Author: Andrea Grassi

We are in a beauty based society, and I guess it’s safe to admit this.

From television, to every human interaction, everything revolves around beauty.
Other’s people opinions are based upon beauty, even the judgement on your health might be biased by that.

Therefore I’m wondering: can we get out of this beauty requirement or will we be caged by beauty forever?

My best guess is that to exit this loop we need first and foremost to change ourselves.
This has been a rule that I got the pleasure to demonstrate to myself daily.
Many of the problems in the world start in you.
This is different than saying “many of the problems in the world start by you” ok?
The problems themselves are within.

The place to start solving them is within you by working on how you act and react.
In this case what can be done individually to help change the beauty requirement?

First: stop using beauty as a level to judge people or their likeability.
Second: accept the fact that if you go without caring about beauty some people will be pissed off and will piss you off.
Your job in those cases will be to learn and improve. To know how to act and learn by mistakes.
Third: don’t confuse a society based on beauty with a society that doesn’t respect the body you live in.

The third point is key.
We often imaging the opposite of beauty as something shabby, like a men with a not well-finished beard. This is not the case, in fact being shabby is just like focusing on beauty.
Balancing excess with another type of excess rarely solves problems.
In this case the opposite of a beauty based opinion is an opinion based on other elements, but that doesn’t imply you should look after your body and aspect.
Your body will still be important, but not in an excessive way.

We are short on memory, at least I am short on memory.

Few days ago I downloaded the new update from Day One, the app, and I took a look at all the photos I shared in the past, all the moments I’ve kept.

They were beautiful.
Journaling is not only tracking what you like in a day, but it’s a way to enlighten yourself in the future.

We are short on memory and those days might be gone in the wind.
We might forget about them and although we have passionately lived them we won’t remember them.

You’re more likely to remember a bad day, a harsh discussion, and judge your daily life based on that, but you’ve got more up your sleeve.

One of the things I’m learning in my weekly workout sessions is the value of accepting failure and never train to failure, which are two very distinct concepts.

Never train to failure means that you don’t have to push it too far. You should always feel enough energy at the end of the workout to allow you to enjoy it. Otherwise you’re just breaking muscles.

Regarding accepting failure, well… the thing is: there are steps that are quite difficult. I’m on step 7 of convict conditioning squats and they are hard if not impossible for me right now, which is why I decided to revert to step six.

Last week I did the same with step 3 of push up and I’m happy to say it was a safe choice.
Being honest with your body allows you to have less injuries and respect your rhythm.

Today I got the confirmation that life is full of opportunities.

We were talking about the quality of a chocolate that’s produced near us. It’s a 98% pure choco bar that’s fantastic. It’s not bitter, it’s perfect.

Many famous brands have an higher price tag and a lower quality so this was outstanding.

Their packaging sucked a bit, though. So we thought: what if we could improve it and make it better?
Wouldn’t it be awesome?

And here it was a new business idea, reselling high quality chocolate.
The world is full of improvements that can be done, maybe you can’t save the world today but you can surely do your part.

Don’t be afraid to try, be afraid to stay still.

Every time I think about it I realize how much this phrase is true.

You won’t get back the moments you spend wandering in thoughts about rage. So why not focus on doing something better?