In Nigeria, we have a year of mandatory NYSC service. After school, everyone is posted somewhere to do a year of service to the country in one capacity or another. Instead of this, I think we should all go to the gym for 3-6 months instead.
I promise, I’m not being one of those weirdos who goes to the gym, and then makes it their entire personality. Hear me out.
The thing is, at the gym, you learn that your body is capable of undergoing great pressure, and coming out stronger. It can morph itself and grow to overcome things bigger than it is. Continuously. In the gym, you see people defeating their bodies. Or should I say, getting their bodies to defeat things. Progressively.
This syncs so deeply with one of my favourite things I’ve read recently, on why we should do hard things.
I think that many of us are not fully aware of our capacity to do incredible things. I mean, we sometimes have a broad understanding of it, but it never really translates into hard knowledge.
You can coast pretty far in life without ever doing something truly remarkable, and this means that when you do inevitably come across something bigger, and greater than your capacity, you might falter.
But at the gym, you learn that your body is capable of overcoming things. And if your body can do this, so can your mind, and every part of you.
Yesterday, I was tired when I got to the gym. I had a long day and honestly, I felt like I didn’t have the strength to do anything. But I still got on the bench and pushed 70kg. For context, I was struggling with less than half of this a few months ago. I got up thinking; “hey, I can do this even when I’m tired”. And I felt capable.
If you can go from struggling with a few kgs to bench pressing the average weight of an adult human in only a few months or years, then what’s a career switch, really? What’s standing up to people deciding what your life should be, and letting them know you want different? What’s taking those bold steps you’ve been stalling on?
If you can fail a few reps at the gym, but ultimately overcome that level, what’s failure in other areas that’s so debilitating that you can’t move past it?
Again, I probably sound like one of those weird internet bros that act like the gym is everything, but they’re not so far off. You don’t have to make it go for your entire life (even though you technically should), but there are lessons about life to be learnt from consistently devoting time to work on your body.
You’ll be surprised what you might learn about yourself.