September 24, 2014

• Dodgeball: 90 minutes

Man did I need this one.  Last week I missed it for the first time since we started it in December, on account of a midterm I was taking.  It's really one of the few things in my life I enjoy right now.  The mba program, while I like the academics, socially it's been a disaster.  I'm pretty much isolated completely and ostracized for some reason. Maybe because I'm 33, I'm not sure.  It's been a disaster with that stuff though; I've never been lonelier in my life.  So I'm stressed from classes, isolated from friends I had before the program because I'm so busy...but I have no support in any way shape or form from anyone, anywhere. I don't think my family quite cares or grasps what I'm doing.  I have no one in this program to interact with.  I don't like where I live.  

Anyway, it really just exposes another difference between people that train to blow off steam, and those that really are doing it for athletic reasons.  There's exceptions to every rule, but really a vast majority of people that use the gym to 'blow off steam' from their regular life, they're not there to build much. It's a way to stave off aging, death, diabetes, whatever.  For those of us that are training to build something pretty substantial, something that builds us athletically and physically, distractions from the rest of life, stress, depression, whatever, it really makes it harder to accomplish our goals. And that is NOT a slight to those that are at the gym for more casual reasons, there is NOTHING wrong with what they do.  But when you are in the gym, or at the track, or on the field, and you are in a situation where 'blowing off steam' or whatever doesn't cut it, then in that case the demons from the rest of your life actually hurt things.  In those cases when you need to be at 99 or 100%, the things that bring you down, in the back of your mind that take a few points off....that stuff really wrecks what you're trying to accomplish.  So I need things like dodgeball, as silly as that may sound to others. It's a fun time, I get to hang out with friends, whip balls at their heads...and not worry about school, or loneliness, or my peers that ignore me, or the fact that I'm 33 and my chance of finding a decent well-balanced woman to marry is fading by the day, or any of that shit. For 90 minutes it's just me, a bunch of people I care about, and an absolute blast.  I hope everyone finds something like that for themselves.