Why Your Gains Mean Nothing

[< <Samson> >]

If you live your life in 3rd person - you will never be happy.

Very well said

[45lb]

Anything you work hard for - means something.

Absolutely

[USVet81]

What matters is that when we are dying in a hospital bed, hopefully many years from now, is that we spend our last minutes content with the life we chose.

If you're a person whose last thoughts are about how flipping powerful and rich you became then you led a good life for yourself... Nobody can tell you you're wrong if you believe it in your own mind.

If you're a person who will be proud of maximizing their body and getting all they could out of it as a tool then you succeeded for who you are...

I tend to think most of our thoughts will fall to family and whether we did what we could to be good people, parents, friends... But I'm a sap...

[hellomycognomen]

The haters thread and the one about feeling small is what got me to thinking about this.

You hear guys here and other places online talk about how much better shape they're in than everyone else, they're the top 5%, there are so many fat people, etc. etc. etc. But how much does it really matter? How much does it positively affect your life as well as the rest of the world? I have to say I believe your gains and your physique are possibly one of the most meaningless things in the world.

Look at the most powerful people on earth. I'm not talking about some idiot celebrity but people that hold real power. None of them are what anyone here would consider in great shape, they're either fat or skinny by physique world minded standards. However, each and everyone of them holds more power, wealth, influence and I'd even say importance in terms of the state of the world than you. You may be bigger and stronger, leaner and harder, but in comparison to them, even though they are 30% body fat, you are meaningless.

And this is where arguing starts. There are all sorts of justifications, but at the end of the day, 99.99% of the time, the gym rat's life is less successful and meaningful than the non-rat's. Sure, you can make the argument about meaningful to one's self, I live the gym lifestyle for me or any of that what I like to call "new age gym life bullshit" that you want, but that doesn't change reality.

And no, this thread isn't bashing you or anyone else. I enjoy going to the gym as much as anyone here. And the point of this thread isn't to attempt to persuade you or anyone else from living the way you do. More than anything, I guess you could say these are just rambling thoughts I've had for awhile. At one time in my life the gym life was so important to me, so much of my life revolved around it, actually everything in my life revolved around it in one way or another. But the more I look at life and the world the more I come to realize how meaningless all that stuff is. I'm not talking about in comparison to the important things like family and being happy in life, I'm simply saying your physique, my physique or anyone's physique is really not a determining factor for success, true success. If it were, the truly powerful would all be 5% and ripped to the bone when in fact not a single one of them are.

The key to success in anything is your method of thinking. This is what differentiates men. Successful people have vision. They believe in themselves. Think success and you manifest success. Think failure and you manifest failure. Everything revolves around how you think.

[bartman314]

i'd rather be top 10% in 3 or 4 things than top 5% in 1 thing. for me, this lifestyle represents therapy and a way to meet some primal needs that business (i'm an entrepreneur) and science (i'm a phd and work on batteries for electric vehicles) do not.

i especially like walking into a room filled with other entrepreneurs and/or scientists and having them do a double take and wonder if i'm in the right room. and that's in a shirt hiding the snake.

[Xv1d]

In my honest opinion.

This thread is based on the false pretence that power+influence = success.

Success is subjective.

[Score]

In my honest opinion. This thread is based on the false pretence that power+influence = success. Success is subjective.

Agreed. I see success as something that's slightly out-of-reach. Which is different for everyone, therefore subjective. Once you reach it, that's success.

Many people of high wealth (one form of success) started wealthy, so you could easily argue their success rate is less than someone of less wealth that's increased their net worth more, through arguably harder work (keep in mind money makes money).

People like Trump started with a million dollar loan from their father, hard to compete with that.

There's really no way for an apples-apples comparison, so it's got to be subjective. Anyone who throws blind respect to someone with financial success, scares me.

[AR's King Silabolin]

Meaningless?. What is meaningless?. Everything is meaningless. If you are a top pro BB or Obama or born without eyes, ears and toungue your are going to die and with time you soon will fade away from memories too. Humans just visit the earth for a short while and its just a matter of time before forces in the space erases everything and all we have ever done will be lost for ever and noone will ever know we ever existed. It can happen tomorrow by a gammaglimps or in 5 billions years when the sun swallows the earth.
So, if you run for President, find a 100% cancer treatment or spend your life jerking off in front of a computer, its all an illusion and totally wasted. Criminals may not be that stupid after all.