We’ve talked about heroes here before and we’ve talked about heroes as role models, but I heard an interesting turn of phrase – most of us are the heroes of our own stories. What does that mean? It means that for most of us – we exist as individuals and we are the main character in our own personal stories. In as much, we are the heroes of those stories. Our past is our prologue and our present is the heart of the story.
So what does this have to do with fitness?
Fitness Begins Inside
You can do all the exercise in the world and still remain an unfit individual if you do not balance your fitness internally as well as externally. It’s important to remember that whom we are inside has a profound effect on the rest of our lives. Consider, if you will, when you’re depressed or sad – you are less likely to be concerned with your personal appearance or with improving yourself. You may think you need to and you may wish that you could, but you may also feel helpless to affect a real change in yourself.
Actually, to put it more simply, when you don’t care about yourself on the inside, it’s very hard to care about yourself on the outside. By the same token, if all you care about is the outside and you cannot find happiness on the inside, you’ll be less inclined to strive on the outside.
They say that faith and reason create the shoes on our feet. You need faith in yourself and reason to strive. You need the reason of logic and understanding and at the same time, you need faith in the intangible. Faith requires that you surrender yourself to the possibility of hope and reason offers you the promise that hope likely exists.
So one way to be the hero of your story is to help others be the hero of theirs. In a way, it’s like seeding goodwill and letting it grow or doing unto others as you would have done to you and putting goodwill out into the world. When you help others, you create a feeling of personal satisfaction in yourself and you can be proud of yourself and feel good about yourself.
The Hero of Your Story
I’ve found over the years that when I help others, I am more capable of helping myself. To be a hero in my story, I need to be a strong supporting character for others. The busier I am helping others, the better I feel about myself and that translates to working harder for myself and improving myself. Are you the hero of your story? Can you help others to be the hero of theirs?
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