Pick Your Poison

Maybe what you need is to stop being so scared and realize the greater poison is never truly living.

I recently had a very interesting conversation with some close friends of mine, in which I detailed mindset shift I've had over the past couple of years.

Most of my friends are highly intelligent, disciplined, good men, but they have never been too interested in pursuing deeper truths about the way that life is to be lived. In that regard, they tend to fall prey to popular mottos and mainstream influences ("Trust the science", etc.), which has led them to blindly follow whatever the masses believe.

I shared with my friends the mentality I’ve been having lately, which, in short, goes something like this: we are all going to be severely fucked up when we are older, so trying to delay the inevitable by not taking any risks or using our bodies in any way is very foolish.

A personal example

To better explain what I'm trying to say, let me tell you a little anecdote about an injury that I am now carrying. A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of a Jiu-Jitsu roll, my knee popped. It hurt, but it wasn't bad enough to the point where I couldn't finish the training session. I kept going without too much trouble and went home after we were done training. When I cooled down however, my knee started swelling up and hurting like hell. I was forced to spend the rest of the day lying down, as I couldn't put any weight on my right leg.

The next morning, my leg was much better, but it was still swollen and hurting. I scheduled an appointment with a doctor, whose first recommendation was that I stopped any physical activity that could have an impact on my knees. That meant no lifting weights, and definitely no BJJ.

I got an MRI, and even though it seems as if nothing is wrong with my knee, it still hurts and bothers me constantly. After reviewing the MRI, the doctor suggested that I stop completely until my knee stopped hurting. That's fine. He was looking after me. He was doing his job, trying to make sure that I didn't injure my knee further. But for me, stopping until it didn't hurt any longer would surely mean a couple of months of no physical activity, and that's a sacrifice that I'm not willing to make.

This is where most people make a mistake: they regard thee kind of situations as single-variable ones.

Your knee is damaged → Stop all activity until your knee is better.

Sounds sensible enough. But the problem is that it doesn’t really take into account all the other variables that would be affected if I were to take that advice.

Stopping all activity means: stop seeing my training friends, take a hit on mental health, get weaker all around, etc. It’s not just about the knee. It requires a multivariable analysis. And this is not just relevant for physical issues, but for every decision you have to make. Don’t take the main variable and make it the only one. There are usually many more that you need to consider.

A different example

A friend of mine had a similar issue a couple of years ago. He was an avid football player, and during a match, he injured his knee. The doctor told him that he should never, ever, play football again, because he would risk injuring his knee again. So he stopped. Completely. Religiously. He gave up one of his favorite activities, one that brought him joy and a number of other positive things because he wanted to make sure that he wouldn't get injured again.

You may think that's wise, but think of it this way: in 50 years, when we are 70 years old, my friend and I will both have fucked up bodies, we will be riddled with injuries and pain all over. Everyone will.

The difference then will be, that he will have sacrificed 50 years of doing what he loves to avoid one particular injury, and I will have arthritis and a knee that's worse than his, but I'll have 50 years behind me of doing what I love, of using my body when it was useful. I will have a BJJ black belt, 50 years of wisdom derived from my time on the mats, and many friends from my BJJ gym. I will have none of that if I had chosen to listen to my doctor some weeks ago. You see my point?

The bottom line

We will all be dead some day. Without even having to go so far, we will all be hurting and our bodies will be decaying in not too many years. We don't get to avoid that. But we do get to pick our poison.

Will you be full of scars and injuries as a result of a life lived fully and dangerously, a life in which you have used your body, you have fought, ran, grown and suffered?

Or will you be damaged and broken as a result of a life so boring and sedentary that your muscles and bones break down because you spent your whole life sitting on your ass trying to be safe from every single potentially harmful activity?

I know what I would choose. Think about it. At the end of the day, even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.

You don’t get to choose complete physical preservation.

You just get to choose what you do while your body decays.