The Gift

Note: this post serves as a good overview of many topics we will revisit many times in the future. I also think, and hope, that it can give you a good push, here, and now, to get started, or to keep going.

Per the previous post, the only thing you need to get started is the desire—any level of desire at all—to get better. Once you have that, you start taking action—any action—and follow it up with more action, and you’re on your way.

That said, many of us have been raised to put everyone else first. Many of us are deeply uncomfortable with doing anything, even positive, healthy things, that could be seen as selfish. Where can we turn for a spark to help us get started?

“The Gift”

Steve Prefontaine, the great distance runner who set American records at distances from 2,000 to 10,000 meters, put it this way:

“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”

What is the gift? Many things: the gift of being alive; the gift of being born in a country with such comfort, such an advanced standard of living, that we can spend hours a day arguing on the internet over the best methods of exercise—exercise that helps keep us healthy and capable even in the absence of manual labor (such as was needed in the past, and still is in many places around the world).

The gift might be using the capacity we develop in ourselves to help others. It might be to set an example to our children, to our loved ones, to our communities. It might be part of making us great athletes, or highly capable first responders, or military operators. It might be in simply getting the most out of life: climbing mountains, playing sports we like, remaining self-sufficient well into our later years. It might be all of those things, and many more.

Magnify the Gift

I looked up several sources for definitions of magnify, and three basic ideas emerged:

1. Make something appear larger, as with a magnifying glass.

2. Increase the importance or effect of something.

3. Praise or glorify.

It’s the second idea that is the important one in this context. Whatever gifts we have, whatever abilities, we can use them to greater effect if we take care of ourselves. On the other hand, when we don’t take care of ourselves, we diminish our ability to put our abilities to use. If we let things go too far, we can lose or greatly diminish our abilities permanently.

Are you good at your job? Does your job make a positive impact in the world? Probably, the answer is yes to both of those. Do you also find that you’re exhausted, and that you get more tired, more easily overtime? Yes, some of that might have to do with aging, but it also might have to do with so-called comfort, food, Too much time in front of screens, too much time on the couch, and not enough time rebuilding ourselves.

Whatever you are good at, and we are all good at a number of things, that is your gift. Your life, which gives you the opportunity to use other gifts, is your greatest gift. Your freedom to use your life in the way you see fit is also an enormous gift. The more you take care of your life, which means your health, both mental and physical, and your fitness, the more you can put all of these other gifts to use. And when we put our gifts to use, we make our own lives better, and we make the lives of those we touch better.

Whatever your gifts, take care of what makes all of them possible.

Let’s get better together.