August 3, 2025
In the entertainment industry, we often hear about the overnight success of some actor or musician who nobody’s heard of, making it in the bigtime. While “nobody” had ever heard of the band Fun until they received their Grammy Award for: Best New Artist, in their acceptance speech, they reminded the audience that “we are not young” and had been carefully crafting their music, even releasing a handful of albums, for several years before receiving such grand, public recognition.
Sometimes we view these achievements as a sort of miracle that accidentally worked out in one’s favor. Instant success, however, is nothing more than a myth (with the exception of winning the lottery). Just because we haven’t heard of someone, doesn’t mean that they planted magical beans one evening and climbed up to the heavens of success the very next day. There certainly involves a great deal of luck when it comes to winning a Grammy, but the effort behind these success stories is often overlooked.
While most of us aren’t trying to record the next greatest album that will win us music trophies, everyone does (or at least should) possess some type of personal aspiration or dream. And while we all know that consistent effort is necessary to get from Point A to Point B, with more and more things being available to us at the click of a button, it’s no wonder that we tend to abandon these individualized wellness ventures so quickly; that is, if we even begin at all.
Back to the Future
They say you can shift the direction of your health within a month, a week, or even within a day. While there may be some truth to this, physiologically speaking, we are looking at it wrong if we’re thinking simply in terms of duration– when we’re already focusing our attention on any sort of distance that lies ahead. Sure, the initial idea in our mind may trigger a physical response, which may then create a positive domino effect over time; but typically it’s an acute, short-lived reaction that quickly fades into the dusk light.
Most of us are aware that changes take time (weeks, months, sometimes years) to develop. We also know that if we exercise just one time, we won’t notice anything has changed when we look at our body in the mirror. Such realizations can seem daunting or disappointing to those of us who are swept up into the fast-paced world of immediate and superficial results– instead of serving the present moment, we want something out of it, now.
To be living this way is incredibly disruptive to achieving our goals. While we can write it on the calendar or tell ourselves “I’m gonna do it” or map out a weightloss plan, the present moment, despite the fact that goals exist naturally in our future, is not the time to be hoping or demanding that anything occur; now is actually the only time when we possess any power to do something– not six months from now and certainly not during any point in the past (unless your name is Marty McFly).
Calendars, planning and conversation can be useful motivational tools for accountability and organizational purposes; but scheduling future action or talking about action, is not action. As we become easily distracted and drift away from these well intended ideas that we have, we are repeatedly missing out on the next chance to improve our lives…as we’re thinking about it. I wouldn’t say that thinking is overrated, but overthinking appears to be quite a prevalent obstacle these days, which often stands in the way of doing.
Fear Fun
Many people perceive individuals who regularly put themselves through relentless, intense or even pain-inducing exercise, are some sort of masochists. After all, we are a pleasure seeking society, one that prefers to remain comfortable by purposefully avoiding pain and discomfort. Perhaps some of us who engage in these types of personal wellness practices are, in a sense, deriving pleasure from pain; but for me, the moments I find myself sweating and aching during a long run are simply the result of getting caught up in the moment itself– becoming engrossed in the now.
The term “runner’s high” refers to the surge of hormones, such as adrenaline and oxytocin, when the body is working extra hard and under a higher level of stress (this would classify as “good stress”). Adrenaline and other crucially significant hormones of course contribute a great deal to this phenomenon of getting lost in our work, whatever that looks like; though they’re not the target.
When I go out for a run, I’m not necessarily chasing this high, but rather I’m aware that my body will be feeling better 10 minutes into a run than the first couple of minutes; and hopefully, with a bit of training, I’m going longer and feeling stronger each time, not because I’m anticipating the rush, per se, but because the present high keeps pushing me further. Acquiring this knowledge is important, but it becomes utterly useless if we don’t apply it.
The question, “what do I want to accomplish?” can be a convoluted one. It has a tendency to cause many of us to shrivel up, afraid of failing at something at which we have limited experience. But if we ask ourselves, truly, “”why do I want to accomplish this?’”, then we will be capable of diving in, reading about it in books, surrounding ourselves with it and bringing it to the forefront of our consciousness. Our personal story doesn’t have to be fearful, exactly– it can be fun, if we let it.
Odious Maximus
Striving to be the very best at something is a bat-shit crazy idea, proliferated by the advertising industry to get us to consume more of everything. Seriously, how many of us can be the best? it doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out that, well, a) There can be only one ‘best’; but also, b) ‘The best’ can be a highly subjective distinction. On top of all this, competing and comparing our progress against that of others creates anxiety, identity withdrawal, and unwanted stress (the “bad” kind).
We might feel like we look silly and out of shape at the gym in front of a bunch of fit people, so we don’t go; maybe we avoid taking a class we’re interested in because we’re significantly older than all of the other students and don’t want to appear…well, old. Much of the time, these comparisons and assumptions prevent us from engaging in the ‘now’ moments. While we keep ourselves relentlessly busy, we still manage to spend a great deal of time worrying about what other people think, when we could just be focusing on being a better version of who we were.. Comparisons are odious.
All it takes is one instant, the amount of time required to produce a thought, in order to achieve what we’re looking for. What is not revealed to us is that the months or weeks or days ahead (or behind) do not matter, because they are not happening in this moment, in the “now”. What pulls us toward wellness goals, whatever these may be, is simply showing up. The action that we take, each and every time we do it, is the only thing that actually matters.
I think instant success stories are best told in comedic form, for how else could we recount such a quixotic and incalculable tale. In reality, there are no genies granting wishes here and while we may or may not receive a trophy, all we really have to do is try– hell, we might even discover our own category of “Fun”.