Tuesday, April 5, 2011

What doesn't kill you does make you stronger


This famous quote of Friedrich Nietzsche feels appropriately fitting today as the this week has already brought me two experiences that fits this quote very well.

The first I can't provide a lot of detail about, for those who know me you will know why. What I can say is that I learned that someone who does not like me very much had developed a name for me, that name was in relationship to my weight. This was the first time in a long while that as an adult I had been called a name related to my weight.

This was initially a very stressful experience because it brought back lots of situations as a youth when I was made fun of because of my weight. I felt that I had two choices I could a) wallow in self pity and eat ice cream or b) take control of my life and this situation and make changes so that no one would ever be in a situation where they could realistically use my weight to ridicule me in the future.

Lets be honest, a few months ago I would have gravitated quickly towards options a) and last night I put some serious thought to it. The good news, it was Monday night and my sister and spin class were waiting for me. So the decision, off to the gym.

That brings us to situation number 2. As I was feeling particularly motivated I arrived at the gym early so that I could complete my upper body weight routine before spin class. I had been instructed to arrive early because we were going to start spin early. After my weight routine I was working on my abs when I learned that spin would be pushed back 30 minutes because a class that had not run for the last month was going to run today.

My options: do 30 min of cardio, sit down for 30 min or do the class. The class was a 30 minute total body conditioning, I can handle that - I thought. Let me remind you that I had completed an hour of weights. Within minutes I was sweating, but I made it through. Enough anyone after a killer day, but no, it was time for spin. 40 minutes later I was finally done and ready for bed.

So this is my quote for the day. I like and I believe it. I do believe though is that it is what we don't let kill us that makes us stronger.

1 comment:

  1. People who make fun of other people do it because they want to feel superior. Good for you for using it to FUEL your motivation. That's exactly the attitude I have.

    ReplyDelete