We Get What We Tolerate

Is it just me or do people who tend to do half-assed workouts also tend to live half-assed lives?

And do they also tend to have a wheelbarrow of excuses to explain why they’re getting poor results inside and outside of the gym?

And do they also tend to only see the brutish consequences of reality and never the unsurprising consequences of ignoring reality?

“But so much in life is outside our control!“ they often contend. As if that’s a bug in the game of life rather than a feature — a necessary precondition for interest and excitement — and as if there’s no way for them to control even an iota more of their orbit.

We may not feel that we always get what we deserve in life, but we certainly get what we tolerate. We get the body we tolerate, the mind we tolerate, the career we tolerate, the relationships we tolerate, the community we tolerate, the government we tolerate, the world we tolerate.

And so whenever we’re dissatisfied, no matter the reason, we can curse someone or the stars or we can ask “how did I contribute to this?” and “what am I going to do about it?”

The elegance of this approach to dealing with adversity is that it doesn’t matter whether it’s grounded in ultimate “truth,” because it works. No philosophizing is required. By simply behaving as if it were true, we can greatly expand our ability to get more of whatever we want and less of whatever we don’t.