It rained here on Hainan Island harder than I’ve ever seen it rain here before.

Several streets were flooded. But most of them weren’t.

So I thought I was safe to look out the passenger side of my car while being driven around town.

And then, when I was slightly unconscious for a moment, a van sped along side my vehicle. Water sloshed through the open window soaking me as well as my brother-in-law.

“You son… You mother…”

I admit it. Those were the first enlightened thoughts to surface. Yep, Zen masters can be rough-and-tumble rascals, too.

My brother-in-law used even more enlightened language, most of which I can tell you in person sometime, if you’re over 17 and have your parent’s permission.

A few seconds after wiping the filthy water from my bald head, I looked at the situation in a different vein.

“Don’t curse the other man,” I said (in jest). “We must love him for doing this to us.”

“You are right. I love this man because he gave me a reason to yell and curse at him,” said my bro-in-law.

“Ahh, it’s fun to get angry at times, isn’t it?”

“Yes. If I have no one to curse, then life is no good. You must have balance. In China we say, “Wo ma ni yinwei wo ai ni.” I curse you because I love you. If I don’t curse you, I don’t care about you.”

So we drove around another 30 minutes, with dirty rain water from the streets on our clothes. Not an ideal situation, but both of us knew we still had a place to shower with new clothes to change into. So we could get over it.

Now, what’s worse than getting stink water sprayed on you after a hard rain? It’s looking in the mirror and not liking what you see, but choosing to ignore it and hope the situation changes.

It won’t.

Being unfit is not the same as taking a shower and changing clothes. It’s not as easy as rolling up the window to block out that which is unpleasant.

Even so, running around cursing yourself for being out of shape is really another way in which you’re trying to express how much you care about yourself.

After all, if being unfit didn’t matter, and if YOU didn’t matter, there’d be no need for the expletives you use on yourself.

No, I’m not encouraging daily self-putdowns – so no need to send me your psychological analysis.

What I’m saying is that it’s perfectly alright to take a look at yourself and get royally pist off (It’s even okay to object to my misspelling of the expletive in the preceding sentence, although a waste of time and totally stupid).

But interrupt yourself somewhere along the line – the sooner the better – and get over it. Relax, breathe and start making plans to change your body. Realize you got mad at what you saw because you care. But don’t stay mad forever.

Go from madness to gladness. Be glad you got yourself in the situation you’re in because now you’re in the perfect position to get yourself out of it. And someday you may even write about it. You may tell your story to someone else who just got splashed with cold, hard, malleable reality. and can use a dose of helpful wisdom and advice from someone who’s been there and overcome it.

Yes, that can be YOU.

And if I may be of help to you, consider my international best-seller, Combat Conditioning.

One test of this workout will make a believer out of you – in less than four minutes.

The first workout you do with me may knock you on your rump – but if you care about yourself, you’ll get up the next day and do it again. Only the next time, you’ll already be getting better. And in 90 days or so, you’ll be a butt kicker with Zen-like qualities (along with an occasional daily outburst).

Faithfully,

Matt Furey

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