Goals. Goals are needed for us to grow and find purpose. The number 225 might be a random number to many, but to me, it provides a path and a destination. For the past few years, it felt like I was directionless. Almost everything I’ve done feels meaningless, and I never put my heart and my soul into any purpose or goal. Goals like good grades or other things were always placed on me, and my efforts never felt genuine. It all started with a small goal: to get stronger. After going into the weight room for the first time during PE, I was overshadowed by my peer’s strength, and something as simple as that sparked my journey into lifting. Although I made good progress, I always felt like I was doing it for someone else, doing it for validation, or doing it just to have something going on in my life. Until one day, I joined a gym for the first time. Thinking I got strong from my training, I slapped 135 pounds on the bench press. The music was hitting, my muscles were tensing, and I was going to hit it. I failed. This triggered a fire in me like never before, and soon, I began to train like never before. This failure gave me an incentive—a drive—to prove something to myself. Eventually, I hit it. The next milestone was 225 or two plates, a huge milestone for any lifter or gym goer. I once again set out on the road to 225. Initially, all I cared about was the fact that lifting this weight would make everything right, that I would finally be fulfilled, and that I would feel accomplished. It was later that I realized that, for the first time in two years, this was a goal I truly felt was genuine. I stopped caring about the number and instead focused on how I would get there. After all, “The man who loves walking will walk further than the man who loves the destination.” The weights kept going up: 155, 165, 175, and now 185. Although I’m struggling with things inside and outside of the gym, I know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and one day, on that fateful day, I will bench 225 and say, I’ve made it.