Generous comment

I woke up very early this morning – most probably because I also went to bed very early. 

I’ve noticed that a (probably inevitable) consequence of working all day AND fitting in 20,000 steps is meaning that on some days I’ve hit the sack at 8.30pm – which was what happened yesterday. 

Ostensibly I’d planned to read for a while – but instead woke up much later with my iPad unceremoniously resting on my nose. 

However – it turned out to be a really really good call, as by the time I’d had a shower and got dressed this morning the sun was streaming through the curtains. 

I decided to elongate my morning walk with a few more miles, and as I sit typing over a pre-work coffee I’m already at five miles and 10,000 steps for the day, so the effort required for the rest of the afternoon is pretty much removed – which is a real bonus as I need to do some work in the garden this evening. 

The park looked fantastic at 7.30am.  

I really wish I’d brought my camera along because it was squirrel and bird heaven today. They were everywhere – making nests and nibbling acorns. 

It’s a great day to be alive – and I realise that whereas I used to avoid the sun and my mood was constant (although probably constantly downbeat) now I find that like the rest of the world I’m happier when it’s brighter. 

My last (somewhat somber) post was on a grey, oppressive day with grim skies and a pressing humidity. I felt sluggish and the weather looked awful. The words probably reflected the weather.

Today I don’t feel that way at all. 

This is definitely a good thing, because I awoke to something interesting on Facebook. 

I’m often bowled over by people’s warmth and kindness. One of the outstanding things about the last 18 months has been without a doubt the positive support that people have given me on social media – and because of that this blog has been a significant turning point in my life. 

The boon of ‘putting myself out there’ on things like Instagram and WordPress is incredibly multi faceted though – and sometimes the friendship that’s extended comes presented in quite a different format. 

An Instagram post I’d also publicly shared on Facebook yesterday had been receiving some feedback. 

Occasionally in life people are so self aware and so generous of spirit that they KNOW already that meeting them in person would be a colossal mistake for anyone else, so they make absolutely sure that it won’t happen, and honestly it’s REALLY helpful. 

There’s nothing worse than being disappointed by someone you trusted – so finding out right at the beginning of a potential friendship that someone is a bit of a twit saves a lot of time. 

What I found most interesting about this post (now deleted – and not by me) was my reaction to it.

I’m not angry – or upset. 

This is really strange – because an early feature of my attempts to lose weight happened to be instances like this or this where random members of the public decided it made their day complete by calling me a fat **** whilst hanging out of cars or vans. 

Rarely did they slow their cars down enough in those days to be accountable for their opinions however – so I’d never know who they were if I met them again. 

At least this gentlemen has the decency to be absolutely open with his opinion and give me the benefit of avoiding him in the future. 

Win! 

There’s more to this incident though. In the past something like this might have buried my mood in a dark hole in the ground for ages – but you know what – it really doesn’t matter one little bit. 

Furthermore I wrote this NOT to push him into the limelight or draw anger from anyone toward him. I purposefully deleted his name because he probably has his own issues that are way worse than mine. 

I’m writing this because people just like me read this blog, and they too have probably been ‘impaled’ on the business end of this kind of comment in the past. 

You know what? 

It doesn’t matter. 

What matters is that you get up and keep trying every day to be better than you are now for YOU and not for them. 

You might be overweight now – but you can fix that. The odds are that whoever slighted you in whatever way will always be an idiot – and that’s a lot harder to remedy than dropping some cuddle muscle. 

So Internet – keep putting yourself out there, keep trying, and ignore anyone that has the potential to bring you down. 

You’re stronger than you think. You just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

Davey