Many times people have asked me, "What are you training for?" I never know how to respond. The inquiry always makes me feel taken aback. "I don't know," is how I've always responded. But as time has gone on and I've learned more about myself, about exercise, about life, I suppose I would change that response: "To prove myself wrong."

I so firmly believe that your body will literally go as far as you want it to. It is the greatest vessel of which you will ever take command. The only things that preclude you from continuing forth are the preconceived notions in your mind that you form about your personal physical capacity. But every single time you exercise, you put yourself in a position to push past the constraints that hitherto relegated you to a certain position, even if only slightly. The incremental increases may not total great lengths each time, but when you add up the sum of them all, the distance you've spanned is far beyond what you previously fathomed; that's what I love about exercise. You prove yourself wrong every time.

If this were my manifesto for exercise, then I would say that a paramount facet is the notion of mental clarity that exercise affords you. Exercise isn't about aesthetic benefits, it's not about looking good for spring break, or trying to lose weight quickly. If you attune your senses to the cacophony of noise surrounding you about exercise, you will be amazed at the sheer number of diets, workouts, and phenomena about the latest and greatest for looking like the next lady or man killer. But all of these have one thing in common: how to look amazing as quickly as possible with the least amount of effort. The mindset that this fosters disparages the true benefits of exercise and subverts the underlying importance of exercise to begin with: to cultivate a better self.

You've heard the old adage before: "You can do anything you put your mind to." The frequency with which it is spoken dulls the message therein. But sometimes the most important things are said in the simplest of ways. You truly can. Exercise is a way to cultivate the belief that you can accomplish that which you desire. It's a channel through which you can transform all of the pressures and negativity that consume you into positive energy.

The aforesaid and the subsequent posts are merely my personal reflections and thoughts. None of which I disclose or state is substantiated by clinical documentation or professional assertion unless specifically noted. They are not absolute truths; rather, my observations, the chronicles of my personal journey through exercise and how it saved my life. Take it for however much or little it may be worth.

People were amazed at how Gandhi managed to perpetually exude such positive and energetic force in his passionate pursuit of religious and racial freedom. For hours on end, every single day, he managed to carry out his endeavors with no outward sign of fatigue, becoming a seeming source of perennial light. As a result, he championed the notion: the body is frail, the spirit is boundless.