Why I Train

The importance of physical fitness for self-discipline, ambition, and drive.

Link to the original blog

I’ve been lifting weights for almost seven years now. From the very beginning of this journey I’ve been asked, “why do you do it.” It is a perfectly reasonable question. Indeed, given the way our culture is set up, it sounds patently absurd to put me through intense pain on a daily basis, to go to sleep early, and to eat mostly nutritious foods.

However, my precise answer to this question is usually that, “I do it because I don’t want to be like everyone else.” I do not like the way our culture is set up. We are disincentivized to take care of ourselves, and we are incentivized to indulge in egoism, self-deception, and decadence. There is nothing virtuous in that.

The American philosopher and psychologist once said that in order for us to grow out of bad emotional habits, we need to enact the exact opposite emotional habits. For instance, if you are prone to sadness, in some sense you need to force yourself into situations where you are more likely to be happy.

That is how I see training and that is how it has affected me. Prior to training, I was a decadent egoist. What mattered was my own self-interest. However, when I started to train, habits of discipline, intensity, and humility being intrinsic to training forced such habits to seep into other areas of my life.

It's quite fascinating to see what happens when you do this: when you begin your fitness journey, you will potentially have those who discourage you, explicitly or implicitly. For me, I was told that my working out, eating right, and sleeping early was unhealthy. I suppose they meant it was psychologically unhealthy, being obsessed and all.

Now that the fruits of my labor have materialized fully, there is a much different reaction from others. Others treat me much more nicely than they used to, they say they respect me and they often come to me asking for guidance or advice.

I am not averse to this but the juxtaposition between the beginning of my training years and now is what is interesting to me. I simply wish not to be normal: I do not want to criticize others for trying to better themselves when they are first starting out. That is something one should encourage. And I don’t want to be the person I was before I started to improve myself.

That keeps me going to the gym every day. It is truly at bottom a practice of maintaining personal virtue, rather than physical vanity.