A Transcript of Every Motivational Fitness Video You've Ever Seen

You wake up.

The alarm is buzzing, and your body tells you to hit snooze and keep dreaming. But dreams aren't something you have sleeping. They're something you achieve by getting up and stumbling around your room in the dark trying to find your workout clothes.

Okay, I guess people do dream when they're asleep, but sometimes sleep dreams involve scary clowns, and you know what doesn't involve scary clowns? Getting out of bed and running. Unless you run through a circus. Or a Stephen King novel.

WHY DID I WATCH THIS AS A CHILD!?

I'm getting off topic, and someone with a rough, gravelly voice like mine really shouldn't get off topic. You want to hear me say things like, "Sweat is just weakness crying salty tears through your skin because it's being killed by all your hard work." Did you like that? Well too bad, because I'm not going to say that. YOU'RE going to say that while getting drunk on weakness's tears.

So now you're outside and running, but behind you is all the past mistakes that tell you to stop, and they're screaming, "You can't" so loud you can barely hear it over your wearied foot falls and gasped breaths. The voices scream other things too, like, "You were totally the worst at finger painting in preschool," and "Remember being 14, and how terrible you were when you were 14?"

But you ignore them. You're awesome at finger painting now, and your acne has semi-cleared up. Kind of. More importantly, the only thing you can really feel at this moment is the stride of accomplishment as you crest that hill, or the leap of success as you vault a fallen log, or the game of thrones you forgot to watch last night. Damn.

Now I know nothing, Jon Snow!

Your muscles scream in protest as you push them to their limit, but you didn't ask their opinion. You're a tyrannical regime who shuts out the voices of the people to continue exploiting them for personal gain. You metaphorically shoot tear gas into their demonstrations as you maintain your pace up some beautifully huge mountain framed against a rosy sunrise.

Welcome to the eternal struggle of glory against limitation. Okay, you have to pee a little, but you can't do that now as the string quartet swells triumphantly under shots of beautiful people crossing finishing lines slightly glazed in sweat. Meanwhile, you could end drought epidemics with the waves of water rolling of your body and soaking the crusty running shirt you forgot to wash this weekend. Again.

But now you're there. Listen to how the music is swelling behind my voice, which is increasing in pace and volume. You're at the pinnacle of your life so far as you push through all the won't and can't ahead of you through to the other side, which is full of did and finished and suck it. Now you're standing on the hilltop with other champions of superlative human achievement. You're seriously the Abraham Lincoln of runners. Unless, I guess, Abraham Lincoln was actually a runner.

He very well might have been, guys. The man was a national treasure.

But whatever. You're done. You proved you know the value of hard work. Now you have time to reflect on your struggle and success for the rest of the day, as you come down from your endorphin high and watch cheesy motivational videos on YouTube so that you can wake up and do the same tomorrow.

And that's why I love them.

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Motivation for this post found here: