by Teri LaFaye

I am moved to write this, for motivation’s sake.

Sometimes, I wonder how people see me. Not the outside me, but the inside me. Do they ever see that scared little girl who wants to go into a corner and cry? Do they ever notice the teenage side of me who feels lost and totally awkward at times? Do they see the woman I am, while not seeing the woman I want to become?

Then, just when I think life cannot throw me another curve, here comes another, then another, then… Life’s obstacles aren’t easy to overcome. It would be so easy to give up, but I have never been one to give in to circumstances, even though I get so tired being strong on the outside and crumbling on the inside. While no one sees, but me.

I’m reminded of what my daddy used to tell me. He’d say, “You know, if we could throw all our problems in one big heap in the middle of the floor and have the chance to ‘choose’ someone else’s problems instead of our own, nine chances out of ten, we’d pull our own problems back out, realizing that the mountains we thought we saw were little mole hills.”

Wow. Daddy was SO right!

Last night, I watched “The Biggest Loser,” where a 19-year old kid weighed in at 454 pounds. He was the largest person to ever weigh in that large of an amount. Not the youngest, just the largest. Four hundred, fifty-four pounds!

I cried when I saw the number on the scale. I literally sat here and bawled like a baby. I just felt so bad for him. It doesn’t matter how he got there, what happened, why or how he got that big; what matters is that he was there to change his life, FOR his life. My admiration for him was tremendous as I watched him standing there.

Then, there he was again, later in the show. The next time he weighed in, he had lost 30 pounds in one week. I sat here crying for him, with him, again. I watched the joy illuminating from him like a beacon, as he cried that he had never lost that much weight before.

And then, I felt guilty. His thirty pounds swallowed the measly five pounds I was trying to lose.

My god, how many times do we (as people) forget that we are not the only ones out there with problems, with lives, with sorrow, with and without any means of support or encouragement? We should all encourage, inspire, and incorporate the desire to succeed with that of everyone’s around us.

We should do it unselfishly, with large amounts of enthusiasm just for the privilege of helping someone.

I hope I encourage someone. I hope I instill a passion that burns inside them to make them want to live each day to the fullest they possibly can. Because when we do, our problems do not look like mountains anymore.

About Teri

Teri LaFaye is a teacher, a mentor, a writer, and an inspiration. She’s also the author of a published children’s book, written in a humorous rhyme theme that’s perfect for the child in your life — or the child in you! Please contact Teri at sassyonyx@yahoo.com.

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