The Ugliness of Hard Work.

Your alarm clock rings to wake you up on Monday morning. You slowly blink your eyes in disbelief that it's already time to wake up. You lay in bed contemplating the day ahead of you, wishing you could get that extra hour of sleep. You finally wake up from bed knowing you have to eat and pack your lunch. After getting ready and slamming down whatever food you can, it's time for the commute. Luckily, you have your favorite podcast to occupy you while you head to work. You get to work, start your day, and slowly as time goes on, you think about sleep and what to have for dinner. As you finish working, another late drive home caps off the day. When you get home, the thought erupts in your head that you have to exercise.

Not sure if this sounds like your typical day, but for me it's been the norm for the past couple months as I've been trying to keep in shape and advance some of my exercise goals. The routine of exercise has become a habit which I've been fortunate enough to keep consistent with for many years. After a long day of work, many would rather go to sleep while watching their favorite tv show, which don't get me wrong, is not a bad idea. This dedication to training could be deemed as hard work, but for me there’s another layer to this. This made me think about what hard work is, and what drives us to be great in whatever area we try to push our mind to.

Hard work is seen as a necessary evil to achieve whatever you want, in whichever endeavor you decide to be great in. It's glorified in film, tv, and social media as a means to an end. A path to where you want to go, and who you want to be. A catapult to recognition where others will glorify you when you are way past your peak. Despite its glorification, there's a gritty and grimy side to hard work that fails to be expressed. It's an ugly process and it's sometimes made to seem sexier than it is. In reality it's fighting against the pleasures of comfort. Out of all the fields I can think of, sports are an area where the psychology and philosophy of hard work intrigue me the most. For me, one of my favorite athletes who exemplified this was former middleweight boxing great, Marvin Hagler.

The reason why Hagler is relevant to this conversation is because he exemplifies this gritty, grimy, hardworking attitude that I seem to be obsessed with. He would treat training as isolation to craft his will for fight week. He would frequently refer to training as "going to jail", specifically when he would go to Provincetown, Massachusetts and isolate himself to only worry about breaking his opponent's will. His routine wasn't anything unique or special, but it was the intensity and discipline that he brought to training that truly shaped him into being one of the best boxers of all time. Among everything else in his training, the story about Hagler running in combat boots on the sand dune trails of Cape Cod in the middle of winter screaming "war!", would send chills down my spine and motivate me to get off my ass and train. For Hagler, training was a test in its self to create an unshakeable force in the ring. To create someone who had an iron jaw, and relentless savagery that I'm sure haunted the dreams of many of his opponents. All of this was created in the gym, on the dunes of Cape Cod, with the intention of not only defeating his opponent, but defeating the temptation of comfort. Exposing himself to the ugliness of isolation away from all else, where his focus was single minded. While the combat sports athlete is truly a different breed, what can you learn from someone like Hagler?

The lesson here is neither the means nor the path you choose, but the energy you dedicate to your craft. Whether you're a writer, artist or entrepreneur, this is the x factor that will separate you from the rest of your peers. One of my crafts is training, and although I may not even feel like exercising after a long day of work, I’ve told myself its necessary and needs to be done, regardless of any other thought urging me to sleep or relax. You'll find that this ugly side of resisting the temptation of comfort is what makes you better in your discipline. When all else fails, this will lift you to complete your intended task with a ferocity to fight against the forces that may hold you back. Those days of "putting yourself in jail” may seem like a punishment in the moment, but you reap the reward of being the person that is chiseled from adversity. Adversity comes in all shapes and forms, so just know you don't have to be a prize fighter to embrace the grittiness and ugliness of the task at hand.

It's the end of the day, and I've finished training. It's time to wash, rinse, and repeat for the rest of the week. I spend the night thinking about getting up, thinking about the commute, but I'm always happy I was able to train. Not only because I enjoy it, but because it takes something out of you and gives back so you can overcome the monotony of life. Within that hour or so of sweat and strain, I lock myself and my mind in jail. To endure set after set of work knowing that I will come back on the other side a better version of myself, knowing that I'm better at my craft. If I can provide one thought that any of you can think on, ask yourself, what's your jail? What's your Cape Cod that you will run on in the dead of winter? What ugliness are you able to endure to chisel your success?