Get Real - Part 2

Sales Man Up

Get Real - Part 2

That walk around the block, that fresh air, is going to help you work more quickly and effectively when you get back.   - Daniel Levitin

A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.  - Steve Martin



Choosing what is Real , continuation of a blog by John Eldredge…

I love March Madness. I can watch hours of it in a stretch. But I feel like crap afterwards. Just compare how you feel after binge-watching hours of screen anything—TV, video games, YouTube—with how you feel when you come off a mountain bike ride or a swim in the ocean. Living in an artificial world is like spending your life wrapped in plastic wrap. You wonder why you feel tired and numb and a little depressed, when the simple answer is you have a vitamin D deficiency; there is no sunlight in your life, literally or figuratively. Our body, soul, and spirit atrophy because we were made to inhabit a real world, to draw life and joy and strength from it. To be shaped by it, to relish in it.

The world we inhabit substitutes real community with artificial community through social media. Now, I do understand the benefits. But having a “friend” on Facebook is nothing like having beers with an actual human being, and eons from taking a road trip together. They’re not even in the same universe. No text, no post, no update can ever replace engaging a person in person. But we have come to prefer the quick text, even quicker emoji reply. Because of the convenience. Our ability to relate is atrophying by the hour.

The world tries to make up for its artificial hollowness through spectacle and hype, trying to make small stories seem like big stories. Watch any pro sports—the media surrounding it, the graphics, the pounding music, the “drama”—all trying to make it seem important, when the truth is, it’s inconsequential. Who cares who won the Superbowl last year? Thus we accept artificial meaning over a real life.

The artificial world lies and cheats. It seduces us with the worst of all lessons: that life is easy, and comfort is the goal. Thus it kills initiation at every turn. It cheats us of nourishment and strength and the very training we need. The answer is not only online filters. The answer is to choose a life where you prefer the Real over the artificial everywhere you possibly can. Reality was meant to shape us. The artificial is built almost entirely around our comfort and ease. Take back your soul. Re-engage the process of your initiation by choosing the Real everywhere you can.

Get outside, every day. If you work out in a gym, take it outside with a run, bike, swim, hike. Encounter the weather whenever you can. Walk around outside your office building every day. Turn off the A/C and roll down the windows in your car. Turn off your screens and do something with real things. Change a tire; change your own oil. Learn to sharpen a knife. Plant some vegetables. Eat real food. Cooking is a surprising access point to the real—an encounter with textures, with heat and cold and spices—and it shapes you. Brew your own beer. ( or kombucha…)


Have a look around your world; notice how much is artificial. Begin to choose against the comfort and ease of the fake for the bracing trueness of the Real. You will love it!


How can our kids really understand the moral complexities of being alive if they are not allowed to engage in those complexities outdoors? - Richard Louv