The other day I was reading a bodybuilding and fitness forum when I stumbled across something that really disturbed me.
It wasn’t so much the picture of the guy with biceps the size of trashcans, but the headline written above him:
I’m so obsessed with success, I barely smile.
That broke my heart a little. Probably because I saw a part of myself in that post. Not so much the muscles, but the mentality.
Dig.
I live in a city where eight million centers of the universe are scrambling around town, building their personal real estate, froggering their way to the front of the line.
And because of that, I’ve actually discovered a newfound pleasure in reeling it in a bit.
Turns out, there’s more to life than being successful. Turns out, it’s amazing how sublime and quiet and simple and weightless life can feel when you’re not running around making it all the time.
With nothing to fear, nothing to lose, nothing to hide and nothing to prove, you’re finally free to focus on the present. You can just be here, now. You can shake off the cobwebs of the past while the future, which you once perpetually gripped with quiet panic and tight anxious hands, can disafuckingppear from plain sight. And from that place of joyful lucidity, there’s actually room to pursue life’s more existential achievements.
Happiness. Satisfaction. Wholeness. Meaning.
You’re building your existential real estate, not just your biceps.
