Keeping It.
Making money isn’t the hard part; keeping it is. Sometimes it feels like we’re in a sinking ship of impending doom. But instead of water rushing in, it’s money rushing out. Just as soon as we plug one hole, two more spring forth. Is capsizing inevitable? I’m running out of fingers to plug with.
Just like finance, fitness is about managing debt and limiting your loss. This is the only time you are able to acquire; pro-gress.
What is debt? Debt is less than zero. Debt as it relates to fitness, is injury or limitation. When you have debt, you have to work hard just to get back to neutral. I had a teacher in grade school that used to say (when I was talking to a girl in class instead of paying attention), “I’m going to kick you out and you will get a zero for the day. That means you’ll need to get fifty points just to fail.”
Getting injured isn’t cool. Acquiring limitation isn’t a badge of honor. There’s no real cool points for debt acquisition or getting kicked out.
A beginner’s trajectory toward better is steep, but unsustainable. It’s important to realize as you progress towards fitter, that the ideal trajectory is gradual and the journey is the greatest when it’s long. When you are transitioning from a beginner to a veteran, it’s easy to desire the same rate of progress you once experienced. But if you will accept nothing less than a steep trajectory, there’s a damn good chance you are going to get injured. In your mind’s eye, picture your fitness journey as a line graph. We want it to be a long, shallow slope up. We don’t want it to look like the jagged landscape of the Rocky Mountains where the mean is zero.