A Weekly Pause to Move You Forward
“Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.”
- Robert Waldinger
I’ve always loved early mornings at the gym. The lights hum, the air is cool, the place is mostly empty. You walk out knowing you are ahead of the day instead of behind from the start. The hardest thing is done. The rest of the day feels lighter.
This week I went even earlier, at 5:30 a.m. Instead of that lift, my lingering foot injury left me stiff and sore. What once set a positive tone now weighed on me.
On the walk into work, my phone rang. A friend told me he had been limping for two days after catching a foul ball in a co-ed softball game. We laughed about how a sneeze can tweak a muscle now, or the wrong pillow can put you on the injured list for days.
Later in the week, another friend had me laughing until near tears, describing the sympathy weight he gained during his wife’s pregnancy. “I swear,” he said, “I could have lined up in the NFL.”
On my own, the injury felt heavy. With them, it became funny. The pain was still there, but it no longer felt like a burden. I’m not alone.
That’s when it struck me: this isn’t really about age or injuries. It’s about struggles of every kind: career transitions, physical setbacks, heartbreaks, losses, and the unseen battles that surface and fade with the seasons of life.
Alone, struggles grow heavier. Together, they get lighter. Sometimes they even become laughter.