So I go to this gym and at this gym I go to there’s a lot of people, mostly younger people and it seems that whenever I go day or night late or early, the young people are there. I’d say the majority age-range is teenager to twenty-something. I’m not writing this to make the young people look bad, heck I’m one of them, but with this majority in this particular setting it worries me. I won’t name anybody just to protect the guilty, but also because I don’t know names. The young ones at the gym are not really about strong, but they are about sexy. The girls come in not to improve, but because they think they already look awesome in their tiny shorts and tight pants. The guys do their own form of flaunting that involves wearing shirts that don’t even really qualify as wear-able anymore, along with excessive grunting and weight banging, and for some reason using curse words like they’re comas.
My reasons for the gym are quite different. I don’t say this to sound pious, of course I like to look good but more than that I do it knowing I need to take care of myself. I need to try and treat my body like the temple scripture says it is. I workout because I like to feel strong, it’s good for my health and ultimately I think it helps my balance. I like weights I’m not one of those who just does the elliptical or a few treadmill miles. Cardio is actually my least favorite. I agree with the saying; strong is the new sexy, (whatever your version of strong may be.) I also agree with the statement: workout because you love your body, not because you hate it. Often times at the gym I see these statements in disturbingly high distortion.
Sitting there in between sets on the bench I’ve managed to claim trying to tune out the gossip and the vomit educing vanity can be much harder than the exercise I’m doing-I really hate it when I forget my headphones. I’m not sure what’s worse, the people that strut their stuff like Peacocks or the people that are there because they don’t feel good enough and not in a motivating push yourself type of way but a culturally constructed artificial ideal kind of way. Both these motives whether it be as sad as destroying yourself to reach the standard of perfect that does not exist or as conceited as “mirror, mirror on the wall” are not good at all.
Lately I’ve been thinking life is about doing things for you. Living for someone’s standards or society’s standards, or anyone’s standards other than your own is utterly exhausting. At the end of the day you are all you have. It’s just you, and God if you care enough to care that He’s there. If you’re like me and you do care that Jesus is there, you’re at the perfect starting point, and middle point, and ending point. If you put your heart in the hands of the one that loves you like no other, you’ll never come up short. Hold onto the simple truths, that there is hope and you are loved. Fitness fiend or not you are fearfully and wonderfully made. A pretty face is nothing with an ugly heart.
Mindless Peace 