Stress Relief

Almost every morning I drag myself out of bed to get to the gym. I need to pursue this routine to release stress but also for my health. Lately this task is creating more stress than relief.

This morning I got on the elliptical machine with my book in tow. I was climbing, climbing along and sweating up puddles when I heard someone who sounded like they were regurgitating. I wondered who was going through this action and hoped that maybe they had left the gym if they weren’t feeling well. Two seconds later, ‘Hack, Hack!’ again. I looked to see where this noise was coming from and it was none other than the guy on the machine next to me.

I continued my work out and decided that if he did it again, I would say something. And of course he did. Hack! Hack!

So I said, “Excuse me, but you don’t sound very good. Are you sure you should be exercising?”

His response was to ignore me and continue to hack away.

I really wanted to whack him in the face with the tome that I’ve been reading. Instead, I just got off this machine and moved to the one as far from him as possible.

So I asked myself why people insist on being jerks. This, of course, was completely against the reasons I go to the gym. Thinking this way only made my stress levels raise. In order to bring them back down, I decided I’d go kick one of the punching bags and pretend the punching bag was hacking man. I felt better almost immediately.