What’s wrong with thinking?

I’m convinced that people are so self-absorbed in their own little worlds lately that thinking will soon become extinct.

I was at the gym the other morning, an Anytime Fitness. It was technically, from what I’ve been told by management, an Anytime Fitness ‘Express’. ‘Express’ in this context can loosely be translated into, ‘we don’t have much equipment at this particular location’. The management knowing this, by the way, is what makes the following all the more comical.

There is a bulletin board on the far wall of the gym that has a potpourri or items, including quotes, recipes, and the subject of this post – the ‘workout of the month’.

How these workouts are chosen I’m sure, is random at best, and haphazard most of the time. In this month’s case, it’s downright brain-dead.

This months workout is for legs. It starts with calves, then goes to hamstrings. This is followed by walking lunges, and ends with the leg press – performed on the leg ‘sled’.

The first reason this is moronic is the order of the workout. Any lifter worth their salt knows that just like the ‘weakest’ link principle, for the best workout you work the smaller (weaker) muscles after you work the larger muscles. Just as a chain breaks when the weakest link gives out, there is no way you can give the larger muscles an adequate workout if the supporting muscles are already fatigued. Also, by working the larger muscles first, you have the energy and fuel they need to give them a worthwhile workout.

BUT the dumbest part of this workout is that THIS GYM DOESN’T HAVE A LEG SLED. The 'workout of the month' requires one, but there isn't one available. And, depending on the person doing the exercises, it may not even have adequate size dumbbells for the walking lunges. While this gym is perhaps less equipped than some of the other gyms, the postings on this board are not ‘corporate’ postings administered by Anytime. These postings are placed individually at each gym by the management, and could be adapted to fit the individual gym.

Either the manager can’t think, won’t think, or just doesn’t care. Frankly, it doesn’t matter to me since the result is the same – no one can do the workout of the month. I’m all for providing free information to customers, but is it really even worth providing information if it’s worthless?

My point of this entire piece can be summed up by the sign Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, kept on his desk. It merely had one word – THINK!

Are you caring them away?

That’s not a typo. I do mean ‘caring’ and not ‘scaring’, even though they can occasionally be interchangeable.

So what the heck do I mean? Ask a female.

Why? Because they are often the recipients of guys who give so much attention, and ‘care’ too much, that it drives them away.

‘Where do you want to go?’ ‘What do you want to eat?’ ‘Can I do anything for you?’ ‘I’d like to spent time (a lot of it – maybe every hour) with you.’ Etc, etc. Annoying.

This can, of course, go the other way. The woman can also get too overbearing, and over-caring, and drive a guy away too, but I usually find that it’s men that often just try too hard for women. They are too afraid to lose the little ‘nibble’ they got when they met a female, and they hold on to it so tightly they kill it.

This can also be generalized to almost everything in your life. I like to say that the person who wants something least is the one who ends up with the best deal. Caring too much, and trying too hard will only move you further away from what you want.

The person who is desperate to sell their home will sell it far too cheap. The person who wants so badly to do a business deal, will drive the potential buyer away. And of course, that guy who wants the girl so badly that he's calling every minute, and showering her with gifts every chance he gets, will eventually lose her every time.

You can come up with your own examples, but I think you’ll find you won’t have to search your brain too deep.

Any time you are faced with a decision that you need to make so badly, and 'immediately', take twenty-four hours to think about it. After you distance yourself from the decision with time, you will probably never even want that thing any more. And if you do, you'll have a much clearer perspective on what it really means to you.

When faced with more daunting, or more important decisions, take a little longer than that to think about it. Never give in to your own ‘overbearing caring’ about something, especially if you want someone to do something for you. You just might care/scare them away.

Remember, there will always be another chance to find that special something. When I’m faced with an ‘important’ decision, I like to occasionally remind myself that once-in-a-lifetime deals come around about every month or so.