Life imitates bench press

I often take some personal life lessons / analogies from my regular workout routine. One of the really nice benefits of my company is that we have a very nice gym on site that I can go down and use at lunch. Most days, I'll either lift weights or go outside for a 4-5 mile run (Because being inside on a treadmill is very boring, I only use it for my run if the weather outside is just horrible).

For example, when I'm on a run, there are sections that go up fairly steep hills, often with the wind against me at the same time. But those sections are followed by downhill sections that are much easier (though somehow, I never seem to really get much a good tailwind!). There are some days when I run when it's 95F with 50-60% humidity, and others when it's 78 with a nice cool breeze. This teaches me that difficult sections of my "run" through this life are temporary and to push through it to look for the downhill and/or downwind sections.

I also get some of my political positions from my observations of exercise and physical principles. For example, no one else can exercise for me. Muscle and fitness cannot be taken from me and given to someone else who didn't work out as hard as I did. Thus, I feel it should be the same with my money when it comes to the government redistributing wealth.

It's much more satisfying and fulfilling to me to be able, through my hard work, to lift a weight I could not lift before than simply to have someone else lift it for me. This is essentially a conservative principle. When I see direct observations and confirmations of conservative principles in one area of my life, it seems to me that they're likely correct in another.