of reality for existing.
The world is supposed to cater to MY ego and MY fleeting whirlwind of inconstant feelings that I can’t even keep straight in my own life from one day to the next.
If humans didn’t have so much possibility for great things, we’d be one worthless pack of disappointments.
Anyway. I’m doing my meager best to make a dent in that situation. I’m going to fail, as we all fail against history, but it’s the effort and intention that matters.
If you want to join my Quixotic crusade against entropy’s decay, use this link to join us.
Matt Perryman