Independence, Part 6

While we are getting independent this month, another area we can explore is freedom from stereotypes.

Such as:  women can’t lift heavy.  Or men are inflexible.  Or old people can’t be strong.  Or people with (fill in the condition) can’t do things.

 

People who are alive have the ability to change.  It’s kind of definitional.  (When dead people change, it’s not exactly on purpose and we really don’t need to talk about that.)  The cool thing about our bodies is that they change in response to what we do.  If we practice getting faster, we get faster.  If we practice getting stronger, we get stronger.

 

So maybe at the start, women who have been told for a lifetime that it’s unladylike to lift weights and get strong don’t lift really heavy weights.  We lift weights that are heavy for us.  As we progress, we continue to lift weights that are heavy for us until someday we are lifting weights that the Almighty They think are heavy.  Usually by that point we don’t care what They think, or if we think about Them at all it is with a little burst of I-showed-YOU.

 

I’m not going to say that limitations aren’t real.  Gravity exists.  Our bodies can tolerate only so much work before they break.  But for most of us, the limitations are much farther away than we think they are.  If a stereotype isn’t helping, ditch it!

 

Go play.