When I was a young paddy I suffered from depression and the odd existential crisis.
I was overweight and self-conscious. Crippled with fear and worry over many of the challenges life would throw my way.
Fear of failure would lead me to avoiding everything from social situations to career opportunities.
If that sounds familiar to you read on...
The Solution - Happiness is a cold iron plate.
I have long held the view that sport provides a human with a variety of necessary skills to deal with the rest of life. Weight lifting being the case in point. The never ending goals of improved technique perfection, increased strength or increased size provide a human with a necessity to constantly strive to overcome barriers. All top sports men and women understand what it is like to come up against mental blocks, physical limits and dealing with the inevitable injuries that come with training and performance.
The experience of being mid-lift on a new PR attempt in a deadlift where your body feels like it is imploding to a bench press where you feel like you are fighting for your life in a tunnel vision of sweat, ceiling light and a sudden acute awareness of dust particles in artificial lighting cannot be replicated in real life on a daily basis unless you have a death wish. If you succeed, you will immediately want to progress to the next weight of 2.5Kgs or 5kgs and push your next boundary. Fail, however, and you are forced to look at yourself. The failure is not external and the focus must be on technique, focus or effort.
All weight lifters face failure on a regular basis. They also know the only way to deal with failure is to deconstruct the failure and learn how to overcome the current limit within oneself. In our culture, failure is viewed as the end of an effort and generally combined with a sense of pity with the failed individual. Some platitudes that resemble the language of the helpless will be pointlessly voiced. Failure is not the end of anything. It is a learning tool.
The ability to deal with failure is an oversight in our education systems. Physical exercise should be obligatory if you value your mental health. Gym memberships are cheaper than counseling. There are few feelings of content or satisfaction that can be experienced at the frequency offered by the challenges of weight lifting. Now, get to the gym.
Stoic Paddy
