“Shoot low, boys—they’re ridin’ Shetland ponies.”
Lewis Grizzard
“Aim for the moon, and if you miss, maybe you’ll land among the stars.” I don’t remember where I first heard this proverb, but I like corny humor like that. Stuff that makes people wrinkle up their face in confusion and ask, “What’s that even about? That makes no sense. That’s just dumb. Don’t you realize the stars are higher than the moon?” Yup, that’s what makes it funny, and I like it!
This article is not about humor, though. It’s about being realistic about the failures which are so routine in your life. It’s about setting reasonable expectations because of who you are, about shooting low and aiming even lower. That’s one thing I’ve learned in life—aim low. Aiming high is a recipe for disappointment. Aim low, keep your expectations low and in line with who you are. Who knows, if you keep your goals low enough, perhaps you’ll occasionally exceed your expectations, and for a brief moment, you can feel good about yourself. However, if you don’t exceed them, at least you can feel comfortable with the mediocre achievement of reaching your goals, low and uninspiring though they were.
Okay, now that we know how to set goals, let’s get to the subject at hand, which is fitness. Fitness is a big deal to me, which I realize probably comes as a surprise to most of you who know me. One could hardly tell by looking at me that I care about fitness at all, but yes, I’m a fitness buff. At least I profess to be. I think about fitness, and I desire to be fit. I like fitness, and I’m a fan of it, so there you go. I’m a fitness buff.
My fitness journey, however, is not one marked by great achievements, impressive weightlifting, or bulging biceps. My journey is more about struggle and failure (but not disappointment.) I’m good at making excuses for my failures, thereby avoiding disappointment. Also, I set my goals nice and low, easy to reach, and that makes me happy.
It was probably about ten years ago that I started caring about fitness. It may have been a little more than ten years or a little less, but we’ll call it ten years. A decade seems long enough to give me a little credibility about fitness but not so long that you would expect me to be fit yet. You see, I’m not fit just yet. I’m still on the journey of “pursuing fitness,” as they say. Funny how that works; when you start pursuing fitness, it becomes a moving and elusive target, and it seems like you never quite get there.
So what do I do for fitness? Well, I try to be active, I go to the gym, I go hiking, I go fishing and hunting, and I work on my farm. I try to eat clean by staying away from sugar and junk food. In the past year, I’ve even started doing some intermittent fasting. I’m alert to anything that might derail my fitness goals and immediately try it out just to see if it’s as bad as it appears.
Goals? I’ve always struggled with goals. Going to the gym five days this week seems like a good goal on Sunday. But then Monday morning comes around, and you know what—maybe I’ll just settle for four days this week. I’ll definitely go Tuesday morning. Actually, you know what . . . three days . . . three would be a good number for this week. On Friday, I think I definitely need to make it to the gym at some point this week!
Fact is, I’m rambling and obfuscating because my fitness journey is off the rails. It started back in the spring with COVID when the gym shut down. Then the summer had travel, and in the stress of personal and business life, my routine broke down. I went back to the gym, hit it a little, but then I quit going. I haven’t been to the gym for over a month. When I don’t go to the gym, it’s easy for the diet to get worse. Now here I am in mid-December with Christmas two weeks away, and I’m living on coffee, Swiss Miss hot chocolate, candy bars, and sugar wafers with an occasional bag of Cheetos as a healthier option.
And sure enough, here comes the sluggishness, the brain fog, the depression, and the thoughts of Oh well, I’m getting too old. I might as well just give up and throw in the towel. I’m a total failure.
Just kidding . . . kind of. Actually, I’m ready to get back on track, but it’s only two weeks till Christmas, and then New Year’s is just a week later. It seems it might be just as well to wait. Yes, that’s what I’m going to do; I’m going to wait till after the holidays. I’ll have motivation then and will get this fitness train back on track in the new year.
But here is where I get serious, if only for a brief moment. This isn’t the first time my fitness went off the rails. It’s happened before, and it will happen again. But I have learned not to worry about it too much. So what if I hit rock bottom once in a while? After all, I’m only human, and a pretty weak human at that. I’ve learned to just get back up and not beat myself up or overanalyze things. Instead, I just get back out there, put the wheels back on the bus, and start driving again.
Shoot low, aim low, and don’t be too disappointed in yourself. Yeah, you’ve got a lot of failure in your life. More than you let on, in fact. You hide a lot of it because you’re ashamed, but it’s okay. We all do it. Just one thing, when you hit rock bottom, don’t lie down there in that pit. Just get up and start walking again, because you know something?? It’s not about the destination that you have in mind. It’s really not even about achieving your end goals . . . It’s about the journey and what the journey does for you.
So here I am at the end of this article, asking myself, “What is this article about? Is it about humor? Is it about fitness? Or is it about something else entirely?”