Looks Are Deceiving

I was working harder on the left. Much harder. I’d just had Lyme disease; bronchitis was hitting us hard for 3 weeks; my daughter was just born; we were having a rift in our business; and so much more that can never fit in a post.

People glance at transformation posts and their brains make all kinds of untrue assumptions. I ate cleaner on the left. I was younger. I was more determined. But my SITUATION, my LANDSCAPE, my ENVIRONMENT could at best yield that.

In fact, the deeper truth that we ignore while looking at photos with our eyes is so baked into our society, that we have a term: dadbod. Why would a dad have a less athletic build? Why would we have come to use that phrase? Because we know a person with many responsibilities will, on average, not achieve as striking an outcome as someone with few responsibilities.

So I don’t just say looks can be deceiving. I say you are constantly deceiving yourself. All of you. All of us. All the time.

Work ethic matters. But work ethic cannot magically transport a person into another universe with different landscape. Over time, sure, we can build new environments and find different toe holds. And you should. And you shouldn’t bitch and make excuses. But also we have to recognize that some impressive photos say more about an easy-ass challenge-less life or period of time. And some ho-hum photos are, in fact, the hardest workers in the room. They’re just stuck in the wrong room at that time.