Donot read any further if you’re the kind of person who runs at full sprint on the treadmill before juggling kettleballs at the gym. This essay is not for you or your glistening muscles.
Instead of wasting your time on the next 600 or so words, feel free to cartwheel back to your local fitness hut to crush it. I want you to crush it and, more importantly, I want you to be happy crushing it, whatever “it” happens to be. I’m assuming you’d want to crush a workout. But I mean, this morning, I crushed a plate of toaster waffles.
This is one of many differences between me and you, an imaginary gym enthusiast with a superhero’s body. You live to work out, and I eat pancakes. I’ve seen your type at the gym I joined, which I rarely go to, and you’re really into your routines and reps and excessive, even show-offy, perspiration. Sweat isn’t pain leaving the body. Sweat is just venerated urine.
I am now done addressing humans at the peak of physical excellence.
I will now address the rest of us.
If you don’t want to go to the gym, don’t. Maybe working out in a public medieval torture chamber of exercise devices will be mandatory in some future dystopia. But not now, not today. Not on my watch.
You may have signed a surprisingly ironclad contract with a gym obligating you to pay for a membership you never use, but there is no law saying you HAVE to join in the first place. And, look, even if you’re paying for a subscription, don’t go if you don’t want to. Yes, it is a waste if you don’t use a service you paid for, but think of it as a hard-earned life lesson. An educational tax. Next time, don’t join a gym if you don’t like going to the gym.
Don’t go to the gym. You have my permission. Who am I? I am a “wellness guru.” Do you want to know how to be a “wellness guru?” It is very simple: just say “I am a wellness guru” three times in a mirror and, abracadabra, you are a “wellness guru.” Congratulations! Now tell yourself it’s okay not to go to the gym.
Look, there are plenty of other ways to stay reasonably fit without having to undress in a locker room like an animal and then ride bicycles that go nowhere, which is one of Hell’s torments. You can, for instance, bend over and touch your toes a lot. If you did that for, say, four hours, that’s a pretty good workout. I don’t know, “wellness gurus” don’t actually know anything, and our advice should never be considered because we’re not trainers or nutritionists or physical therapists or doctors or anything, really, we just made a magical wish, once, and now we give advice. I’m using “we” because I assume anyone who has read this far said “I am a wellness guru” out loud, and we’re all colleagues.
Don’t go to the gym. Do pushups! Here is how to do a pushup: lay on the floor. Do this very, very slowly. Once you’re on the floor, wiggle. That’s one! Just do that ten more times and you’ve crushed “it.” Another gym alternative is something I call DEATH MARCH TO FUEL TOWN. This is pretty intense and definitely something you should warm up for before doing. So, first, you need to walk to the store to get that popular ice cream that’s, like, 200 calories a pint? Then you have to walk BACK to your home and eat it. After a few weeks, I recommend walking to a store slightly farther than the one where you usually buy toilet paper, seltzer, and low-calorie ice cream that almost tastes like the real thing.
You may work with someone who is always saying “gotta go to the gym” at the end of every day. This person is not dangerous. But feel free to respond to that statement with a bald-faced lie. “I, too, am going to the gym to crush a workout” is something you can say. If they ask where your gym is, just tell them it’s a secret subterranean gym that’s nothing but giant truck tires and ropes hanging from the ceiling, and maybe one day, if they get ripped enough, you’ll tell them where it is, and this is important: remember to never tell them. You must keep this lie alive.
I don’t like going to the gym because I don’t like strangers seeing my “pain face,” which is the face a child makes if you slap an ice cream cone out of their hand. This is a private face. I also don’t like going to gyms because gyms are filled with grunting and groaning and billions and billions of butt molecules. It’s gross. And, mostly, because gyms make me feel insecure. I am ruled by my many fears.
So don’t go to the gym. Or, and here’s a counterpoint, go to the gym. Do what you want, but you don’t have to take my word for it (or you do, because I am a “wellness guru.”).
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of John DeVore's work on Medium.