Our Own Private Hells

An image I love, so encouraging, is a blatantly out-of-shape person exercising.

It must have been over ten years ago but I vividly remember an overweight middle-aged man shuffling down Westport Avenue early one morning and the look on his face was pain. It was struggling, but he was doing it. I'm sure he would have preferred to stop, but he was doing it. He knew he probably looked ridiculous, but he was doing it. He knew he should be doing it, and he was doing it.

To me, it was beautiful. I was awe-stuck and inspired.

Some (immature) people mock those struggling through exercises, and they're the worst kinds of people. It's especially cruel to disparage the out-of-shape, who may be so hanging by a thread for throwing in the towel.

There's a certain kind of person that goes to the gym to show off the fitness they already have. If the requisite for improvement is exercise to fatigure, then we should all be equalling falling out of the doors after, regardless of our starting level. In spite of personal cardio machine TVs, the massage chairs, and the air conditioning, the whole inescapable point of exercise is on some level to make ourselves uncomfortable.

Sometimes, it's a struggle for me just to finish my hour on the treadmill, just to breathe in the moist, swampy air. To convice myself I won't vomit. If I'm dieting, I'm cranky and consumed with just wanting to eat. Wiping boogers and slobber on my arms, I look to all my fellow treadmillers stomping along in their 8x3, self-imposed torture chambers. Many of us are suffering. It may be the hardest part of our days - just as draining as if we were prey running for our lives. If we're literally on the edge of our physical capacities, how could it be worse? It's amazing, when you think about a gym, all the person who are silently enduring their own private Hells. Struggling to take one more step, stretch one more inch, make one more rep, when the pain is unbearable and we imagine how comfortable quitting would be.

With these thoughts in mind I absolutely loved Nike's "Find Your Greatness" commercial than's been running recently. It recreates the man I saw running that morning years ago, clearly in pain, but doing it, anyway, for himself.