Bucking Trends

Why do I feel this resistance to trends? I HATE that the world and media both  shove “go to the gym” down your throat constantly when there is a big beautiful world out there. Or when Game of Thrones was a thing? Have not seen a single episode (yet? Still debating)!

Does it have something to do with my uber-Christian upbringing? I am only expressing my rebellious nature towards the world at large. Maybe it stems back to that time when I was the new kid at a new school and an offer of friendship turned sour when the new “friend” told me I should not befriend another simply because that girl had “stolen” a boyfriend. Really? I was being told with whom to be friends by someone I’d only just met? (You better bet I made friends immediately with the other girl and we are still friends to this day.)

Bucking the gym trend trend has been a lifelong feeling. This is something I’ve long held a discomfort with, really a disgust. Being a former fat kid, I just cannot get over my anxiety of working out in front of others. Wrap that with the freedom found in social media for offering unsolicited advice on workout techniques, I am more self-conscious than ever.  Also, good golly why must I pay for something I hate from the depths of my soul and do not use, likely will not use, and for which I can definitely find lovely, perfectly good alternatives?

That is not to say that I’m trying to yuck your yum, here. Many, many people can’t get enough of going to the gym, and may indeed have no alternative. But does that mean the rest of us who truly hate it need to join the cult? Is there a happy, outdoors, or even non-costly-gym-membership medium? Why does it need to be a social EXPECTATION that one goes to the gym on a regular basis? Bucking the trend here - not everyone does!