I feel the familiarity of complaining this morning. Woke up not wanting to go to work. Woke up not wanting to get my workout done for the day. There was another voice, a louder voice that muffled out the complaining. That was the voice of obligation. I feel a sense of obligation to keep this going. Even though nobody is watching me right now, I want to act as if they were. As if I had all the eyes on me. Maybe I do, maybe I just don’t see it yet but they’re on me. Watching me live my day. Seeing whether or not I am able to stay true to what I say I am. Or if I break. If I have a weakness in me. If I’m just an exception sometimes but not all the time. That’s what those watching want, they want to see you stop. That would justify them in their memories of all the times they stopped.
There’s a weight in waking up to resistance. It always greets me first. But now, I expect it. I recognize its pattern. It’s no longer a surprise—it’s a ritual. And behind it, something stronger waits: obligation. Not to others. To myself. To the life I said I wanted. I feel it settle in, louder than excuses, heavier than doubt. That voice doesn’t yell—it just knows. And when I follow it, the rest of me falls in line.
Even when no one’s watching, I act like they are. Not out of fear—but out of respect for the future version of myself who will be watched. Every private rep builds the public version of me that others will one day witness. So I show up now like I already have eyes on me. Because maybe I do. Maybe the people I haven’t met yet—the ones I’m meant to impact—are already sensing who I’m becoming.
So I let them watch. Let them see what persistence looks like in silence. Let them feel the burn of their own inaction when they realize I didn’t quit. If my consistency unsettles them, so be it. I’m not doing this to make others comfortable—I’m doing this to become undeniable. Because if I can’t be moved in private, then I will never be shaken in public.
