Unleash Your Fitness Alter Ego!
Artwork by the amazing Danny Haas
I was talking to my boss the other day, and he told me he finally realized why I just disappear immediately after work and am unreachable by phone or email until late at night. I chuckled and offhandedly told him it was because I was a superhero. He knows I train martial arts, but I guess it just took awhile to sink in that I have a life outside of my job! It immediately got me thinking; my life, in many ways, is very similar to the super powered heroes that live on the pages of my favorite comic books.
- I disappear from my home and my job, and am unreachable, for hours virtually every day.
- I have a special uniform that I wear only when I am at the gym.
- I fight people.
- I often crawl into bed late at night, bruised and exhausted, long after my wife has fallen asleep.
That train of thought led me to the realization that, in a lot of ways, going to the gym or participating in an activity is very much like a superhero shedding his secret identity and donning his costume!
We set aside the trials and tribulations of the mundane world, put on a “costume” and proceed to get sweaty and sore. I don’t know about you, but it certainly sounds like a normal day for the likes of Green Arrow or Daredevil to me.
Think about it; if there wasn’t a point to doing something unless you were the best at it, then you probably wouldn’t do 99.99999% of the things you do (My apologies to anyone who is the best at something. My bad.) For example, I like to play FPS games like Gears of War and Call of Duty on Xbox Live. I also get shot in the face; a lot. I am far from the best, or even from top-tier (let’s be honest, I kind of suck) but I keep doing it because I find it entertaining.