TJ's Gym Weekly News 2/1/2021
Welcome, Coach Reece!
We are super excited to welcome Reece to our awesome staff. An experienced strength-and-conditioning coach, Reece has also trained under TJ’s watch, and we feel sure he’s going to be a longstanding addition to our team!
Message from TJ:
(it’s long but worth it!)
I Wouldn't Trade My Latchkey Teen Years for all the Likes in the World
Allison mentioned the other day that I like to write "origin" stories. How things came to be, what makes things happen or how "the Legend" was created.
Most of my posts are the re-telling of a true story. Rarely is it opinion, and if it is, it's based off of decades of my own experience. I think we all can agree there plenty of interweb experts out there…
This post is an op ed, for sure. Here is how these types of posts go: I get an idea or thought. I share it with a couple dozen people and get their feedback. I hone the idea, taking into consideration their thoughts and my own deeper dive into the subject matter. Then, I offer it to you. Sound good?
This one has to do with something with which I have a significant amount of experience. More than anyone on the planet. It's about me, but also about my generation, how we were raised, and the impact that’s had on how we raise our own kids.
I'm going to be making some massive general assumptions, but hey, it's an opinion piece, so let's get this thing started.
The Baby Boomer generation did what all generations have done since the beginning of time. They wanted to provide a better life for their families. Most of them were second-generation suburban people, and many of them were double-income families and/or also participated in civic duties like joining clubs, being active in their religious communities, or volunteering. This left my generation (X) with a different after-school scenario than previous ones.
All of us are familiar with the "Latchkey" concept. We would come home to an empty house, make ourselves a Fluffernutter, go outside (because there where only five TV channels available), listen for the sound of kids yelling, jump on our bikes, and head in that direction.
During these “Lord of the Flies” times we dealt with conflict, fear, competition, elation, crushes, and heartbreak. Good times.
The point of this post is to not wax nostalgic, It's to set up a baseline for what and how we handled raising our own kids.
As we came of age we did the predictable. We strove to create our perception of what a "better" life would be for our young families.
One of the decisions was that our kids were NOT going to come home to an empty house. They were NOT going to be exposed to the psychopaths, weirdos, and deviants who were undeniably around us everywhere because the Son of Sam, Jon Benet Ramsey, and Elizabeth Smart were very real and horrific stories. Even if there was a much more realistic chance that we would be hit by lightening, these still left a real scar on our generational psyche.
We exposed our kids to Ballet at 2, travel baseball at 7, coding at 10, and so on. If our kids so much as glanced at the fencing studio as we drove by, we signed them up for 5 hour-long classes per week.
Outwardly, we proudly stood with our hands on our hips looking at our child dance, compete, kick, and type at an age that we couldn't dream of doing.
Inside we were less sure. What are we doing? Are we over scheduling? Do they even want to do this? What's the point of this? Is it because of me?
While we were dealing with this sort of moral dilemma, something came along to change the world forever. The smartphone and shortly thereafter, social media.
I need to digress here. Story time. I think this will ring true with many of you. Clear you mind and join me with an experience from my childhood to which you might relate.
It's 1979, and the family is heading to Cooperstown to go camping and see the Baseball Hall of Fame as we did most summers before we spend the other part of the summer with my grandparents on the Jersey Shore. Three boys wrestling in the back of the Gran Torino station wagon, no seat belts for 8 hours, Pops has a beer between his legs, and mom is halfway through the carton of Benson and Hedges she brought for the ride up. Once the campsite was set up, our parents told us to beat it. We then wandered around a foreign area with hundreds of other strangers, waiting for that familiar audible signal of humans our age making noise, and we then headed in that direction, just as we were trained to do.
Sound familiar? If you're Gen X, you can relate to something in this story.
When we became adults and had kids of our own, we sat our parents down and hammered them with a bunch of "What were you thinking?" and "Are you insane?" types of questioning. I mean, it was nuts right?
They would respond with "Well, it was a different time," or "We didn't know any better!" as obvious as it seems now.
In the 50's, kids were showing up in emergency rooms with lead poisoning. They were sucking on their toys and literally licking the walls of their rooms. Lead paint was discovered very quickly as the culprit. It took until 1977 to get lead removed from paint.—more than 20 years for a real danger to be addressed. The point I'm making? Change is hard and takes time.
Fast-forward back to us and our parenting style. As we encountered social media, we made a decision that it allowed an escape for our kids, and we convinced ourselves that it promoted a connectivity to peers in ways we deemed acceptable. We did this as a collective, and we made a herd decision based off of the actions of our contemporaries and what was defined as "the norm."
We chose to not factor in the obvious dangers and concerns, and if we did, we used our own experience to quiet down those fears and tell ourselves that at least our kids weren't being chased by the boogeymen of our childhoods.
Recently, I’ve found myself in a unique situation of mentoring a number of young men. Parents have reached out to me to assist these boys with navigating some of the tougher areas of life like fitness, health, wellness, self-awareness, and overall growth. I jokingly refer to this as "Dudering." I'm just a dude who wants to help. I've seen some shit, and I know how the world works.
This has caused me to research and seek out the areas that affect these wards of mine, and the information I've put together has caused me to come up with the following hypothesis.
We are born with stress, anxiety, and depression downloaded into us. It comes with the Fight or Flight package, and no, it's not optional. These emotions/feelings have evolved us to who we are today. They make sure we don't fall off of a cliff or starve to death or and help us to "make good choices." Yes, even depression which forces us to contemplate decisions we have made or are about to make, and then have a reaction to the sadness, which is, in positive scenarios when those emotions are allowed to be discovered, motivation and action.
Joy, passion and happiness are not organic in us. They are earned. When we do, we receive. They are not part of the Fight or Flight package. They are the result.
When we Gen Xer's were young, at some point we rode our bike to a field or walked down to the water’s edge or sat on the stoop and stared at the clouds or the water or the pothole and asked ourselves: "What the fuck am I going to do?"
The reason for the question was varied. You threw a rock through the window, you didn't love your boyfriend anymore, or is it going to be Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines? What you had was the ability to sit, think, and deal.
Our kids do not have that option.
The platforms inside the phones we gave to them hoping to relieve their stress that we perceived they had (maybe bestowed upon them) possess the power to do one thing and one thing only: steal the two most precious resources that human beings have.
Time and attention.
And what do you get in return from these platforms that have stolen your time and attention? Less than nothing. You feel worse. Never, ever, ever has anyone felt better or accomplished or relieved after a social-media session.
Never. And you never will.
I am helping these young men create their legend. I am helping them accomplish things by calling, texting, emailing, or meeting friends to make plans or acquaintances to build their networks, instead of Snapchatting, leaving comments, or DM'ing. I'm helping them build their confidence in the habit of doing instead of screaming into the void, while waiting, in a handwringing anguish for a worthwhile response.
Social media is creating impulsivity, not intentionality. It's extractive, not regenerative. Here is where I'm supposed to provide the counterpoint to its benefits.
No, not for these kids. There is none. A phone call, or email, or knock on the door will always trump the mind fuck of social media and its perceived return for this kids.
I have a lock-solid bet to make. A million-dollar bet that I can guarantee. One day in the future our kids are going to sit us down, probably once we've become grandparents. Our kids are going to bring up social media and their access to it while they were under our watch, and they are going to say,
"What were you thinking?"
We will try to defend ourselves with the standard lines of "It was a different time" and "We didn't know." But that's going to be a lie. It's not a different time. We do know.
Social media creates depression, stress, and anxiety in our kids, and it blunts joy, happiness, and passion. That is a fact. Taking 20 years to slowly let the tides turn is a sacrifice that can be avoided. We know it's going to happen. We know the next generation will not be allowed access to the things our kids have access to now.
Imagine the legend of your child. "That kid CHOSE to not be on social media."
That legend takes work, it takes engagement, and it takes a workable plan. It's better than the alternative all the time, every time.
Many parts of what I have shared here are in alignment with the ideas of Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology and best known for the documentary The Social Dilemma and my friend Kenny Kane, owner of Oak Park Fitness, who opened my eyes to what is happening to all of us.
~TJ
MENTORSHIP WITH TJ
One of TJ’s greatest joys is mentoring boys to men. He’s calling it “Dudering”
But don’t let the humor fool you; this is real-deal, tough-stuff, facing yourself type of growth. Born of his own childhood experiences, TJ’s knack for connection with teen boys and young adult males is organic and often life-changing.
If you are or know a teen boy who is struggling, mentorship plus lifestyle/fitness coaching with TJ can be a game changer.
Email allison@tjsgym.com for more details or to request a complimentary exploratory consultation with TJ.
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