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This Is What Happens When You Actually “Show Up” Every Day
Discipline is more complicated than just doing stuff.
I know a few things, but I don’t know when to quit.
I’m painfully stubborn — like, everything hurts.
The root cause of my stubbornness isn’t important. It’s hustle culture, my life experiences, and it’s the lifetime of combat sports that I’ve immersed myself in. I’ve written about this a zillion times by now.
I work hard as fuck, and I beat the living shit out of my body.
But what’s even more horrifying than beginning to feel the wear and tear of more than 12 years of combat sports slowly ripping my ligaments and tendons apart is the realization that I don’t have anywhere near the discipline that I thought I did. I feel like I’ve been living a lie this entire time.
I feel like I’ve been lying to myself and everyone around me, all because I “show up”.
Snap, crackle, pop
On Monday, I popped something in my back.
It was the third “pop” this month.
I was finishing a takedown during wrestling practice, and the next thing I knew, I had severe shooting pain down my spine. I persevered through the pain (for no reason other than the fact that quitting feels like dying to me) and finished the training session, but the damage was done. By the end of practice, I couldn’t bend over. I had effectively turned myself into a 60-year-old man in a 45-minute wrestling practice.
I went to the doctor on Wednesday and was prescribed Predisone for the pain. I went back to training the next day, and I went “light”. I was working on borrowed time.
On Saturday, that time caught up with me, and I popped something in my rib. I was training with a friend up in Milwaukee, and by the end of our 5-minute sparring round, we were both injured on the sidelines. He was an unrelenting, unstoppable force, and I was the stubborn, immovable object. The result was fireworks, chaos, and bandages.
1 week away from the world championships, I’m at a loss for what comes next. I feel betrayed by my own hard work. My own grit is breaking me down.
