Why not?
I increase weight and duration to be able to do more or go longer than than other people which brings feelings of accomplishment. It also brings all the benefits you describe. You don’t HAVE to compete, but that doesn’t mean that people who do compete are just victims of the patriarchy, that’s an absurd take.
It’s almost like we can all do things for different reasons and you don’t have a monopoly on why people should do a thing.




I’m telling you I like to compete and by every metric I’m both healthier and more capable than you. I’m glad you’re working on it, but it’s not patriarchy, it’s you kind of sucking and trying to catch up. I like attention as a motivator, but many people are just more motivated than you.
Society isn’t the thing keeping you down, it’s the law of averages. And maybe youre just average like everyone else.
Most people suck. At everything. All the time. Welcome. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you’ve probably arrived.