The bench press has taught me what God has been showing me basically my entire life: the dreamers, the doers, the problem solvers, the hippies – we aren’t meant for a life of mundane. We aren’t meant to uphold the status quo, to go with the flow, or do what someone tells us to do just for the sake of doing it. We’re meant to change the world, one step at a time, and to do that, we’ve gotta get in the mud and find out where the pain is and why it hurts. Embracing the suck means more than just acknowledging that it’s shitty; it’s loving every second of it, knowing that it’s useful.

Ultimately, our lives are up to us. We get to choose to be glad for even the things we hate, and we get to choose to make them better, if that’s how we’re so called. The iron can teach us that, and, if we look, so will the rest of life.