Are You Playing YOUR Game Or Theirs?

I want this post to be a thought provoking piece. I want you to take a step back after reading it and just think about why you’re doing what you’re doing.

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Why does an individual’s health get shoved to the back burner? Everything else is more important to society and the status game. Everything except how healthy you are matters to others.

What car do you have? What do you do? Where do you live? How big is your yacht? Where’s your beach house? How much does that pay? These are the topics I hear people speak about first and foremost when catching up.

The last thing I hear someone ask if they ever ask it is, "how is your health?"

That should be everyone's first question!!

I don't give a shit if you have a Bugatti but are withering away so quickly from disease that you aren't able to enjoy it. If you’re so sick that you can’t enjoy the fruits of your labor, you may have missed the point a bit and got caught up in a game. More on that in a second.

I’m going to tell you a story, okay? Okay.

There was a couple I met once through friends and got to know a little bit about. I had agreed to help my friend move some furniture for them. This story is the day we arrived at their home.

I would arrive at a beautiful home on tons of wide open, pristine land in the country. The house, perfectly placed in a backdrop of Midwestern rolling plains, looked as if it were right out of a painted scene.

The yard perfectly manicured, landscaped to the nines, accompanied by beautiful vehicles parked in front. It seemed to be a very comfortable living from the outside and presumably a happy one.

It looked like a successful life by most of society’s standards.

Shortly after pulling up I ventured into the home and would meet its occupants. The entire scene changed from one of success, beauty, and bliss to one of stress, pain, and illness.

I wandered into a home where in front of me was a poor woman who was nothing more than a shell of what I would consider to be a vibrant, healthy human. Dwindling away at an alarming rate from cancer with only a few months to live.

Her husband had been stricken by a different form of cancer and was currently undergoing chemotherapy. BOTH of them had cancer. They were in their early 60's and things were not looking good.

These were not healthy and vibrant people enjoying the material pursuits that they had accumulated over the years.

This gentleman had taken an extended lunch from his job that he had had for 25+ years. He only had a short time to let us in before he had to head back to work and leave his wife in the care of one of their friends.

All of that beautiful land, and the beautiful home, and the new vehicles do not pay for themselves. The bills still stacked up even in their poor health.

“I had a bit of a shift about my perception of success.”

I had a bit of a shift about my perception of success. Previously I thought the more material possessions you accumulate, the more successful you were. If you had a plane, and a luxury car, and nice watches you had made it! You beat the system!!

Not quite. I have met many people who spent their lives doing things they didn’t like solely to acquire shit to keep up with their neighbors.

They had to keep doing the thing they didn’t like until they are too old to travel cause well, there’s a bigger TV and a newer escalade out and they have to get that and keep paying for that shit.

At this point it seemed they were not enjoying the very things they built their life around, possessions because cancer was nipping at their heels.

Okay, I’m going to tell you about the game I mentioned earlier.

 The game goes like this,
1. Work really hard for many years at whatever job pays the most, even if I hate it, so I can get as much expensive shit as I need to make myself feel like I stack up against the Joneses.
2. Buy lots of expensive material items and go into debt and therefore force myself to continue working a job I may hate to pay off the shit I bought.
3. Have no time to enjoy that shit, sacrifice family time, health, and happiness to work to pay off this shit.
4. Drop the fuck dead, sad and confused about why you never let yourself be happy.

That sounds like a pretty shitty game if you ask me!

You don't win a damn thing!

Now, I’m not saying accumulating material possessions is inherently bad. It’s not. Cool shit is awesome! I want people to think about how they are going to get that shit.

I think it’s bad when we must sacrifice everything else in our lives just to get there. This line will differ for everyone. It’s all based on your priorities and the things you find most important.

If you’re just doing it because society brainwashed you and you wake up fucking sick to your stomach at the thought of going to work, that’s when it’s bad. You’re not living a happy life. That’s the situation I want people to think about and avoid.

I don’t want people to get stuck in a cycle of doing something you hate to pay for things you don’t really need.

FREE YOURSELVES!!!

Do what you want. Be true to yourself and understand that maybe you don’t need to make 150K a year to be happy. I know lots of rich people who are miserable. Happiness from materials is fleeting at best You gotta work on you before you’ll ever find true happiness.

I’ll end this post with a quote from Socrates, “Let him that would move world, first move himself.” Before you go out and try to keep up with everybody else and society’s status game, figure out what you really want and what you’re willing to sacrifice to get it.

If you enjoy what you find on our website, please like us on facebook, follow us on Instagram and Twitter and most of all, please SHARE this with anybody you think needs to see our content. We appreciate the word of mouth marketing more than you guys could ever imagine. THANK YOU all so much.

Much Love, Shae.

The Enlightened Athlete Lifestyle

What exactly is an enlightened athlete?  

The definition of enlightened: having or showing a rational, modern, and well informed outlook. I consider an athlete anybody attempting to better themselves physically, regardless of the form of exercise you choose.

So, an enlightened athlete then, is somebody who is constantly striving to better themselves physically AND mentally. They are lifelong learners who understand the importance of living a fully integrated, healthy lifestyle.

I have seen that one of the best ways to fully express ourselves and feel truly alive is by challenging our will through exercise. In my, and many other leaders in the health industry, model of an integrated life physical fitness is a key component. Being able to bend, run, lunge, and jump allow you to fully experience your life.

Life is a dichotomy. There is day and there is night. There is good and evil. This applies to your life in the following way. Just as important as aggressively pushing yourself physically is allowing your mind time to be calm and focused. There are many ways of achieving this goal, and I consider it as important as physical well being. Meditation is the most available method that I am aware of. In future posts I will delve much deeper into this realm. (So check back soon!)

I spend much of my time researching all things related to physical well being. Proper training methods, accurate and true information about nutrition, sleep, hydration, strength training, endurance training, mobility, meditation, isolation tanks, yoga, and pretty much anything else you can think of that facilitates an integrated lifestyle.

 Let my obsession help you in any way it can. The intention of Enlightened Athlete is to provide you with knowledge, actionable strategies, and be the most useful resource you could possibly have on your journey to becoming enlightened. 

In the same way we all change and grow throughout our lives, I intend this to grow and change as well. I want to hear from you, what you would like to hear more of or learn more about. Let's shape this together. The reason Enlightened Athlete exists is to help you reach your version of enlightened. 

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