"In the Pursuit of Beauty"

In a recent issue of Details magazine, author Augusten Burroughs wrote of his obsession to obtain 6-pack abs and concluded that:

"...in the pursuit of beauty, there is no finish line. Nothing about
us
will ever be perfect. The need will always, alwasy be
there. There will always be just one more thing we could do. Or
get. Or lose.
It is a fool's marathon. But I don't care. I will run anyway. "

At 34 years of age, I have to admit that this same obsession has dogged me for most of my life. Ever since I was a child I looked at pictures like the one posted here and thought to myself - damn, why can't I look like that. Of course at my age achieving something like that is harder now than it ever has been before. Not that it's stopping me - for only the second time in my life I have actually hired a trainer to help whip my ass into shape and what can I say, thus far it's been working. Yet as I watch the world's economy collapse around me and my sessions begin to wear out I have to ask myself, am I really ready to invest that much money in another session again?

The answer? Of course I am.