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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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
Throw away your sweatband that looks as if you’re walking straight out of the 80`s movie Xanadu,
and get something REAL-
but please don`t let us catch you doing concentration curls or some other woozy exercises with this bandana on –
we’ll rip it from your head, possibly taking some hair and skin with it in the process.
That’s just the way it is, nothing you can do about it !!
ChAoS
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