Jeff couldn’t wait to go to Spain.
We had been college roommates since freshman year. First in the dorms and then in a house with two other guys.
Jeff and I were friendly but we weren’t particularly tight. The living arrangement just worked. He was clean. Didn’t make a lot of noise. Wasn’t one to come in raging drunk at 3AM. We both agreed that the TV would be tuned to football on Sundays.
Considering some of the wild shit I saw go down in other rooms, ours seemed like as good a pairing as one might hope for.
As we closed out sophomore year - and prepared to move into the aforementioned house the next - Jeff decided that he was going to do a semester abroad.
So in January of our junior year he packed up his stuff and joined the university’s international program in Madrid.
For six months prior, all Jeff did was talk about Spain. How great it was going to be. He’d drown himself in paella. He’d finally learn to speak conversational Spanish. He’d find himself a dark haired girlfriend in a traditional white dress as was depicted in every Disney movie with a latina character.
And while it was cool to see Jeff, normally a very low key guy, excited about something, it also made him a drag for about six months.
Rather than enjoy the first semester, he put all his eggs in the basket of the Spain trip.
“Jeff, we’re going to Wednesday wing night, wanna come,” my roommates and I would ask.
“No, I want to get through this tourism guide about Sevilla. I might try to take a weekend trip down there,” he’d say as he plopped down on his bed with 3 different Fodor’s guides spread out on top of the sheets.
“Yo, Jeff. We’re going to go up the road to Jim’s to watch the Giant’s game. We leave in 5!”
“I’m good. I’m going to stay here and brush up on my Spanish.”
Now Jeff loved wings (the spicier the better) and he loved the Giants (I’m pretty sure he cried in our dorm room freshman year when the Bill’s kicker famously missed a field goal that gave the Giants a SuperBowl championship).
In fact, as the anticipation for his trip grew, his outward dislike for everything on campus grew as well.
The weather. The girls. The soccer team. The newspaper that he wrote for. The classes. Our apartment. All of it was subject to complaints and how much better things would be once he got to Spain.
No one was more excited to go to college than I was. Sure, it was scary. And I didn’t know anyone else who was going to my school. But I was really eager to do something new and try my hand at living away from home on my own.
And even through the scary and homesick times, there was one thing I always kept in mind - you only get four years of this. Enjoy every minute. Don’t waste it. You are going to miss it when it’s over.
Just as Jeff subtly wept during that Giant’s victory in our dorm room, I outwardly and unabashedly wept the final day after graduation when I drove home from school.
Which is why I couldn’t understand how Jeff would blow an entire semester just waiting for the next to come. Why all the things he used to enjoy just became unwanted distractions as he stared at the calendar waiting for the dates to change.
I see this in fitness a lot as well. People wanting to rush through the experience and process in order to get to some goal. Whether that is arriving at test week so they can see what their one rep max in the bench is going to be. Or finally seeing their goal weight looking back at them from the digital scale in their bathroom. Or catching a glimpse of themselves in the mirror with just the right lighting and perfect angle to see some abs.
And those are great moments, no doubt. And they should be anticipated and we should strive for them. But that doesn’t mean that every other training session or weigh in or “check myself out in the mirror” moment is perhaps a necessary but unwanted and underappreciated step on the way to success.
Because just like college, we only get so many days in the gym. And we all, sooner or later, have a last one. It might not be as defined as the four year journey, but it’s coming.
So, just like my university days, I try to approach it the same way. We don’t get to do this forever. You’re going to miss it. Enjoy it while you can.
I advise that you do the same.
About six weeks into the second semester we got a call from Jeff. Spain was going really well, he told us. But he spent most of the time asking about what was happening on campus. Do they still serve those awesome tater tots on Thursday nights? Is our other roommate Jay still laying on the couch bouncing back endlessly between CNN and MTV? How was the basketball team doing? It was tough to get sports news over in Madrid.
And that’s the thing about the moments we rush past — they’re the ones we end up longing for.
Jeff got his Spain. But he missed the wings, the games, the tiny little joys he didn’t know were fleeting.
Don’t make the same mistake in your training — or your life. The laugh shared with a training partner or that perfect afternoon in the pool with your teenager or that five minute morning coffee with your wife.
Because one day, you’ll look back and realize: the part you couldn’t wait to be done with was actually the part you wanted all along.