You have to stop treating it like a performance where you are trying to become the best version of yourself. It is not theatre. It is not self transformation day after day. You do it the way you brush your teeth. It is not about liking or disliking it. It is simply something you do.
The moment you frame working out as a heroic arc, you introduce emotion into it. Motivation, inspiration, identity, self judgment. That makes it unstable. Some days you will feel like the protagonist. Most days you will not.
But brushing your teeth requires no identity. No inspiration. No self analysis.
It is maintenance. When exercise becomes maintenance rather than self-improvement theatre, it becomes lighter. Less ego. Less pressure. Less evaluation.
The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being. Everything which the political economist takes from you in life and in humanity, he replaces for you in money and in wealth; and all the things which you cannot do, your money can do.
Logged out for the day and won’t be returning to work until Jan 5th. This time tomorrow I’ll be on a beach in Egypt scratching my ass and drinking mocktails