Inspiring Story Saturday
One day, a year and half ago, when I had used up my money for getting myself a gym membership (things break-ups make you do!)- I had every chance to blame myself for everything wrong in my life.
You see, the outside world makes you believe there are a couple of things you should have by a certain age which would make you happy. A good well-established job, a partner, maybe some ambition and passion in life- and of-course some good stature in the society.
The problem was, in spite of having most of the above things, I did not necessarily feel severely accomplished in life. The pain that comes from always having this thought of being mediocre gripped me up from the inside and had already started to make its way to my mind. What followed was a good deal of soul-searching, which led me to lose my relationship, one with him, and another with myself.
I was decently trying to save my ass from those intense break-up feelings. People have claimed that I have a way of escaping life and feelings, I am an escapist. So I began the battle of escaping and conveniently ignoring my feelings, and what is a better distraction than joining the gym.
Paying a hefty amount for a few months of membership wasn’t the problem- I had already started telling myself that I’m going to try it out only for three months- if I do not see myself being consistent, I quit. I escape, I use my overly used defense mechanism.
However, what began as a three month long ordeal ended up being transferred to 8 months.
During one of those days, when I felt least motivated to get up at 7 AM in a cool morning, and I conveniently began snoozing my alarms- I used to think of an old lady that used to come to my gym. She used to look a bit like this:
She was quite overweight visibly, and had not yet taken a personal trainer. Most people at the gym used to look at her with pity in their eyes.
However, I always used to look at someone who used to inspire me.
“What reason do you have, Arushi?” — My thoughts used to question me
“What reason do you have, of being lazy? Of snoozing this alarm one more time, of wasting your hard- earned money, of not being disciplined?”
If she can do it, everyday, every single day, if she can take time and have a fighting spirit in her life, why can’t you?
From that day onwards, I used to think of that lady as someone who was very inspiring to me.
Well I never got a chance to see her again- as gyms were closed soon after thanks to the covid lockdown- but If I get a chance again, I would definitely like to tell her that her image of working out comes to my mind more often than not- specially on days when I feel like giving up.
:)
