When I was younger I played basketball for a Jewish travel team. We weren’t the most physically gifted (being a team of white Jews) so what we lacked in natural ability we made up for in hard work. We spent a lot of time practicing for basketball tournaments. A lotof time. The practices weren’t fun, but being able to stay competitive with good teams because we had practiced made the tournaments so much better. So we worked hard to play hard. And that brings me to my point.
When do we get to play in the gym?
Gym workouts are like a basketball practice. You do routine drills over and over and you start to see results. The difference is that basketball practice results translate to better basketball games, but gym workout results just translate to…heavier gym workouts. Obviously working out changes your physical appearance, but physical appearance improvements can come from so many different forms of physical activity. We love to show off our gym gains, but when do we actually get to use them?
This is why I decided to incorporate occasional freestyle workouts into my gym schedule. One day a week. These workouts are nothing like my normal ones. They don’t follow a routine. I create a random physical challenge and attempt to do it. This can range anywhere from trying handstand push-ups to climbing a tree using just my arms. Since I still love basketball, sometimes my freestyle workouts will involve dribbling a weighted ball. Nothing is off limits during a freestyle workout.
The point of these workouts is to make the gym fun. Freestyle workouts shouldn’t replace your gym routine; rather, they should serve as a supplement to it. Next time you get the chance, try a freestyle workout, and see if it feels good. Because sometimes when we practice and practice and practice and practice, we forget how it feels to let loose.
This little excerpt here was a rant I went on during a Q/A at a lecture I attended about the American Dream. An individual at the lecture depressingly attempted to propose that the college system is taking away all creative value from it’s disciplines. That students are meant to do busy work and there’s no furthering of the person. I agreed with her but disagreed with her pessimistic tone. I believe that we hold the key to furthering ourselves, and it starts with removing ourselves from the masses.
So often nowadays we go through life following suit with everyone around us. Like sheep we walk blindly behind one another into an Apple store to purchase the next iPhone or iWatch, despite the lack of noticeable differences with the one currently in our pocket. Why do we do this? This is a question of conformity.
We’ve been taught since we were young that we have to go to school, graduate with a good degree, and some of us have been taught to then go to graduate school and eventually get a job, a wife, a decent house, some kids, maybe a dog or a cat, a nice car, and then call it quits. Coast lazily along through a life full of merely contentness, lacking of any variety. This is the American lifestyle we’ve chewed up, swallowed, regurgitated, and spit up into numerous generations. Yet, no one seems to notice or even more importantly,
no one seems to care.
What we need to do is realize the following:
We don’t have to follow this dull, overvalued schema. We can travel the world or go live on a farm. We can experience new things daily and constantly challenge ourselves. Who cares if all our Bros from high school have already graduated from school and have hot pregnant wives. While it’s awesome for them to reach those events in their lives, it shouldn’t put pressure on us even a little bit. We live in our own vessels, with our own thoughts, why should we adhere to what everyone else is doing? It’s a trick question, we don’t.
Take the time today and ask ourselves:
Have we been living on a schedule constructed by the masses of society? Are we existing among a line of individuals striving for the same systematic life? Or are we living each day out of our best interests, becoming more enriched as each day passes, without regard for how the people around may perceive us? If not, are we really living?
We move to a new town, we struggle to find a steady job, we switch schools or even more common than those, we just plain and simply get distracted. Some way or another we become unproductive, whether that’s through bad habits or bad situations, we generally have become immobile in our goals.
In the day and age of technological domination, the old school ways of being productive are getting lost on us. We don’t want to study because the answers are online, we don’t wanna put work into something because there’s an app that does it for us, we don’t wanna read because we can watch shorter, more general YouTube videos, and because of all this we don’t wanna try new things.
We know, all that sounds a bit depressing. We’re gonna go cliche here and say that, well, the truth hurts. The truly productive bros end up making it to the top in the form of a coding app or some miraculous event like a video going viral online. Not to take away from the Bros that are out there grinding and slowly climbing the ladder. Kudos to them. Although, it’s accurate to say that nowadays many of us are scraping from the bottom of the jar. Why is that though?
A Potential Explanation
One way this could be explained is that no one wants to be truly productive. Well what does being truly productive entail we may ask. Let us put it into an anecdote. We all (may) know that Bro who’s in college, has a part-time job, but just doesn’t seem to be moving anywhere. He’s barely getting by in his classes but still retains a B average, his jobs pays little but it’s okay because his student loans are carrying him along. Yet, with all the resources he has, he just doesn’t seem to be making much gain in the grand scheme of things. That’s because he doesn’t want to be truly productive. In his off time, instead of studying, he most likely browses social media, watches videos, over stimulates himself with music, film, TV and video-games, all for what? The satisfaction of not having to be held responsible for taking a risk on something and actually putting his time toward say, an interest in clothing design. Who knows. All that’s known is that this Bro ain’t truly Broductive.
A (plausible) Br(s)olution
Step 1) Diversify your interests
The only thing we can really do is take steps to consciously better our productivity. Which first and foremost, is not putting ourselves 100% into one thing. When we do that we become side-dominant in the brain. For those that don’t know if we’re right brained we tend to be more artistic and creative; if we’re left-brained we’re thought to be more methodical and analytical. If we want to be Broductive to the max, we gotta be working both sides. Putting 100% of out effort and time into one thing is gonna flop because in the process we’re polarizing ourselves and becoming mentally handicapped. It’s like going to the gym and only working out the left side of our body, we’re gonna look fucked up in a couple of months if not weeks at that rate. Fortunately, the brain is more forgiving, so for the Bros that have been grinding in just one discipline, it’s not never too late.
Step 2) Schedule Yourself to be Productive All the Time
Another aspect of productivity to touch on is time. For the most part, we try and be productive only during certain times of the day. This is a Bro sin. While yes, there are times where we should be grinding harder than others, picking times where we should be grinding is also picking times where we’ll be lacking, or becoming distracted. Our philosophy should be, if we don’t have a pressing responsibility, we’re going to be productive. In essence, be productive all the time. If we’re watching a football game, study during the commercials, so we can practice songwriting later instead. If we have a long drive on our way to work, listen to that 3-D design video we’ve been putting off for a while.
There are numerous ways in which we can remain productive, even when we may doing something else. This is not to say that we can’t have relaxing times, although your relaxation periods should be generally beneficial to your productivity. Instead of having our relaxing times be more surrounded by LED screens, tailor it more towards meditation, working out, reading poetry, heck even taking a nap will work. Quick last tip, make sure our relaxation is in line with our interests. If we’re an aspiring film maker, feel free to watch movies during your off time. If we’re a potential entrepreneur, playing Overwatch till 3 AM isn’t gonna get us ahead.
Step 3) Passion makes Perfect
The last key to maximum productivity is indefinably important and truly simple yet passes by most people undetected. This thing is called Passion. Yes we fucking capitalized it. Make god damn sure, the thing we’re chasing is being chased with passion. If we’re going for something simply for the money, the clout, or accolades that come along with it, we’re never truly gonna be successful. We may attain more capital, be better off in life, but we will never be happy, which is the biggest part of success, if we aren’t going for something out of passion. Some of us say that the thing we’re passionate about we’re just not good at. Horse cocky, not only is most talent learned and not innate knowledge but the fact of the matter is that those of us who claim this nonsense, haven’t even tried. So now it’s time for full accountability. Look at yourself, and no not in the mirror, take a look at yourself, and deep down, ask yourself, is this my passion. If not, go back to square one and continue to diversify your interests, because if we’re not attacking something with 110% of our heart, our passion and igniting the fire within us, we’re gonna be reduced to merely ashes my Bros.
The Bro Page 