I’m always looking for great fitness content and found this from the Forever Alpha Blog: How to Perform Hanging Leg Raises. When gyms reopen where I live, and I again have access to a pull-up bar I will again incorporate these into my routine. I highly recommend them.
“So, what it boils down to is this, if there is a distraction in your life, preventing you from becoming all that you can be, you need to conquer it. You need to attack it and overcome it. Without strength, willpower, and the desire to be something more significant, you will never indeed be anything. Without power, resolve, and willingness to overcome your faults, you will never indeed be anything.”
Jack Donovan’s Becoming A Barbarian. I love Jack’s writing and diagnosis of what’s wrong with modernity and how to fix it. His term used throughout the book, “The Empire of Nothing,” is perfect to describe modern-day society.
They
mean the same, and I prefer to use “sincere.”
“Sincerity”
and social media don’t belong together. They are different animals.
We
all know this on a visceral level. Social media has been a part of our lives
for more than a decade and, while we recognize the benefits it provides through
the connections it forges, it is also very easy to see its drawbacks, and they
are many.
We
all know that it’s often used to paint an idealized portrait of users’ lives,
while glossing over the not so great or forgettable parts.
It
can be thought of as the press release version of real life. A press release
is, after all, a form of propaganda where an organization presents its best
face and tries to control the narrative. Any organization that issues press
releases does so with the hopes that the narrative it writes will be the story
that makes it into the newspapers.
Good
reporters will dig deeper beneath the surface level of the press release to find
what’s missing. Press releases serve a purpose, and that’s to paint an
idealized portrait desired by the issuer while ignoring anything that can appear
to be negative.
There’s
nothing better for a communications professional than to see their press releases
printed verbatim in a news outlet. It means they have won, and the narrative
they pitched has become the accepted truth, whether it’s the whole truth or
not.
Danger
always exists when a company starts to completely believe its own press
releases. At that point any remaining sincerity is gone.
I’m
guilty as charged in having using social media to present the parts of my life
I want to present to the world. It’s always fun to post about the good stuff –
vacations, life accomplishments, date nights, and special occasions.
But
for all of us, those feel good posts tell part of our story. After all, it’s uncomfortable
to write about disappointments, failures, hurts, and other forms of vulnerabilities.
It potentially paints us in a bad light and runs counter to the positive narrative
– our own version of press releases – we’ve constructed around our lives.
I’ve decided I’m going to make efforts to attack this problem head on and act with greater sincerity on social media. I will show my defeats as well as my victories.
Sincere Communication
Patty
and I have been together for 25 years, since I was 18 and she was 16 years old.
TLC’s
“Waterfalls” was the Billboard Number 1 song, Kevin Costner’s disastrous
Waterworld was flopping in theatres, and ER and Seinfeld were the top-rated
television shows.
The
years since then have been a veritable journey filled with many, many ups, and
also many downs.
At
times, we have hurt each other, disappointed each other, made each other angry,
sad, and even despondent.
We
all love to remember the good parts of our lives and try to bury the bad parts,
but both the good and the bad are what make us, us.
Is
it possible to expect anything different from flawed humans than to try to
eliminate the bad while elevating the good? After all, we want to feel good
about ourselves, and it’s a basic survival instinct.
Without
the totality of our experiences we would exist as someone other than who we are
right now. While we would still have our physical bodies, we would not be us.
The
passage of time has taught both of us, I think, the value of being fully sincere
with each other.
We
have been discussing and trying to live a concept we are calling “Sincere Communication”
for the past year.
What
does this mean? Briefly, it means we talk… a lot.
We
don’t try to hide behind any masks and strive to show our true selves to each
other at all times, even when what we are revealing or discussing may not show
us at our best or it may be ugly in some way.
It
means we have no fear about sharing our darkest thoughts or feelings with each
other, and we will not judge the other for being human. As with social media, it’s
s always easy to share happy thoughts; but those that live in the shadows are
much harder to reveal, even to the person who has been your partner for so
long.
Far
too often during the past 25 years, one or both of us held back parts of
ourselves from the other due to fear and not wanting to rock the boat. This led
directly to many bad times.
Holding
back parts of ourselves doesn’t happen anymore.
If
something is bothering me, or vice versa, the expectation is now that we will
discuss it without judgment and without expressions of anger. We will accept it
is part of the reality of the other person, and work through it if it something
that needs to be worked through.
I
hate using the word “safe space,” since it rightly has negative connotations,
but I want to co-opt the concept for our form of Sincere Communication. Our
home is, in fact, a safe space where we can and do live without fear in our
communications with the other.
It is safe for us to be real with each other at all times, and about any topic.
Disagreements
will happen. Whenever human beings come together there will always be disagreements,
but Sincere Communication helps prevent those disagreements from morphing into smoldering
conflagrations.
A
good analogy, or at least the best I can come up with, is controlled burns in
forest management. Such controlled burns are purposely set because they help
keep forests healthy by providing many benefits, such as reducing flammable
materials, recycling soil nutrients, and providing an opportunity for new vegetation
to grow. These controlled burns are much better than unplanned forest fires
that could quickly turn into out-of-control catastrophes, ultimately taxing resources
to the breaking point and destroying the forest, all wildlife in it, and the
surrounding areas.
If
we had lived this way for the entirety of the past quarter century, we would
have been able to prevent problems before they bubbled over the cauldron. We
would have had greater intimacy because sharing everything with another person
brings you close, exceedingly close.
We
have full access to each other’s minds now. She knows me, and I know her, and I
wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s
obviously not possible to go back in time and erase bad moments, but it is
possible to create the life and relationship we want now by breaking negative
patterns and living with Sincere Communication.
It
is not easy at first, particularly when you are so accustomed to holding things
in for fear of looking bad or ceding ground in an argument; but it is
necessary. Just like a controlled burn of a forest might look scary and
dangerous to an outsider, some conversations can appear to be fraught with
danger initially due to fear.
We
continue to live this journey every day.
Just
as I made the decision to no longer present the sanitized version of life on
social media, we jointly made the decision to no longer present to each other the
sanitized version of ourselves.
Life is messy.
It doesn’t always go according to plan.
It includes inevitable pain, failure,
and disappointment.
And, that’s ok.
Accept it, enjoy the ride, and live it
with sincerity.