The Deception of Perception

This week is Your week, Faithful Reader. I am going to take a break from my own philosophies and share with you a couple amazing thoughts I received this past week from other like-minded individuals. I hope they keep you thinking long after the thought as they did me…


While driving during last week’s Boot Camp at the Professional Fitness InstituteÔ, I was enjoying a great piece of dialogue with my new friend, April, who was in Vegas to spend some time with us before graduating school and becoming a certified personal trainer. During our conversation, she repeated a simple statement said from her grandmother that completely made me think outside of my own box. She said, “If you can spare a penny, you have too much.” Let that thought marinate for a minute before moving on. Sitting there analyzing this thought, I came to realize how incredibly true this is to our everyday lives and how easy it is to take for granted what we have, don’t have and/or need. When we feel like we don’t have anything while letting our desires get the best of us, we need to check our pockets, our purses, and even our couches for those missing pieces of change that we forget we have, but that someone else might treasure. Sure, a penny is useless to you and I for the most part and there really isn’t much in this world we can purchase with a single cent piece. However, envision if each person on Earth took their loose pocket pennies and change and gave them to something or someone who could really use them. If we don’t even realize we have these small treasures to begin with, it won’t hurt us to part ways with them and we will have helped to facilitate a better world. When you give selflessly and without regret to the world around you, the world around you will reward you in ways you can’t even begin to imagine. Don’t take what you have for granted and always appreciate the little things in life that we seldom think twice about. Somewhere, someone is wishing they were in your shoes and praying for a small treasure to help get them there. Give freely and without expectations. I dare you…


During this same conversation with April, I was able to listen in to a second story which really impacted my heart and soul. She alluded back to a day when she and her husband passed a homeless man on the street whom they graciously gave a few dollars to. Nothing substantial, but enough for someone of his stature to do plenty with. A few minutes after the kind exchange between April’s husband and the homeless man, the homeless man called April’s husband back over his way. As he went over, the man thanked him and said, “By the way- my name is John. I just wanted someone to know that.” Just think, Faithful Reader, of how many times you pass a person while you are walking, driving, running errands, and in Life where you make a judgment and immediately put a stereotype to a face without making it a fact to remind yourself that under these stereotypes lies a person. A human being. We are all guilty of it. This particular man just wanted someone to know that underneath his tattered clothes, battered persona, and vulnerability that he was a person with a name and feelings. As she told me this story, I thought back to a million and one instances in my life where I put a name onto someone before ever getting to know them or their story and how awful I would feel if someone were to do the same to me if I was in a disposition or had hit a rough patch. No one deserves to be treated that way regardless of if the problem was related to them or from an outside force. We truly don’t know the full story and need to be cognizant of the labels we use on people. We are all here to lift each other up, not to break each other down or exclude people from Life when they are fully exposed to suffering and vulnerability. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is different than you- and who knows it. Imagine if you were suffering so badly and were so poor that you had to actually go up to strangers and beg them for their goodness and kindness. How prideful would you feel? How much dignity would you feel you possessed? Encompass these thoughts and feelings and revert back to them when you find yourself pre-disposing people to labels. We really don’t know the story or the cause of what caused the individual to be in their disposition to begin with, so why should we, then, be the ones dictating who they are through false accusations? Next time you walk by someone you don’t feel the need to look twice at, look again and think about how you would want the world to empathize with you if you were in their shoes. We should always want and desire to life each other to new heights, not to dismiss someone because they are not as fortunate as us or if they choose to be different than us. Before you choose a stereotype, ask them what their name is. And while you are at it… give them a penny or two.


One of my favorite parts about Boot Camp is at the end of the week when the students all have an opportunity to step in front of the classroom and, essentially, tell their own stories on how they got to where they are today and why they decided to enter into the fitness industry. It is always an emotional time for many reasons, but mostly because I am humbled to the fact that you can never judge a book by it’s cover. Tying in the previous lessons mentioned above… When the students first arrive to Las Vegas, they are (for the most part) eager to begin the week and to become certified personal trainers. When I first began working for PFI, I tended to make my own judgments in trying to decipher what walks of life most of our future trainers came from. One of the things that has (and still) leaves me in utter shock is when I hear the reasons behind the student’s yearning to help others. A big percentage of the students we have the pleasure of working with are in pretty great shape and most of them look like they have never had to struggle a day in their lives to look the way they do. This is something else I take for granted and something I am always humbled to stand corrected about. Extremely humbled. Many times, behind the smiles, confidence and success lies a difficult story that takes raw courage to spill out and share. One thing I have learned is that no matter WHAT it is you see externally, the internal spirit is a hidden gem that is untouched in many individuals and never brought to life because it gets buried in the midst of the exoskeleton. We can be very devious if we choose to be and, many times, just a look of confidence and a great body can be a cover-up in itself. Or you could go the opposite direction and look at someone who may not be in the greatest shape and make a preconceived notion about them as well. I try to do neither as I have found that I am wrong more often than not in making my own assumptions. Some of the most heartfelt and emotional stories I have ever heard have come from some of the most beautiful people I have ever met. Some of the most difficult and treacherous moments have stemmed from these individuals who have decided to dedicate their own LIVES in lieu of helping others improve their own. It takes a certain personality to be so bold, and I find most often that the people who decide to embark upon this career field have hit rock bottom at one point or another and had to make the hardest and most detrimental decisions of their lives on going to one extreme or the next to fight for their own lives. The difference between these students and most other people is a simple fact that when forced to see the glass as half empty or half full, they took a risk and saw it as completely full and overflowing. Half just wasn’t enough. It is so easy for us as humans to focus solely on the negative. It’s just easier. We can stand around and pout instead of doing something about it and nothing is stopping us from sitting around and waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the problem to resolve itself. When it doesn’t resolve on it’s own, we find more reasons to be negative and we run circles in spite of ourselves in complaining about something we aren’t being proactive in doing anything to prevent. It takes a person of courage and bravery to step up to the plate and decide to take action. And not only that, but to change the negative situation into a life-altering, positive action to go against all odds and come out on top when everyone else would expect the opposite. THAT is true courage. Learn from this lesson and realize that regardless of what you see on a person externally, each person has been through hardships, loss, struggles, challenges, failures and mistakes. We musn’t ever take for granted another person’s story and we must always be humbled to the fact that everyone has written their own Book of Life. Read through some of their pages before guessing the ending.


In speaking with my great friend, Scott Hopson, I became reminded of one thing we all don’t give enough appreciation to… Silence. Scott brought up an amazing point that silence not only speaks volumes, but it is actually the ONLY universal language in the entire world. Think about it- When do you ever just sit back and actually enjoy and appreciate the silence of the world around you? Do you allow yourself to be encased and enclosed in the silence of the moment on occasion? Personally, I know that it takes me extreme focus to concentrate on silence because I am rarely exposed to it these days. Life sends in commotion as soon as noise ceases to exist and I am truly someone who is guilty of not appreciating the world around me in all its silent glory. I tend to specifically search for noise as I don’t know what it’s like to be without it. I tend to therefore feel the discomfort of the silence because I have become so dependant on hearing sounds to know if I am being productive. Silence is a gift we are given and a gift we so easily throw away or ignore. Regardless of where we go, we are drenched in noise and become dependant on ‘hearing’ Life to know its existence. What we fail to realize is that in silence, we can be at one with the world and with ourselves and it is here where we sometimes find our greatest answers to life’s most ‘impossible’ questions. If we take the time to ‘listen’ to how piercing the silence is, we can then open our ears to receiving the answers the commotion hides from us. With all the language barriers in the world, silence speaks the only language that each and every person can understand. Tell me, Faithful Reader: Is it not true that you can discover how great a partnership between two people is through silence? If you can be comfortable sitting in mere silence right next to someone when there are just no words, you have truly found the deeper meaning behind friendship and relationships. We are very hard-wired to think that we should never have a dull moment with another individual. While this is true by every means, silence is typically put under the domain name of ‘dull’ and is shunned away into a deep corner and looked down upon. However- isn’t it in the silence when in the presence of another when we can truly say we have found ‘comfort’? If you cannot be comfortable in silence and if words are the only means of expression, then are we truly able to say we are completely comfortable with another person? Sometimes silence speaks louder than words and if you take a moment to discover it for yourself, I no doubt believe you will agree with this fact. Experience and enjoy silence. It is a gift in disguise and if we all take a little bit of time to enjoy it, we may just find the answers we have trouble hearing in all our regular commotion.


In essence, there is much to be learned from the simple things in life and many times, the things we are most familiar with and consider to be the most ‘simple’ are actually the most complex facets of life that we simply forget to pay attention to. Give selflessly. Live each day without judgment. Experience the loudness in a bout of silence. And by the way… What is your name?


Until next time, Faithful Reader…


“I have learned that some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet are those who have suffered a traumatic event or loss. I admire them for their strength, but most especially for their life gratitude - a gift often taken for granted by the average person in society.”
-Sasha Azevedo


“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”
-Lao Tzu


“I don't think you ever stop giving. I really don't. I think it's an on-going process. And it's not just about being able to write a check. It's being able to touch somebody's life.”
-Oprah Winfrey


“Silence is the true friend that never betrays.”
-Confucius


“Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation... tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.”
- Jean Arp


“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.”
-Mahatma Gandhi