Life is what you put into it.

My cousin is a remarkable person. He has overcome so much, and become a great man and a great friend to me.   I just read this essay he wrote on the elitefts website and I thought anyone who has overcome adversity should read it. Enjoy:)

Rob West-

Health for me is about non-acceptance. It’s about recognizing all the
crap that life throws in your way but more importantly it’s about
recognizing that you can change all of it. It’s about seeing your life
and your world and realizing that no matter what happens, the only
factor that you have any power over is yourself. That one thing, that
one small part of that incredibly large whole, is worth more than
anything else you will ever find. Health isn’t about your cholesterol,
your VO2 max, your total, or whatever other metric you can find. It’s
about becoming more.

It’s about having your life in shambles, realizing you’ve alienated
everyone you considered a friend, and deciding to stand up and fix the
shit you’ve created.

It’s about having a bad relationship with your father, but working to
find that common ground where you can look each other eye to eye with
respect because you know how important your family is above all else.

It’s about being the fat kid your entire childhood, then being the
national division 1 athlete with a top ten team.

It’s about thinking seeing that girl you thought no normal human being
had a chance with, and dating that same girl one year later.

It’s about sitting in a doctor’s office and having them talk with your
family outside the door in low voices because they think you shouldn’t
hear just how bad things really are with you.

It’s about having those doctors say two years later that they have
never seen someone make such a recovery.

It’s about taking all those things that have beaten you down and using
them to test yourself rather than tear you apart.

How many times have you felt like you couldn’t? How high does that
mountain have to be before you decide it’s too tall to climb? What
makes you decide to quit? Health isn’t about seeing obstacles before
you and deciding to live with them. Health is about seeing those
obstacles and deciding that you’re going to get past them no matter
what it takes because you might not know what’s on the other side but
you sure as hell know that you aren’t where you need to be.

My personal health? It’s something I’ve had to fight for, tooth and
nail at times. It’s what has let me break all those boundaries set
before me in ways that no one else thought I could. It’s not just
about taking control of your body, it’s about taking control of your
life and of the way the world affects you. It’s what has let me build
up the will to change things when they aren’t going like they should.
It’s what has made set me on the path to becoming the person I want to
become.

What’s that worth to me? Everything.