The Machine

Yesterday, John and I signed up to join a new gym that is opening up in February near where we live. This gym sounds like everything I've dreamed of--plenty of equipment, plenty of parking, plenty of natural light (windows!! oh, how I've missed those since I graduated from Maryland and left their gorgeous gym behind), and extensive hours of operation (24 each day, to be exact). My current gym is a dungeon-like daughter of the large gym I went to when I lived in Bowie. This new gym is everything my current gym is not--clean, bright, expansive. In spite of this, I can't help but feel a twinge of guilt. I have long-standing connections at the Bowie hub of the gym I currently attend, and I feel as if I'm somehow betraying them by picking a new place to workout. Beyond those personal ties, I feel some ethical guilt. I'm leaving a small business in favor of a national one. I'm buying into the advertising that new is better and that bigger and better services will make me happier. I'm supporting the machine of Capitalism that runs small bookstores and small grocery stores out of business in favor of superstores and small gyms out of business in favor of large ones. I'm falling for the razzle-dazzle advertising schemes that promise new life and great happiness. I'm oiling the cogs that keep the big machine running and running over the small folks. This nationally owned gym will cost John and I a mere $10 more per month than the locally owned gym that we currently attend. To me, just having that natural lighting is worth the extra $120 a year, and that doesn't even factor in the free towel service, free evaluative technology, and free magazine subscription that the new gym offers. But my guilty conscience still nags me. I may have been getting less service at the other gym, but I was supporting the "little guy" of local business. Ultimately, I suppose I expect to get over my guilt when the new gym opens its doors on February 3 and I see the sun pouring through the windows. In the meantime, however, I am going to be extra nice to the front-desk workers at my current gym in order to make myself feel better for planning to leave them for--literally--brighter horizons. Hey, big businesses need love, too...don't they??