I met a guy at the gym last week. He’s been retired for the last year or so. He told me that sometimes, he spends four or five hours in the gym.
Surprised, I asked him if he was training for something specific. He told me he wasn’t, but he felt good after spending the day “at it.”
Thinking about this made me wonder if he was using the gym to escape from life. After all, the purpose of exercise is to have a body that functions for all its needs: lifting objects, bending, moving around, and being flexible and strong to meet life’s demands.
Escaping from the challenges of life is not the answer, but it does seem to be a symptom of something that’s not working. Perhaps some introspection or conversation with a therapist might help redirect and expand thinking beyond the safe space of a gym or other activities that are more escape than anything else.
It’s easy to go to our comfortable default. It’s probably not what we need.
