I work out. Maybe you noticed. I’ve got to keep this temple in tiptop, dad bod shape.
As police officers, our schedules are crazy and it can be real hard to create a workout routine — or any routine for that matter — never mind keeping up with it. One of the biggest challenges for me, personally, has been getting to the gym on a regular basis. The regularity part, being key, since you can’t make a whole lot of progress by working out every February 29th. So, when I do get to the gym, I’m pretty focused. I have a one-track mind, just ask my wife.
For the past couple of years I’ve been working out at the Police Athletic League. The officer who had been running it when I first started going had a big part in getting me motivated and teaching me some new things. The PAL is also not far from the station, has great equipment, and speakers that I can play my carefully non-curated music selection from the free version of Pandora (I’m not rich, people). For all these reasons it has become my go-to place to get my sweat on.
What I Didn’t Know
One morning before my shift, I got up early and was working out by 6:00 a.m. At that time of the morning I am usually the only one there, and that day was no exception. Honestly, I love the quiet and the fact that I don’t have to be embarrassed by how little weight I actually lift or by my pasty white reflection in the gigantic mirrors.
Anyway, later that morning after I had started my shift, one of the detectives I worked with texted me a short time later.
Him: “Did you work out at the PAL today?”
Me: “Ya, why?”
Him: “Was the door open when you got there?”
Me: “I don’t think so. Why, what happened?”
Him: “I’ll explain it when I see you.”
Me: “Why, what happened?”
Him: “…”
Great. A whole litany of scenarios ran through my head, not least of which was if I did or didn’t do something that I was or wasn’t supposed to. Maybe something had been stolen? Maybe someone had accused me of something? I wondered what it could be. It was just an ordinary, quiet morning and I had been alone. Or had I?
What Crazy Homeless Guys Do
Some time later my silent coworker returned to the office with a big plastic tote — the kind of tote your wife packs her 10 million craft supplies in or that hold all the holiday decorations, beach toys, and school supplies that you have the privilege of stacking in the garage or in the basement. Ya, one of those. But this tote — this tote in particular was no ordinary tote. It was a time capsule.
Like I said, I have a one-track mind, though I prefer to to call myself “focused.” I was so focused on my workout, in fact, that unbeknownst to me a crazy homeless man had gotten into the PAL through an unlatched side door while I was meticulously sculpting my dad bod. He had slipped in with a tote large enough to fit several bags of diesel-soaked ammonium nitrate fertilizer and then promptly left it behind for the next generation. While I was picking things up and putting them back down he was doing what crazy homeless guys do — whatever they want.
Contents And Questions
Now, the tote — the tote turned out to be a harmless assemblage of exactly what you would imagine a crazy homeless person would put into a time capsule: namely junk and a government conspiracy manifesto.
Needless to say, I felt like a real idiot. Granted, the building was pretty big, but I’m a high-speed, low-drag trained observer. How could I have failed to notice? The other thing that bothered me was wondering how close had he come to me? Was he creeping around watching me? Was he laughing at my chicken legs or pathetic cardio? What if he had hunkered down somewhere and waited for the kids to stroll in?
These questions, and a million variations of questions like them, plagued me. And, for a while after, every time I went back to the PAL to work out I found myself checking my corners as I walked from room to room. I would pull on the door handles to make sure they were shut, all the while pretending that I didn’t have that feeling of being watched.
Off And On
Of course, over time, the feelings faded and I eventually got comfortable again and back into my routine. But it also made me wonder if we, as cops, can ever really turn it off, so to speak, or do we have to always be on? I mean, we have to be able to turn it off at some point, otherwise we’ll burn out, right? How do we know when we can be off and when we must be on? To what extremes should we go?
Our bodies can’t work 24/7/365, and neither can our minds. We need time off, vacations, and escapes for a reason. Those are the times, as Stephen Covey puts it, when we sharpen the saw. In Covey’s book, The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People, he makes the case that we can’t do efficient work with a dull saw.
Sharpen The Saw
Covey begins the chapter titled Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw¹ with the story of a guy working like crazy for hours and hours to saw down a tree, and he looked exhausted. When asked why he doesn’t take a break to sharpen the saw so that the tree would come down a whole lot faster, the person said that he didn’t have to time to sharpen the saw because he was too busy sawing.
Does that scenario sound familiar? Well, maybe not that exact scenario, but how about the principle behind it? I think that story describes a lot of us cops, myself included. From the outside looking in at that story, we see the ridiculousness of the response of the guy in the woods trying to cut down a tree with a dull saw. But from the inside looking out, all we can see is the work in front of us, and we just can’t stop ourselves.
Activity vs. Efficiency
The fact that we don’t take the time to sharpen our saw can be the result of the demands of the job, long hours, an addiction to overtime money, or other outside demands that press upon us. We get into a loop and we can’t seem to get out. We become the guy in the woods working furiously to, in effect, cut down a tree with a herring. Mere activity is not the same thing as efficiency.
Since you can’t work while the saw is being sharpened, then there must be down time, and that down time is essential to efficient work. A sort of a paradox, maybe, but a self-evident truth nonetheless. We need to make the time and to create the space to turn it off and involve ourselves in practices that will sharpen our proverbial saw in each of the four areas that make up our whole self — what Covey calls the Four Dimensions of Renewal²:
Physical – exercise, nutrition, and stress management
Mental – reading, planning, writing, and visualization
Spiritual – value clarification and commitment, study, and meditation
Social / Emotional – service, empathy, synergy, and intrinsic security
Traps And Pitfalls
When I was working out at the PAL in the days following the time capsule incident, I was exercising my body but not my mind. I was hypervigilant and preoccupied with worry that it would happen again. I was sharpening one area while dulling the other. It was counterproductive.
Don’t fall into this trap. If you have a body like Hercules but you can’t be fully present when you’re with your family, what have you gained? If you’re intellectually sharp but don’t have morals or values to guide you, then you could lose your way and end up rationalizing bad behavior. If you are clear on your values and have an eternal perspective, how can you be a benefit to others if you isolate yourself? So, you can see how each area is interdependent with the others, like four conjoined circles.
Now What?
First, decide. Then, do. Begin by scheduling time for it, then find or create a physical space that is safe for both your mind (free of distraction) and your body (free from potential threats) so that you are not sharpening one while dulling the other. Choose a time and a place that will allow you to turn it off and then get intentional about spending time on each of the four areas of renewal. Some of these will come easier to you than others, this is normal, just don’t neglect the ones you struggle with.
Now, go sharpen your saw.
__________________________
– Do you have trouble being fully present?
– Are you preoccupied?
– Are you active but not efficient?
– What is the first step you can take to sharpen your saw?
__________________________
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__________________________
¹Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons In Personal Change (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989 and 2004), 299.
²Covey, The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People, 300-311.
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