Honor

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. 

- Martin Luther King, JR. 

This quote is in the beginning of principle #9 in the book "The Spartan Way" by Joe De Sena. The principle is titled "Be Honorable, Spartan Virtue: Integrity". I sometimes wonder what has happened to this virtue of late. This morning I went to look at my news feed and within the first 8 stories 5 of them had to do with A white person being filmed spotting of racist comments towards someone of Asian descent and the other 4 were towards African Americans and their families. I asked myself why? Can someone explain to me why. Then I thought whoever tried to explain, your answer is wrong. There are no right answers to this issue of racism. There are only wrong answers. There is no way of spinning this. There is no way of explaining this away. There is no way of hiding from this, but yet so many people apparently do. You know what, you're wrong $#$%^&$ wrong!!! There is only one right answer to this and that is you are taught. You are taught to hate. You are taught by people that hold power over you. Whether it is your parents, family members, friends, world leaders, workplace environment or media outlets. These people and organizations have no virtues or any kind of honor and integrity. They can't even begin to understand the definition of these words.

I know this is supposed to be a gym newsletter, but honor, virtue and integrity are integral parts of life and they can be honed and learned here in the gym. Honor, virtues and integrity come from within. They have to be nurtured and taught in order for them to flourish. This only happens through hard work and dedication. You can't cheat them, because if you do you will always fall short. When you fall short on a regular basis because of a lack of honor, virtues, and integrity that's when it becomes really easy to start blaming others and start listening to the wrong message of hate. Don't let this happen to you and please do whatever you can to prevent this from happening to people around you. I don't think we can make this issue go away completely, but we can sure do a hell of a lot better job then what is happening these days. 

Thanks for reading and have an awesome day