Courage, Compliments, and Karma

This happened a few weeks ago and I've been meaning to blog about it, (as well as a few other things) but life happens. Oh well. Here goes:

Theres this lady that I've been seeing at the gym in Greensboro on occasion. She's a bigger lady, but over the last few months, you can see a dramatic change in her weight and her appearance. I wished so badly that I could just go up to her and congratulate her on a job well done and tell her to keep up the good work. As much as my heart wanted to, my brain kept telling me reasons not or finding excuses. Finally one day after months of wanting to, I worked up enough courage to finally say it and had my perfect opportunity. She walked past me with nobody with her and I just stopped her and told her she was looking good and so forth, that I just wanted to compliment and encourage her. She was very appreciative of the kind words and told me thank you. I felt much better myself and though I was about in tears (don't ask me why) I had a big smile on my face as well as her.

Here's where the karma part comes in. At this particular gym, there's quite a few very fit women there (not so much the case in Asheboro, which is why we like this gym so much and choose to drive 30 minutes to go there... steel sharpens steel and we're motivated more by seeing people better than us.) Many of them compete in bodybuiling shows and one is actually an IFBB Pro in figure (that means she's won a lot of shows). So I was in the locker room after doing a very intense leg work out with Wade when the above mentioned Pro walked into the locker room. She passed me and we did the polite smile and nod when she stopped and turned to talk to me. She just wanted to let me know that she had seen progress in me and that sometimes we don't see it ourselves. I'm sure I babbled some words back to here and thanked her, but I was so blown away that I don't remeber what I said. It made my night.

The moral of this story is to spread encouraging words. Since that night I've been working on trying to talk to strangers more. Just a simple good morning or hey, hows it going can make someones day.

Happy Wednesday! Go make someones day!