Truth Will Set You Free
No doubt you have heard or read the statement, “The truth will set you free.” But, have you read John C. Maxwell’s version? I read it recently in his book, Thinking for a Change. On page 130, he wrote the following: “The truth will set you free — but first it will make you angry!” Aside from the fact that it caught my attention with the first reading of the statement, after reading it several more times I immediately made the connection with the “change” that is characterized by the American Society of Exercise Physiologists.
To be rather bold with my thinking, which shouldn’t be all that new to anyone who has read my articles on this blog or on the PEPonline electronic journal, I believe that the truth is simply too difficult for many exercise physiologists. It is as Maxwell said, “…truth too strong a medicine to digest…” slows the freedom that undergirds the truth itself.
Truth is seldom an easy pill to take. It will, however, set us free from our narrow historical perspective, but only after it has made us angry! In other words, the truth is the right path even though we may not feel good about it. The ASEP organizational members and its leaders, collectively, are doing what is necessary for the future growth and security of the evolving profession of exercise physiology. Hence, in short, exercise physiologists, particularly, the gatekeepers, must get with the program by getting comfortable with the truth.