What can go wrong, will go wrong.
I could have named this article as Murphy’s Law, but let’s keep it simple.
I can talk about a lot many life incidents where Murphy’s Law did occur; Things which could have gone wrong, did go wrong. But something recently occurred which made me write this article. Yes, it’s based on Murphy’s Law of course.
When I started squatting in the gym (in the very beginning of my gym days), I always had this fear inside me.
What if I am not able to stand up from the squatted position? What if I squatted with too much weight then my capacity?
With a weighted barbell balanced on my back, going down isn’t an issue, but the real challenge lies in coming up from the squatted position. And I always have this fear that I would get crushed by the weight, and I would end up injuring my spine. Also adding to the physical injury, mentally the entire accident would be very embarrassing to handle (“He couldn’t even lift that?!”).
But that’s what makes weight training even better. The kind of hype and motivation we create within ourselves, in order to overcome the obstacle; that’s what matters. The body we build isn’t the real motivation.
A couple of days back, I was having my “Legs day" ( for non gym hitters, it’s that day in the week when we work out our legs) and it was time for squats.
Strapping my belt tightly around my core, I adjusted the plates on the barbell and stood up with the bar on my upper back. But what happens next was unexpected for me, for you it’s obvious I guess (Wouldn’t have written if everything went right). The bar fell off my back, and along with the weighted bar, I fell too. And even before I could figure out what really happened, I was lying on the floor.
People surrounded me, and some of them helped me up. Many were staring. Some of them tried not to laugh ( I hate that). Though I never cared about others in the gym, this time however, my male ego was under fire.
That moment was really embarrassing to recall. You know, it’s like you feel humiliated, angry and even scared at the same time. And there’s also the tension of whether you should drop off a couple of plates and lighten up the weight, or continue with the same weight which made you look like a clown.
But right in that moment I realized that my fears had indeed come true, and I was still standing up without any injury.
You see, Male Ego is something like a gun in Russian Roulette; in this case, the 5 bullets could be “stupidity", but that 6th empty pellet is courage.
And with my ego under fire, I continued with the same weight and DID complete my set. In fact, I increased the weight for the next set, and I completed that set too. My ego worked out well this time.
So yes, as much as we fear that things could go wrong in the future, they do go wrong at some point of time. And accepting it is the only solution, rather then fretting over it.
I need to work on concluding my articles. I need to finish better. Anyway… Thank you for your time.
