Killing Your Lions

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday that really opened up my mind to an incredible realization that I feel we tend to often forget. We were speaking about the difficulties of life, and ways of coping with them. My friend was telling me about the rough past he had and the bad choices he made along the way. As I truly honor his strength in overcoming this phase of his life and especially his compassion in deciding to tell me about this, it made me really get to thinking. We started talking about escape, and the different ways people try to escape reality and their worries and fears. As he told me in his past, his ways of escape were one not to be proud of, but he's blessed to have made the gym his new means of escape.

I related this directly to myself. I can remember when I first started bodybuilding, how the gym was always my escape from every day. It was always that time in the gym where nothing else mattered, where my worries and pains of reality somehow diminished for a few short hours. Which led to an addiction (luckily a healthy one, yet not the case for some). It was the same escape high that others find in drugs and alcohol. Everyone in this world has some means of escape, weather it be taking a walk, reading a book, painting, drugs, drinking, working on cars, hiking, etc. But is escaping from reality what we really should be doing? Is this temporary high a solution to a long term problem?

I recently finished a book called "Killing Lions" (John and Sam Eldredge) that discusses the challenges we face throughout life and over coming them. This book gave a similar analogy to the one I'm about to state.

Think of an African tribe- a small village that everyone lives in horror over the fear of this mystical lion that prays on the town in the middle of the night. The people of the village continue on their lives during the day, but at night seek shelter in their huts hoping to escape from this dangerous lion. Another life lost to the lion, acceptance takes over and they continue on yet another day. But is this really living? Is escaping the reality of this threat ever going to benefit them in life? Or will this living in fear never end until the lion is killed?

Now back to our relatable lives. So many people find escape from their issues (lions) every single day. And this is the number one cause of addiction in so many ways. For drugs, the high you feel allows you to forget about the pain you have deep inside. Why would you want to stop it? Right? Why kill the lion when we can be safe inside our huts. But are you really safe? Or is another life lost each day to this lion? And when will this lion finally catch up to you?

For the gym, we tell ourselves "well hey, at least I'm not out doing drugs or harming by body" yet so many people have an unhealthy addiction to the gym. I see men and women who go to the gym for 3,4,5 hours a day and still want more. You tell yourselves you are just dedicated, but what are you truly hiding from? Fear of failure? Fear of weight gain? What lion inside you has you escaping from the fear? Finally, when will this lion catch up to you?There will be a day where your hut is no longer secure, you injure yourself, your health takes a unexpected fall, or who knows, your schedule doesn't allow you to make it to the gym anymore...then what? Now you're out there in the open, completely vulnerable with this lion. Shouldn't you find a much larger meaning to love the gym? Wouldn't your goals be met so much faster if your desire was to simply better yourself as an individual? Not because you want to run from your worries?

This applies to everyone in life. Everyone who finds escape in some means or form. Now don't get me wrong, I think it's good...actually needed for all of us each day to take time to ourselves. To each day escape from reality and allow ourselves to soak in our own thoughts, our own conscious. Weather this be from walking, exercising, writing, reading, or even just allowing yourself to be bored for an extended period of time each day. But taking this escape, when you have a lion in your life, it's not escape...it's running. We can all run from time to time, but the lion will never stop chasing us. And I'm willing to bet, you can't outrun a lion. I'm willing to bet you give up before he does. We get tired, no matter how much we escape, how far we run, the high will ware off. Our bodies and minds will ask for a break. And when this break comes, the lion will be right there to greet you.

Ask yourself, what lions do you have in your life? Do you find yourself often doing something to relax yourself? To escape from reality? Are you doing this just to keep a positive healthy mind? Or are you running from something bigger? What do you truly escape from? "Oh I escape from my job because it stresses me out." Rather than escaping, do something about it. If you don't like your career, change it. It's amazing how our own lives are in our very control, every decision we get to make for ourselves. "I escape my wife because she drives me crazy." Is it really healthy to run from these issues? Or should you figure out what and where exactly this lion lives, and try to kill it? Why does she drive you crazy? Because when you come home from that fishing trip, or from a night out with the guys, that lion will be right there at your front door to greet you.

Every single one of us have lions in our lives. Lions that are trying to eat away at us every day. We build what we tell ourselves is strength and we block these lions out. But is truly what strength is? Or is strength finding the courage to KILL these lions? To truly overcome our worries and fear? To me, this is strength. It's not until we expose these lions we escape from, that we will truly be at peace and have a strong positive mind allowing for growth in the future.

-Kevin Lisak

#Wisdom