Enjoy The Hard Times

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

James 1:2-4

In health and fitness journeys, as in all of life, there will be tough times. In fact, one might look at the health and fitness journey with great parallel to any other challenge. Your life is informed by your health. And is not your health and fitness some measure of your life? In the past ten years of my career more so than the first decade of it, I have come to appreciate the long game for all clients and even for all people. I now see that those who stayed plugged in for 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 years all accomplished physical feats that NO ninety-day or six-month transformation has EVER done. I have seen my now-70s clients capable of things their 50s or 30s selves had no prayer of doing.

And it’s gotten me to think about this concept at the highest level. Only those who persist through the greatest difficulty will receive the greatest joy. Compare the grandmaster to the novice chess player. Compare the marathon winner to the first-time runner. Compare the prima ballerina to the tripping introductory dance student. Compare the mathematician to the kid struggling with his first equations. Compare the concert pianist to the leaner whose hands ache at first forms. And on we could go. Joy is borne from challenge, repeated, relentless, and lengthy. As such, why not take joy in the very moments of pain which will lead to our development?

We hit the hard times and look to get through them. It could be as simple as a stalled scale. And I’ve seen many people shoot themselves in the foot long-term because of impatience in something so trivial. Those hard times could be graver: genuine hardship. I perused my photos recently to find not only the one included in this article, but many like it. Monthly, and sometimes more, we found ourselves in clinics and the ER the first few years of our son's life, not just wondering if, but readying ourselves to be grieving parents. There were days so dark that we'd do best to forget them altogether, weeks so long that our minds were lost to them with only a photo here and there to recall any of it. What I do remember is always a sliver of joy that my boy was still with me, even if I might lose him in the very next moment. Somehow, we got through. Somehow, I latched on to a faint whisper of joy in that darkness.

​Not everybody does.

What if, more fundamentally, we ought to look to take pure joy in those hard times? After all, even the frailest newborn might make it through easy times and good times. But it takes a bona fide badass to make it through testing. What else is maturity but the visceral realization of duty over difficulty, responsibility over desire, and the patience to endure?

Is there a greater label than perseverance? One who builds this skill is built for all of life, beginning to end and all the parts in between. But a person without perseverance is only built for a tiny part of life, the soft moments which anyone could weather. That person is a perpetual child, and not in the good ways, not in the beautiful ways, not in the wondrous ways.

There will be hard seasons, not just moments: to lose a child or a loved one; to lose yourself or your life; to lose your home or your job; to lose dignity; to lose innocence; to lose health; to lose trust; to lose wealth; to lose dreams; to lose hope; to lose.

The losses will come. That is a guarantee. For all, loss is truth: one day soon to come; soon thereafter; and after yet again. Therefore, perseverance sits above truth, and joy higher still.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face many trials.

Enjoy the hard times.