Sharpen Your Axe, Bro

My friend Christian told me a story and it goes like this...

A rookie lumberjack was eager to impress his bearded buds. Being unable to put down absurd amounts of pancakes or paint oxen blue, he decided to showcase his prowess by toppling trees. The first day he cut down 40 trees while the others only cut 10. Big Business was stoked. Excited by his success he resolved to do even better the next day, so he tried even harder and took NO Xplode. But, to his chagrin he only cut down 30 trees and got diarrhea. "I shall try harder tomorrow," he creepily exclaimed to himself but only brought down 20. He continued this pattern until he could only take down 5 trees a day. He finally humbled himself and asked Hugh Jackman, "Playa, I try my hardest everyday and I'm only getting worse. What am I doing wrong?" Hugh Jackman stopped playing with boxing robots and responded, "have you taken time to sharpen your axe?"

Get it? All the hard work was making his axe dull. Instead of taking time to sharpen his axe, he just made it worse by hammering away.

This is more than just good advice for those trying to start a really big campfire. In case you're dumb, it's a metaphor. Everyday, we work hard at our jobs (or watching The View), we exercise, we spend time in our morning commute, and so on and so forth. The bottom line is we often take on more stress than we can handle and we rarely do anything to unload it.

Now, notice the young lumberjack didn't simply let his axe rest or just not use it for a day. He had to sharpen it to improve. Similarly, we can't just sleep in or take a night off if we want to "de-stress". We must take active steps towards recovery, otherwise we are just putting off stress for a day or so.

How can we do that? There are a lot of ways. The first way is meditation. It sounds pretty hippy dippy, but even just sitting for five minutes a day, focusing solely on your breathing is enough to clear your mind and lower cortisol levels (basically, the stress hormone). You can even chant Hare Hare Krishna or worship Vishnu, but that will take longer. Other paths to not sucking include stretching and mobility work (you'll be amazed by how great you feel when your body doesn't hurt all the time), proper nutrition (blood sugar has little to do with trampolines), a relaxing bath (you probably smell), and reading fiction (stories are great, so is being smart).

So, quit pounding the oaks (innuendo) and stretch in the bath tub. Duh.

Also,

Song of the Week- Black Tongue by Mastodon (it won't always be metal)
Poem of the Week- The Man I was Supposed to Be by John Struloeff (second one down)
Assignment of the week- Every week, I will have a new assignment. Completing the assignment takes you one step closer to the doorstep of Rugged. When you get there, leave your filthy sneaks outside. While simply doing these assignments a few times a week won't make much of a permanent difference, the goal is to turn you onto some rad things in the hopes that some turn into habits, and that's where great things happen. This week's has to do with movement and mobility. We spend so much time sitting, whether it's at work, in the car, at school or at home, we probably sit more than we stand; a bad thing if you know anything about anatomy, biology, or Jedi dodge ball. All this sitting wrecks your hip flexors, making them tighter than an Affliction t-shirt. In the next 7 days, do this stretching routine 3 times. Have fun with your new found range of motion and your ability to flex your butt like a low budget hip hop video.

Have fun. Read the Bible. Stay dirty.