They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I know that is a pretty cliché but I think that is the perfect intro to this week's post. I think everyone can relate to this. Maybe someone says or does something for you that they mean well in doing so, but you might not appreciate as much as they think. A great example of this would be a backhanded compliment. Usually if your compliment has a "but" or an "if only" in it, it might not go over as well as you think it might. I think everyone is guilty of doing this sometimes and I wanted to talk about that a bit further this week as well as share exactly what inspired this post. 

Let's start with the reasoning behind picking this topic. I have said before that usually I come up with my blog ideas midweek based on whatever goes on in my life. That isn't always the case but true for most weeks. This week was no different. On Thursday this week I had my usual personal training session. The gym is usually decently busy when I am there but that doesn't make too much of a difference to me. When I was on my way out after my session, an older man held the door for me. I thanked him and then in the parking lot he stopped me and talked to me for a few minutes. I won't go into full details here but essentially what he did was give me a ton of unsolicited advice. He told me things I shouldn't eat. He told me I should be working out on my own and not with a trainer. That all sounds a lot harsher than it actually was, he said this all in a very sweet way. He also made a comment that more or less implied that I needed to be working out without a trainer and getting to the gym on my own. That is a huge assumption right there especially since I go to the gym on my own 4 other days during the week. Like I said he was very friendly and I could tell his intentions were good but the more I thought about it on my drive home the more it bugged me.

So why is this something that might bug someone? Well to me it was all about the assumptions. Yes if you look at me I am very much overweight. If you read my blog frequently or if you know me personally then you know I am fully aware of this and am doing a lot to change that. Most days I eat very healthy, I workout five days a week, and overall I am just working toward looking and feeling better. Just because I am an obese woman at the gym doesn't mean I don't know what I am doing. It was the assumptions behind all of his statements that bugged me the most. You see it all the time for people of all shapes and sizes. Somebody who looks skinnier than normal being called anorexic or somebody that is my size or bigger is assumed to eat nothing but junk. The truth is that "skinny" person just might be eating a lot of junk and the visibly overweight person just may have an eating disorder. You truly do not know. I was almost amused thinking about how the conversation with that man would have gone if he said it to a person who is more easily offended than I am.

I understand that people's intentions are good in giving this kind of advice. There he was a perfect stranger trying to give me advice to help me out for no reason. He was very sweet and I just smiled politely until he was done. I want you to think if you have ever done this for a stranger or even a friend or family member before. Have you ever offered any unsolicited advice? Sure it is a little different when it is a loved one rather than a stranger. They are going to know a bit more about you and wont be making as many assumptions. I want to encourage you, however, to really think about advice and such before you actually give it. Think about the ways it may come across to them. It is perfectly normal to be concerned about a loved one's physical or mental health but there are ways of offering support rather than just telling them they should do this and that. 

Overall my experience with the stranger at the gym was not a horrible one. He congratulated me on taking the steps I needed to and said he could tell I had motivation just by looking at me. It certainly wasn't all bad by any means, but it really just made me think. I am going to go out of my way to make sure I only give advice when it is sought out. There are ways of telling someone that you are concerned about them without being condescending. You also need to realize that no one will ever fully change unless they want to. I can promise you somebody set in their ways isn't going to just change overnight because you tell them to. If anything it just may push them in the other direction. I want to encourage you all to do the same. Stop making assumptions about others and offer support to them when they need it. Everyone involved is bound to be much happier in the long run.