Last week we had a partner workout at the gym. I’m not a huge fan of partner work because I feel like I am either weak if I can’t keep up or I feel like I am being held back. Usually, it’s the first of the two and it’s great because I’m pushed but I also get very defeated very easily so I like sticking to myself, going as hard (or not as hard) as I like. I rushed into class (late) after work, changed, and was quickly paired up, ready to hate the whole class. But it went a little differently this time. I’ve contemplated for this whole week on if I should post this blog or not but it hasn’t left my mind, so I figured I needed to.

I know almost everyone at the gym, especially everyone that goes to the noon class, but I was paired up with a young girl, close to my age, and I had no idea what to expect. I’ve never met her, I’ve never seen how she works out, and I was a little worried about how the next hour to go. We begin working (and quickly began dying) and I soon realized this workout was going to be killer and definitely the workout that I needed. We kept pushing each other and she fell behind just a little bit but not enough to affect my workout. About twenty minutes into the workout she looks up to me and goes “you are a beast”. Mind you, I have never felt like a “beast” at the gym, much less been called one because I look like an uncoordinated fish flopping around but my partner was impressed and that made me feel good. A few more minutes go by and we are about to run a lap and she made a comment about how she wishes she was me. This killed me.

I have always been the girl on the outside looking at people, envying them, wishing I was them. I have never, in my entire life, thought that someone could possibly look at me that way. I ran that lap in total shock. I am sitting here writing this not to gloat that someone wishes that they were me, or could be like me, but because it made me feel so awful. The fact that someone else was looking at me and they didn’t feel confident in what they were doing was mind-blowing to me. I was inspired by her the whole time because she kept saying how hard it was but man, that girl just kept pushing. I was ready to pass out at any given moment, but she just kept going, which in turn, I kept going.

For the past week, I have been thinking about what she said. I have been thinking about how I need to stop looking at everyone around me look at myself and see how capable I really am and how people see that. We all have the tendency to do this. We look for external validation but sometimes we need to take a moment and stop, look internally, and find gratification. Being alive in this world is a battle in itself so let’s all stop comparing our fight to other people’s fight. You are a beast. In the gym, and just in life.