Do you walk around with a little skip in your step? Smile at people you pass by, just cause your happy? Is there a joy in your work?
Isn’t happiness what we’re constantly striving to have? Sometimes I think it’s hard to be honest with ourselves and admit that maybe we’re not as happy as we want to be or we don’t know why we’re going through what we are.
This week one of our members who is just outside of the university into the work force age texted me and asked if he could stop by my office and talk. I didn’t think much of it and set a time to meet.
He came into the gym we sat and he told me how he is trying to figure out who he was and he had a moment at a university party on the weekend where he was like what am I doing here? and what am I doing with my life? For the first time in his life he thought about being older than a college student and had a sense of despair and no direction…
It hit me kinda hard, like this a serious talk and then I’m like HOW OLD does this kid think I am?!! Then I felt honored in the fact that he trusted my opinion on something so deep going on inside.
Here’s what I told him. I lived 10 years of my life as SELFISH as anyone could live, everything I did was for me and my personal gain. I trained like a animal and I fought and competed and I trained and I ate and slept for ME. I had no social life for ME because I had this idea of who I thought I was, I was a fighter and I lived like that for ME. I developed so many crazy attributes most people never learn because they will never put themselves through what I did but it was for ME.
It’s a lonely place when you live for yourself alone, not many friends cared to hang around, there’s happiness in moments when you succeed or win and sadness in the emptiness you can feel the day after, no sense of a deep and greater purpose.
Then I started training people when I needed to start to make more money and there was a sense of happiness in their well being and their accomplishments. It’s a different kind of happiness and sense of purpose. I helped my Dad lose a 100 pounds over a year and realized what I was supposed to be doing and it had nothing to do with ME and everything to do with the people around me, it was feeling in my heart from God. I knew my happiness came in helping people.
I’m not even a social person, I’m not a introvert by any means but I would never go out of my to start a conversation, I preferred being at home then in a club, I liked reading books about medieval events, I collected swords and geeked out on squat mechanics but my calling wasn’t only to show people how to be healthy but to connect and relate to them in something that wasn’t really my comfort zone. I love to see people be happy, to have success, to accomplish BIG goals and for my hand to have a role in that is what brings a smile to my face, what brings happiness to my day and it’s not easy but it’s a life worth living.
Where’s your happiness lie? Is it in selfish gain? I don’t think so. Maybe it’s being a listening ear in a world where people have to find an outlet my taking to their instagram audience. Just keep looking and listening but it’s probably just giving a helping hand.
-Coach Dan