By Cavino Johnson Athletic Xtreme
This week, I have taken my family to the beach for our annual vacation to one of our favorite beaches. If you’ve never been to an actual beach, go… go to the ocean. It’s majestic. I love it. I don’t even like hot weather, but when there is sand and ocean waves nearby, I can tolerate the sun rays just fine.
Before this week, I found myself in a bit of a conflict. I have spent the last several years in bodybuilding competition “mode”, even on vacation. Therefore, I have always been “shredded”. This year, not so much. For the first time, I felt like… well, I felt like some of the same people I’ve helped to feel good and look good… and it hit me like a ton of bricks. A ton.
Just like the others
Now, don’t get me wrong. Your boy isn’t obese. I just don’t have this six pack. That’s what was bothering me. I have spent the past 8 months on a bulk mode. Ok, ok, ok… I’ll remain 100%, like I always do, and tell you that my “bulk mode” has been more like “OOh! Look. Food.” mode. But, no shame. I usually spend 9-10 months of the every year in prep mode and this was the first year in nearly ten, that I have allowed myself some of the same luxuries of “the others”.
Yes. I said “the others’. Well, who is that? The others, and this is just my categorization, are people who do not train, who do not lift, who have never stepped on a competition stage, people that don’t know the importance of Pam cooking spray backstage. Those who can and will find more important things to do with an hour than go to a gym or go for a run. Nothing against The Others. I just live a different way.
But, this year, I freaked out. I was self conscious about the way I looked. Not because my physique wasn’t symmetric, or because I wasn’t big enough, or if my progress pictures showed actual progress, or if the judges would see me as the winner. I felt like I wasn’t representing the #fitfam properly.
Not a care in the world
But then, we got here. We got to the beach, the sand, the breeze. I looked around. Honestly, I will tell you what I saw. I saw people. I saw hundreds of people. All different kinds. All different shapes… except “in shape”. I saw bellies. I saw cellulite. I saw moobs. For those that don’t know what those are, “moobs” are man boobs. I saw flappy arms. I saw ill-fitting bathing suits. I saw a dude go to sit in his chair, and watched his chair quit it’s job due to work-related stress. But there was something else I saw that, actually, even for a fleeting few moments, made me envious… The Others– didn’t care. They were happy. They accepted themselves. They laughed and jiggled and laughed some more. They didn’t give one single care that they didn’t have a well-built physique. They didn’t care that their bellies hung way over their stretched elastic waistbands. They were having fun. Happy.
At that moment, the moment when I kicked off my flip flops and took off my shirt, I threw caution to the salty wind. But it was weird. Suddenly, I was being stared at. As I looked around, I could see that people were talking about me because one person would stare and mouth something to another person, who would then lift their head to see. Some pointed. Some stared. I thought, maybe, my ass crack was creeping out of the back of my board shorts or I forgot to shave that one rebellious chest hair. But. I was being gawked at because of the way I looked. I was the minority. Not because of my color. I don’t care about that. I was the minority by way of physical appearance.
Love yourself and let things happen
See, just because I don’t have a full six pack doesn’t mean I don’t have a hardcore 4-pack. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t muscle separation or cross-striations, width or larger-than-average muscle. It hit me. Is this what The Others feel like when they are out doing everyday stuff like grocery shopping, going to the movies, going to the amusement parks, etc.? I’m sure that, at some point, while buying that new one piece and two piece bathing suits, even swim trunks, they may have felt a little uncomfortable, but, ultimately, their response was “f*** it.” A bit of me can respect it. A bit of me understands it. But, most of me knows that I have wanted to throw my hands up and be done with this whole bodybuilding thing… There’s a big misconception that all people who are successful in the fitness industry are the happiest people on this rock. It’s not true. Many of them are just as unhappy or more than those who aren’t in the industry. You wouldn’t know it, though.
But why? To be comfortable in my skin means that I am comfortable with being bigger than the average guys here. And I will get bigger. It means that, I am in a very, very small percentile of individuals who look at their bodies and know that it needs improvement and does what it takes to do that. A small percentile. Even smaller here. Now, I’m, in no way, saying that I am better than anyone. I’m not calling any one anything. What I am saying is, revelations of self-entitlement occured more illuminated here, on my beach vacation, than it has any other time. Self-entitled happiness. Their life is not mine. Mine is not theirs. But, each has obstacles. Each of us choose how we want to live. Each of us decide where we want to be and how we want to get there, and at the end of the day, whether it’s a long awaited vacation or at the end of a long work day, embracing the day doing things that make you happy is what it is all about… even if it may kill you sooner than later.
The shoe is on the other foot and it’s rather uncomfortable.
I’m gonna go lift…
Be happy.
Side Note: Hey, Others, I admire you.
Source: http://www.athleticx.net/articles/minority-report/
