The way to stop crime – by my uncle Ted

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_QjEL0uUgo

Wake Me When I’m Dead

 “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as crazy, we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” – Jack Kerouac

 

You did it again this morning, didn’t you? You got up to the irritating sound of your alarm clock and staggered into the bathroom to shave your face… just like you have done every other day for the past twenty years.

 

With the last stroke of the razor, you considered grabbing the clippers and giving yourself a crew cut. Or maybe you should let it grow long like you did in high school. After all, you still have a full head of hair so why not grow it out while you can? No, that’s not what successful corporate people do. So you keep it average length, neat and clean, and slather in the gel.

That’s the right thing to do.
As you gaze into the mirror, you sometimes wonder how it ever ended up like this. This wasn’t the future you envisioned. Staring back at you isn’t the rebellious teen that stood up for what he believed in and never let anyone control his thoughts. That person would have never gotten up each morning to shave his beard, part his hair, put on a suit, and go work a job he despises. He wouldn’t toil away at a meaningless, trivial existence,
working for “big business,” sacrificing his blood, sweat, and tears just to make another man rich.

Would he???
But this is the path you’ve chosen. So you slip on your expensive Italian leather shoes, get in your car, and put on talk radio as you drive to work. As much as you used to love to listen to Howard Stern, you realize now that you can’t do that anymore. Intelligent, successful, grown-ups don’t listen to the Stern show but rather the drive time news. It’s safe and won’t offend anyone. And that is what you are programmed to be-safe and
inoffensive.

 

 

 

You stop at Starbucks for a five dollar latte and walk into work, politely greeting your coworkers, the same people you despised growing up. But now you are one of them. You sold your soul and gave up your dream. Now your dream is everyone else’s dream – that you will be fortunate enough to slave away for another man’s company from nine to five every single day until you are in your fifties or sixties. After that you can retire with enough money to put the kids through college and comfortably enjoy the rest of your
life. Put the next thirty years on hold because you have work to do and money to make. You will start living when all that is done. That’s the plan, isn’t it?

 

Lunch time rolls around and you go out to the best steakhouse in town because you have to impress your clients and coworkers and you know that high quality beef is the prize you get for being at the top of your game. You read somewhere recently that meat consumption causes cancer and contributes to the destruction of the environment. But you will die of stress before you get cancer, and you will be gone long before all the rain forests are, so maybe you don’t have to worry about it. Besides, what will your colleagues think if you made such a statement?

You can’t make people think or question what they believe in, can you?

 

 

 

They will tell you not to be one of “those people” and will suddenly look at you in a whole new light. You don’t want to stand out, you don’t want to be different, and you don’t want to cause problems. Successful businessmen dine on the finest beef they can find, and if you want to be considered one, you will keep your mouth shut, order your steak, and eat it. After all, you’ve got an expensive mortgage to pay.

 

When the work day ends you get back in your car and head to the fanciest gym in town. The one that is spotlessly clean and has all the newest and shiniest machines. On your ride over, you listen to light rock or pop. Gone are your Black Flag, Public Enemy, and Misfits CD’s replaced now by  the sounds of Maroon 5 and Sheryl Crow. Mature, successful adults don’t listen to loud, rebellious music, do they?

 

As you undress in the locker room, you remember when you were young  and vowed to get a bunch of tattoos once you were of legal age. You had them laid out in your head, where they would go, what each one symbolized, and exactly what colors they would be. But as you stare at your bare chest, you see not a one. Another broken promise to yourself.

 

 You start your workout with a walk on the treadmill because that’s what everyone does. You know that jumping rope is probably a better option, but no one else does it so you don’t want to draw attention to yourself. Besides, you haven’t done anything requiring that much coordination since college. So you walk. And with every step you lose another piece of yourself as you watch your athleticism slip further and further away.

After your warm up, you go through the circuit of machines just like everyone else does. In between sets, you have flashbacks to the training scenes from Rocky IV and remember how motivated it got you and how much fun it looked to train with tires and kegs and sledgehammers. How exhilarating it must be to train outside in the dead of winter or to squat a weight most men dare not dream of? You promised yourself that you would start to train like that. You challenged yourself to start being a man for once and train like it
meant something to you.

 

 

 

But here you are a decade or so later doing the same exact bullshit. The treadmill, the Smith machine, the leg curl. It’s all part of your daily routine designed to help you stay “in shape.” There are no goals, no desired outcomes, no risks, and no challenges. You sleepwalk through every pointless workout like a fucking zombie and can’t wait to finish so you can get home, eat your homogenized dinner, watch your big screen television, and get to bed so you can wake up and do the same thing over again tomorrow.

 

This is the life you have chosen. But deep down, when you are lying alone at night and being truly honest with yourself, you know that it is not the life you planned. You yearn for something more. You want to take the razor to your head tomorrow morning instead of your face. You want to stop being so fucking polite to people who don’t deserve it. You want to speak  up for what you believe in no matter who it offends.

 If you think long and hard, you can remember how all this started.

 

 

 

As college graduation approached, we were all told to choose the path of  least resistance. Put together a resume and get a nice corporate job working in an office. That’s what smart people do. You wanted to start your own business or travel the world, but you were discouraged by the naysayers. Your dreams as a kid didn’t involve making a million dollars or answering to “the board.” You wanted to do things, meet interesting people, go new places, take risks,  and be adventurous.

In high school and college, you trained for a reason. You did deadlifts and power cleans and sprints and jumps. You played sports on a team or recreationally and did it often. But now the only “sport” you play is golf.
And as the weather gets nicer, you continually think of buying a surfboard and selling your clubs. But what will everyone think? Kids and beach bums are the only guys who surf, not successful corporate people. They play golf and only golf.

 

 

 

You had the option. You could have taken a massive swipe and smashed the bottle of Kool Aid against the wall when it was offered to you. But instead you gladly drank it. And now you are living someone else’s life and hating every minute of it. The only one who can change it is you, but only if you are honest and tell yourself the truth for once in your life.

Remember that business idea you’ve had kicking around in the back of your head for the last few years? Draw up a plan, take out a loan, and do it.

 

 

 

Life is meaningless without risks to take and goals to pursue.

 

 Sell the golf clubs and the fancy car and get a surfboard and a Harley. That’s what you always wanted anyway, so why not finally be happy? Why not  be yourself and say the hell with what everyone else thinks?

 

 Tomorrow’s a new day. Shave your head or start growing your hair out.

 

Dress the way you want. Skip the trip to Starbucks for a latte and make your own cup of strong, black coffee and take the time to enjoy it for once.

 

Stop living a lie. Pull out your old Pantera and Nine Inch Nails CD’s and fill your car with them. Cancel the fitness center membership and find a real weight room or gym. If there are none in your area, create one in your garage and find some good partners.

Discover what it means to really train instead of just working out. Challenge yourself and set goals. Push yourself to the edge. Work harder than you have in years even if it means puking or being unable to get up off the floor for twenty minutes. Scare the shit out of yourself. Unless you have clutched your heart in fear after a brutally intense conditioning circuit praying that it doesn’t explode from beating so hard, you have never actually trained. Until you have gotten sick to your stomach just thinking about putting a weight on your back that is so heavy it could blow out both of your knees if you miss the rep, you have never actually trained.

 

Realize that there is a huge difference between true fitness and the appearance of fitness. Improve your strength, your speed, your power, and your endurance and throw out the damn bicep curls and cable crossovers. Become a modern day warrior and realize that you are never too old. Stock your garage with tires, sledgehammers, kegs, kettlebells, and medicine balls.

 

And if your wife complains about having to park outside from now on, realize that you owe it to yourself to tell her to “deal with it.”

 

It’s your life and you’re taking it back.

Burn bridges if you have to. Alienate or offend powerful or influential people. They can’t help you wake up from this horrible nightmare you are living. Leave yourself with no plan B, no easy way out. Force yourself to be truthful and finally have the balls to do what you have been saying you would do for the last ten years.

Life is hard, no doubt. But living a lie is even harder.

 

 

 

Wake up tomorrow and start living YOUR life, not somebody else’s. Speak up for once. Offend somebody. Make a difference in the world. Rally against injustice. Pursue your dreams. Get a tattoo or a Mohawk. Go somewhere new. Stop worrying about what people think. Train like you have a cage fight in twelve weeks and your survival depends on it. Finally do the things that you want to do and be the person you want to be.

 

For if you do not do these things, you can rest assured that in your final hour you will be filled with the overwhelming regret that you wasted your time on earth and are headed to the grave without ever having truly lived. The choice is yours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason Ferruggia is a professional fitness coach based out of the New Jersey/New York area with over 14 years of “in the trenches” experience. He has trained over 500 high school, college, and professional athletes. He is the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness magazine and has authored hundreds of articles for numerous other magazines and training websites.