Success and Neglect
Hi me, it’s been a bit since I’ve journaled – and that’s mostly due to life going much better. I’ve been spending a lot of time with friends, and I’ve been doing very well mentally. When I start to do better, I tend to neglect the things that I think helped me do better – such as the routine I have set out for myself daily. I wanted to stay consistent with this so here I am.
Today at the gym I was wrapping up my workout when I saw a girl who didn’t exactly seem to know what she was doing. She pulled over a crate and tried to do a pullup, but was struggling to do it and was on a weird bar where even if she did her head would hit the top. I had been in similar situations before, so I wanted to go over and offer some help but I didn’t want to come off as patronizing so I initially avoided it as I normally do. I then worked up the courage to just try anyway, and so when we were both in between sets I went over and mentioned I saw her, and if she knew about the assisted pull-up machine – as I also struggle with pull-ups and that’s what I do instead. She didn't, but seemed eager so I offered to show her the machine which was near us, which she gladly accepted.
We struggled with the machine a bit and talked about the workout, and then I went back to finish my workout. I realized I was being a coward and was staying in my comfort zone, so after I had finished that exercise I went back over and told her my friends don’t work out and if she wanted a workout buddy, and she enthusiastically said she was thinking the same thing and was regretting not asking me earlier. We exchanged numbers and IGs, and are planning to go workout tomorrow.
Immediately after this, I maxed out the calf raise machine – my first time maxing out a machine! I then went and maxed out the hip abductor machine, which I had never done before either. In a weirdly poetic way, this kinda felt like a divine intervention – explicitly showing me how much I am actually capable of. I’ve spent the last few weeks doing 310 on the calf raise machine, when I was able to do 400 lbs 10 times in a row without much struggle. To me, this shows how I am incredibly more capable than I think I am. In the exact same vein, my comfort zone would have been to stay to myself and my music, and not go out of my way to talk to that girl. And then again, it would have been comfortable for me to not go back and ask for her contact information. And look what happened because of that!
Life may not be as hard as I make myself believe. Maybe it is that easy? Just roll the boulder up, everything doesn’t have to be Sisyphean. I originally planned on doing CBT, but I sat here for a bit and couldn’t think of any negative thought patterns I wanted to change. Life is good. Love you big doug <3