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“I’m not like everyone. I don’t live like they live. I don’t eat what
they eat. No donuts. No coffee with cream & two sugars. No morning
papers. It’s 6:52am & I’m on my second meal. While everyone else is
hitting the snooze, I’m hitting my stride.”
“What do I do? I’m a bodybuilder & yeah, it’s a job. Only the day
doesn’t start at 9 & it won’t end at 5. It starts from the time I
open my eyes to the time I shut them. It’s not a 5 day work week. I
live it 24/7... This is a job. This is my life.”
“The toughest part is sticking to the path, enduring the crushing
routine. My drive won’t change & each day that passes will bring me
closer to my destination, the one I’ve circled in red & taped to
the cabinet. There is no rest. I’ve got miles to go.”
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"That piece of paper taped to my cabinet? It’s a call to action, a
declaration of war. I put it there to remind me of the date every
single fucking day… It’s also my personal alarm clock. Every morning,
as I’m making my eggs, taking my Animal Pak, prepping my meals—it goes
off, like a hammer to my brain. My alarm doesn’t have a snooze. It
never lets up. It cuts me no slack. Some days, I see it and it gets me
jacked. Yeah, I’m gonna do this. This is my destiny. Other days I
think, 'What the fuck am I doing? I look like shit.' Either way, I
can’t escape it. Every time I see that piece of paper, it stares back
at me, calls me out, challenges me. So I just keep grinding forward.
Listen, this is how things work. If you want to get something done, you
gotta set a goal. Then, write it down--put it in a place you can’t hide
from. Every day, look at it and ask yourself, am I farther along than I
was yesterday? Am I moving forward? Cuz if you’re not, why did you even
set a goal to begin with? My goal is up there, circled in permanent red
ink. Every day it greets me, my own personal fucking alarm clock. If I
listen closely, I swear I can hear it ticking. Tick… Tick… Tick…
Ticking down from 126. Can’t you hear it? It’s fucking thunderous. And
it’s winding its way down to 0…" |
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"My place? It's a small, dark shithole. A place where it'd be tough
bringing my folks, let alone my girl. Still, I've got three rooms and a
roof over my head. It's not much, but it gets the job done. Here in this
room, it's just this stool, a large mirror, the boombox I've had since I
was in middle school, and some lights I rigged up. This is supposed to
be the living room, but shit, I call it my 'posing' room. For inspiration, I've got a couple
of posters of bodybuilding greats from the past, to
build me up. And a large mirror to scrutinize myself, to tear myself down. Yeah, home, sweet
home. So this girl I just started seeing--the other day, she comes over
for the first time. She has this shocked look on her face. She asks
me why I don't get a nicer place. A coffee table. A couch.
Somewhere she can sit. A coffee table? Couch? Fuck that. What's next,
some silk fucking flowers? Anyway, I tell her there's always the two
chairs in the kitchen... Or my cot. Look, rule number one--and I always
say this right from the start--if you want to see me, you get all of
me. Everything. Which is a lot, or very little, depending on how you
see things. I'm not here to stand still and let the dust settle
on my shoulders... Possessions, all the shit you collect--these are the
things that tie you down, hold you back. In this world, I don't have
much--just the clothes on my back and this burning desire in my heart.
But that's alright because I'm just passing through... On my way to
something bigger."
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"It's
cold out there. So lately, I've been spending a lot of time inside, in
these three rooms I call home. The kitchen. The bedroom. The living
room. These rooms are like the confines of my mind. The kitchen, my
Hunger. The bedroom, my Desire. The living room, my Solitude. Three things I have to deal with every single fucking day. Shit,
I spend a lot of time within these places, within my mind. Out in the
real world, you can always step outside for a breather. In my head,
there's no escape... Not ever.
When I meet people, they take one look at me and dismiss me as some
stupid, oversized meathead. Someone who doesn't have a thought in his
brain. Fuck that. I've got the opposite problem. I think too much. I
dwell on too many things. My mind wanders... Sometimes, I feel trapped... Like the walls are closing in on
me. It's suffocating. I wonder if I can keep this up for another
seventeen weeks and make it to the end. Some nights, when I'm awake, I
imagine that the front door is unlocked... Fear comes a calling. Doubt walks in... Questions howl outside, rattle my windows.
But within these three rooms I must remain. Alone with Hunger,
Desire, Solitude. I gotta keep driving forward. I gotta keep moving...
So when I'm sitting here alone on another night, I tell myself I'm not
gonna go fucking nuts. When I lie in bed, I'm not gonna stay awake.
When I eat, I'm not gonna puke... These are the tenants that occupy my
mind--the place where I live."
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