Sunday Story...Nice Guys

Don’t always finish last. We live in a world where being tough is held up as the ultimate virtue. After all big boys and girls don’t cry. Keep a stiff upper lip. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. These are platitudes we have all heard all of our lives. The CrossFit community has even more of them…raise the bar or die trying, misery loves company so same time and place tomorrow, the weight isn’t too much, you’re too weak, suck it up buttercup. We seem to think that being tough will get us through just about anything.

And tough will serve you often. Picking yourself after you get knocked down is an important quality. Understanding that failure is not defeat, but just an unexpected outcome is a good lesson to integrate. It is important to attack some things like a dog with a bone, not giving up until you get the outcome you desire.

But do you have to be tough all the time? Aren’t there things you could do with a little more love, a little more “nice”? Can’t you be nice when you are getting your morning latte? Can’t you be even nicer than you were yesterday? Do you really need to go through life with your shields up and your hyper-vigilant game face on? I don’t think so. Not everything is a battle for supremacy. Every errand does not need to be a personal record or a contest to see if you can be more efficient, faster, better than the last time.

Maybe you should relax a little and love more. Maybe if you were nicer people would help you. After all, don’t we all want to help people who give us a reason to help them? And isn’t someone being nice a really good reason to help them? Do you really want to go out of your way for the people you know who are rude, crabby, grouchy, or just generally unhappy? I think not.

Try a little more love and little less effort, a little more yield and less push, a little more water and less stone in your day to day life and dealing with other humans. Give people a reason to help you. Be nicer. And then when it is time to be a badass, be a badass. Because being hard and unyielding all the time is hard hard work. Learn to be a little nicer and it will go a long way and then when it is time to be not nice it will be much more effective and more noticeable.

Be hard when the time is right. Be nice the rest of the time. Yin and Yang, hard and soft, one defines the other. You can’t have one without the other to define and highlight the other.

Be a bad ass but be a nice bad ass!

Namaste

John

“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”

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