Who's Beating You?

We are all so scared. And yet we come anyway.

We walk through those gym doors with the weight of our own worlds on our shoulders, the ghosts of a million pasts, the haunts of a thousand unnamed fears.

We like to say we're "unscared" and "unbroken" but, in truth, we are most likely both. But we are still fighting. Oh, we're still fighting.

• Some folks are scared of the pain.

• Some folks are scared of the competition.

• Some folks are scared of the feeling that they simply can't breathe.

And some folks are scared that no matter what they do, no matter how hard they try, no matter how much they pour all of their heart and soul into that workout -- that they won't measure up. That their best just isn't good enough. And that truth is simply heartbreaking. Could be a hundred people in that room, or there could be one: the defeat is devastating either way.

Why walk through those doors?

Why not just stay safe and home – masters in our own kingdom, lord of all we survey, fat and dumb and blissful in our illusions?

Because we have to know.

Because illusion is not enough.

Because we'd rather have the harsh reality of our shortcomings: this gives us something to work on.

So the bear ate us today. Maybe tomorrow we will eat the bear. Or the tomorrow after that. Or the tomorrow next month or next year.

Life isn't a foot race. It's a target shoot.

So, we reload and come back and put that bear in our sights. And squeeze the trigger.

Scared is okay. Broken is okay.

Quitting?

Simply not acceptable.