Who needs a position on “living well?”
We do.
I knew a guy once who spent nearly twenty years (so far) trying to “get in shape.” Every summer it was the same thing: “This is the year.” This is the year he’d finally lose the weight. Finally get lean. Finally feel confident enough to take the trip, take his shirt off at the lake, ask the girl out, go hiking, try something new, live a little. But what he really meant was, “This is the year I finally allow myself to live.”
And that’s the trap.
Somewhere along the line, for him (and for a lot of folks I’ve worked with), fitness stopped being about living well and became about looking a certain way. He spent so much time preparing to live that he never fully stepped into his own life.
Meanwhile, the healthiest people I knew weren’t the shredded ones obsessing over mirrors and macros. They were the ones out doing things. Traveling. Laughing. Carrying grandkids. Swimming in cold lakes. Dancing badly at weddings. Building gardens. Hiking mountains. Showing up for the people they loved. Fully living inside the bodies they had. That’s when it hit me: the point was never to look like you live. The point was to actually live.
And so it is time for a position stand on LIVING WELL.
Living Well - A Position Stand
You have only one body. You can choose to live in it or continue to die in it. If you decide to live in it, I say LIVE WELL. Eat delicious food. Have great adventures. Give love. Be loved. Do all you ever dreamed of without being limited by failures of self.
Life is about being happy. It’s about doing the things you love. It’s about showing up for yourself the people you care about.