To Have Or To Do - This Is The Question
by Rusi
Last Update On December 17, 2011
Have you ever thought about how lifters talk regarding their lifts. They would say MY deadlift is 500 pounds, my bench press is 300 pounds, my squat is 600 pounds...etc. Do you see anything wrong here?
The use of “MY” shows one very important negative aspects of lifting - the aspire for possession. Using “My” in front of lifts or almost anything different than an object doesn't make sense to me. How can you own a deadlift, a squat..etc. We are talking about a movement, an exercise. Saying my squat is 300 pounds is like saying my hip extension and knee extension are 300 pounds. Sounds stupid, right? Anything other than a simple object such as a pen cannot be owned and we should not use any kind of possessive expression when talking about it.
Many people will now say: “But those are MY lifts. I'm lifting the weight. So, they are mine.” You may be lifting the weight but you cannot own the movement of lifting the weight. It's not a car to be owned. One day you lift 300 pounds the next day you come and 200 pounds feel like hell. To me it seems that the weight owns you rather than the opposite.
Deadlift, squat, barbell curl, vertical jumping...cannot not be owned - they can only be performed. They don't belong to others any more than they belong to me or to you. They have no owner, no master to serve to. By thinking in terms of “MY” you will only limit yourself or even expose yourself to ego driven negative results. Let's say you are a boy with low self-confidence and you want to “have” 225 pounds bench press before Christmas or your birthday. The boy wants it because he would like to think of his lift as a new ownership, he treats it like a hat that would make him look cooler once he has it. This approach is wrong because it's based on possession. If the boy successfully accomplish his goal and “has” a 225 pounds bench press by Christmas he will feel happy for a moment but what would happen if after a week he fails to lift 225 pounds again - he feels sad because he lost his hat and now everything feels so cold.
Rather than thinking of lifts as part of you think of them as an effort expression and self improvement action. Don't be so concerned about the weight you are lifting but the effort and the love you lift it with. Lifting is like a small evolution. Today I lift 100 pounds, my body adapts and now I'm a better version of myself. I survived. The next day the evolution continues. I lift 110 pounds, my body adapts...You will only limit evolution if you think in terms of possession because everything that has an owner is controlled, limited and closer to death.
In cases like this I always come back to my first 400 pounds deadlift. I was obsessed by the idea of having 400 pounds deadlift and once I got it I felt so sad. The way I lifted the weight was so ugly with no love for the lift itself but rather an ego and possession driven joy. It almost didn't matter to me that I achieved my goal. Yes, I did put a lot of effort in it but I did it more to impress others around me. Looking back if I was thinking more in terms of being able to lift 400 pounds rather than having 400 pounds it would have been much better.
The next time you say you have 500 pounds deadlift, 400 pounds squat..etc ask yourself this question: How can I own something that cannot be had?
Doing > Having.
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