Why I Train

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…