The Plateau: An Evidence of Life (and Growth!)

"Life is paradox..."  (This is the first part of a personal slogan of mine.)

There you go with that word again, Dave.  If I had a quarter for every time I’ve encountered that word in your writings or heard that word in conversation with you I’d have—well, let’s just say, more than a dollar or two.

Yeah, I hear you.  Tell you what…the next time you see me, remind me, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.  Deal?

Ok.

"Paradox" (from Wikipedia)…

“A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition.  Typically, however, quoted paradoxical statements do not imply a real contradiction, and the puzzling results can be rectified by demonstrating that one or more of the premises themselves are not really true, are a play on words, are faulty and/or cannot all be true together at the same time.  The word paradox is used often interchangeably with contradiction.  Literary and other artistic uses of paradoxes imply no contradiction and may be used to describe situations that are ironic.  Sometimes the term paradox is used for situations that are merely surprising.”

“Life is paradox.  Make peace with this fact.”  (And such comprises the entirety of the slogan I wrote of above.)

Regarding this particular slogan, I’ve been reciting it to myself for I cannot tell you how many years—at least for more than a few and less than too many.  :o)

Things are rarely as they seem, and they’re never exactly the way I thought they’d be.

Take today for instance—not what I thought it would be like.

Or, take my experience of writing in my blog again (after a three week hiatus).  Not what I thought it'd be like.

Or...

How'bout my falling in love again after such a long time?  Again, not how I pictured things would be.  Even though my cup is in deed running over and drenching everything around me with a sweet, nectar-like fragrance, it's not at all what I imagined it'd feel like.  In fact, the real thing blows away just about every one of my previous notions.  :o)

Life, when you really get down to it, is unpredictable.  And so are people, including God and those you think you know really well (including yourself).

But…

…while people, God, and situations may be unpredictable, there is, in fact, a definitive purpose to everything—and I do mean everything...carte blanch...and just cover over the whole blamed shebang with one broad stroke of the brush.  And it is that purpose (or suite of purposes) that makes things so fascinatingly unpredictable.

As well as exciting.

And, at times, painful.

All of us, and I don’t care how old you might be, are growing and changing continuously.  Those two things—growth and change—are two of the many evidences of life.  And that’s a little of what I’d like to get in to in this post:  those things that point to life as not just something present but something happening definitively…right here, right now.

For those of you who know me well, you KNOW that “life”—and I’m talking about LIFE in this moment (and with all four letters CAPITALIZED, EMBOLDENED, UNDERLINED, and ITALICIZED)—is one of my most favorite subjects.

One evidence of life—and it’s an ESPECIALLY paradoxical one—is the plateau.

We ALL experience plateaus, don’t we?  Those times in life where it feels as if nothing is happening.  I would like to argue, though, that the opposite is true.  It is my belief AND experience that most of life (including the growing and changing parts) occurs during and as a direct/indirect result of the plateaus we encounter, live on, and live through.

The key in all of this is, I believe, staying with what we're feeling while we're on such a plateau.  I write this because, for many of us, the dulling flatness of such experiences can kind of suck sometimes.

That is, until we realize just how extraordinary the plateaus are.  AND just how extraordinary life can become when we begin to let ourselves enjoy such experiences.

The plateaus are ABSOLUTELY critical to our growth.  It is, in fact, on the flatlands where we learn to adapt to the perceptible growth we’ve just undergone.  It’s there where we rebuild, rest, acclimate, and prepare for additional growth.  In nature, this is the season when hardwoods acquire their hardness and hardiness.  And, writing more of plants and trees, is it not during the dormant times when pruning is the most advantgeous.  Pruning is another one of those paradoixical things, by the way.  Who would have thought that the careful triming away of a portion of a plant's previous growth would be the very thing needed to stimulate significant growth during the next growing season? 

Anyway, back to plataeus...

For those of you who lift weights, when does the actual growth of muscle mass and strength occur?  While you’re in the gym pushing up iron?

Not usually.

It most often happens during the time in between training sessions, WHILE YOU'RE (SEEMINGLY) DOING NOTHING.  I would like to argue, though, that it happens also right there in the gym during those times when you don’t feel like you’re making any progress.  Could such times be indicative of your need for more rest?  Sure.  But can they be indicative also of your body just naturally adjusting to the new strength you’ve acquired?  I believe so.  Just as a growing boy needs to be active to get used to his height so that he doesn’t trip continually over his feet, so, too, do your muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, respiratory system, and (yeah, it’s okay to hold your breath for a moment) psychological constitution need to get used to where you are right now by doing exactly that which produces perceptible growth usually but isn't in the present moment.  Yes, philosophically, the act of weight training forces your muscles, during the days of rest between weight-lifting sessions, to prepare to handle an even greater load the next time.  But…an integral part of the whole process is the plateau where your entire system adjusts to where you are right now so that where you are now becomes what I would like to, herein, call “the new normal.”

This principle is true in every aspect of life…be it the study of medicine or a foreign language, the growth of a romantic relationship, the continuing practice of your golf swing, or the pursuit of increased intimacy with God. 

All of us have a conglomerate of what some have called internal thermostats.  They are those mechanisms within us that click on when we’re feeling too hot or too cold in a particular area of our lives.  As important as such internal systems can be in helping us maintain some semblance of stasis in life, there is a downside to such mechanisms as they can (and, unfortunately, more often than not) keep us from moving past current conditions.  This can be seen in the ways in which we sabotage (usually unconsciously) our efforts in any particular area of life…be it our weight, professional growth and influence, level of income, etc.  One of the many purposes of a plateau in life is to help us become comfortable with a new thermostat setting.  The key in all of this is, again, staying with and not running from the feelings we’re having as our internal systems try to adjust to the new setting.  Can this “staying” be uncomfortable?  Yep.  Just as (if you’re prone to being cold) a thermostat reading of 58 degrees F in your car might make things feel really cold to you.

The tendency in most of us, I think, is to run from current uncomfortable feelings to those which feel more comfortable or to try to adjust or manipulate things so that we begin to feel more like the way we’re used to feeling —even if such conditions are unhealthy.   The real training in life, my friends, is not what brought you to the new thermostat setting; rather, it's learning to stay with a new setting until, as I wrote above, it becomes the new normal.

Is it hard?  Yep.  Is it worth it?  Without a doubt.  Who of us could not stand to benefit from increased muscle and cardiovascular strength, a more robust financial base, greater intimacy with God, or a healthier, more intimate love relationship?

I’d like to write more on this subject, but, alas (yeah…I kind of like that word), it’s time for me to go mess with a pile of iron for a while and see where the thermostat lands tonight.

God’s blessings on all’y’all,

Daver