If you see your belly has grown and you use the excuse that not everyone has to look like the cover of Men’s Fitness, you have missed a very important point about life: being healthy and fit is not about vanity, it is about being happy and available to serve others as well as those you love.
There’s more to that sentence than a few simple words.
First of all, fitness is the bi-product of a life well-lived, not the goal.
Fitness comes in many shapes and sizes, but it is unmistakable when you see it and feel it.
Second: (and most people don’t understand this concept) happiness is not the reward but the point from which you start. Happiness is not some airy fairy thing like in the movies. It comes in many forms and disguises such as a sense of purpose more than laughter or a hammock on the beach.
Third: The best way to get what you want in your life is to give that to others without reserve, to serve others is the best way to serve yourself.
The world that makes your life a dream come true is not the world outside you and around you but the world within. This may sound contrite, but it is life’s greatest truth. There will always be pain and ugliness and challenges in the world around you, the world outside you. What you see and the way you choose to look at it is the world inside you that will make all the difference in your life… and the world at large.
Dig to the bottom of your wish list and find your deepest why — for fitness, for wealth, for relationships, to not struggle, to not be alone. And then ask why again.
When you know what is driving you, the rest of the answers and your path will begin to reveal themselves to you, bit by bit, clearly and simply.
We all want to experience the same satisfaction in love, peace, security — whether that be in a mountain stream or the frenzy of the city at night or extreme sports. We’ve just been mislead for countless generations where to look for and find that.
Too fat, too old, too lonely, too stressed, too poor. These are all consequences that you may still have time to manage.
Actions leave evidence.
This is true for the action of no-action, as well.