Originally published in The Newnan Times-Herald, read here.
This gym I work out in is full of every body shape and age you would expect. I’m part of the 5 a.m. crowd, and it’s always the same faces. None of us talk. We have our earbuds in, do our work, make occasional eye contact and nod.
I often wonder what is going through their minds. Why are they here this early? What battle are they fighting right now?
Yet, with all of those questions, I keep my ear buds in, extending the occasional nod.
And then there was an interruption.
I came across a first-person video about a lady who is a real winner but feels like a loser. She sat in her car outside the gym, trying to hold back tears. Her phone in hand, she recorded an Instagram story.
Her voice shaking, tears on her cheeks, “I just got out of the gym,” she said. “There’s this guy I see in there all the time, tattoos everywhere, looks super tough. You never really know what someone’s thinking when they look your way. And I don’t mean, like, checking me out, I mean bullies. The kind of people who make you feel small.”
She explained how, just two weeks before, a pair of younger guys had followed her out of the gym, one coughing a word into his hand, which she thought sounded like “ogre.” It didn’t crush her, but it felt like another emotional stone in the pocket of weight she was already carrying.
So when the tattooed guy called out, “Hey,” her guard shot up. “Here we go,” she thought. “Another jab. Another insult to add to the tally.” But instead, he said, “I’ve seen you in here every week. Almost every day. I’m proud of you.”
That was it. No lecture. No pity. Just recognition.
“He saw me; He was proud of me.”
She broke down in happy tears.
I cannot count the number of times someone appears to be struggling while I remain silent.
Maybe it’s time we broaden our vision. Not just in the gym, but everywhere our path crosses with others.
Because we are all putting in the work. We still make eye contact. We still nod. We still wonder what’s going on beneath the surface.
Maybe the real question isn’t whether we see each other or the questions we’re asking.
It’s whether we’re willing to take the risk and be seen saying something when it matters. Silence is rarely neutral. It either protects us or abandons someone else.
I’ll leave you with that. Until next time.
