Why do people not get this?

If something takes hard work, only hard work will attain it. And hard work is hard. Sure, some work is easy, but some things take hard work.

I talk about how much I enjoy doing burpees. More precisely, I like doing them in principle, I like the effects they have on my physical condition and motivation skills, and I like just having finished a set.

Before I start every set, I don’t want to do them. They’re hard. Really hard. While I’m doing them, my body motivates me to stop. I have to work hard physically to do them and mentally to keep going. That’s hard work. Sure it’s for only a few minutes a day so I’m not claiming any set is a big deal.

But every set is hard. Every single set. I have to work hard every single time. I have to work hard mentally. They never get easy.

But I’ll tell you something. When I started, ten in a day was a big deal. Now thirty-two sets of ten challenged me, but I did them, on top of my morning and evening sets of 25.

I decided to start my marathon training two days ago. I ran my first lap of Central Park Saturday, my first run since the injury that kept me out of last year’s marathon, over six months ago. I ran six miles at a decent pace for me, about 7:45 per mile. That night burpees were harder than usual. I did them anyway. I consider the challenging times the ones that build character—what you do when no one is around to see you.

That night the soreness in my muscles woke me up several times. I woke up sore yesterday and found those burpees even harder than the night before’s.

I decided to run another six miles yesterday. It was difficult, but easier than I expected from my soreness. I felt great after, despite knowing I’d feel pain from running on already sore muscles. I also did my morning burpees outside just after my run. Holy cow, were they hard. I had a hard time just standing after. Today I feel more sore than yesterday, but I’m glad I did the work. I’m not special. Many people work a lot harder than I do. Both day’s workout combined adds up to less than one practice of when I played ultimate.

Sorry if I’m rambling, but I feel such a disconnect between how hard some work is and how much people want to get the results without doing the hard work. More importantly, they look at the difficulty and pain and don’t realize the reward they can get from it. They don’t even lead themselves to do hard things, however simple. How can they expect to lead others or get themselves out of challenging situations?

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