Are you fucking with me?

The title of the post speaks for the tone here, because I'm at a point of confusion. There are very basic, and quick things that everyone can/should do when they're anywhere in public to clean up after themselves and as courtesy to those around them. There are also things that people can/should do to preserve the activities they enjoy doing, if they want to perpetuate the ability to continue doing those things, if not even for others but for themselves at a minimum. As humans, we should possess a sense of pride in who we are; how we look, how we speak, and how we act. Since pride is an internal emotion, we should then carry this sense of pride with us from place to place, continually letting our actions speak for the pride we hold in ourselves. It's like my first sergeant said every time we moved from place to place, "always try to leave a place better than it was when you got there". Simply stated, if you come to a place, you should at a minimum, clean up after yourself, maintain the place, and do whatever you can to improve the location for those who are to follow. It makes sense, because it's simple. You shouldn't walk around life being an ignorant jackass, you shouldn't go somewhere and ignore the house rules, you shouldn't leave a wake of destruction sans accountability. When you leave a place, you leave a legacy. Your legacy should speak to your level of integrity, responsibility and pride.
In this case, the specific instances that I'm alluding to are relating to the gym, CFHH. There are some things that I've noticed more and more lately that I really shouldn't be seeing. We are a community. We are a community of primarily adults who should be accountable for themselves, and courteous to those around them. Have some pride in yourself, and the legacy you leave. Lately the gym has been getting beat up more often and with seemingly less care. Lately more equipment is left out, left uncleaned, and if its "put away", it's in the wrong spot altogether. Lately there are water bottles/ cups/ shirts/ notebooks and other personal belongings being left behind for someone else to take care of. Lately there is less care given for the equipment; medballs ripped, barbells thrown and broken, kettlebells dropped from overhead, weighted barbells being dropped onto racks, barbells being unloaded unsafely, barbell clips being destroyed, knotting the hell out of the jump ropes then leaving them knotted, leaving chalk outside, etc.

In case you're a visual learner, here are some examples of what I saw in just a couple days, these are all taken near or at the end of the day:

(chalk left outside, and smashed) 

 (boxes "put away" in no organized manner whatsoever)

(although the cubbies are being filled with stuff left behind,

now the empty ones are being used for overnight cup storage) 

(so is the counter?) 

(not sure why i included this, it was clearly a photo from that

workout when we just threw kettlebells at the walls) 

 (oh cool, jump ropes, let me take a closer look

to find one for the workout)

( fuck!

I don't think there's a serviceable jump rope in that photo,

much less anything functional)

Although CrossFit gyms are known to be spartan-like and are referred to as "boxes" but that doesn't mean it's less valuable or that we should take less care of it. Our sense of pride should dictate that we act with our legacy in mind. We are mindful to clean up and to put away our toys, we are mindful to unfuck the jump rope we just used before hanging it back up, we are mindful to throw away our cups/water bottles, we are mindful that the chalk belongs in a bucket/on hands/or on a bar and not all over the gym, we are mindful that if we don't do those small things, then someone else will have to. When you have a growing community, like ours, and tasks like these aren't done, we carve out an area for resentment to grow. We create a system that cannot sustain itself, and it's all avoidable. Let's take a minute at the end of our workouts, before we get into our cars, to clean our equipment and our area. Let's preserve the things that we like doing, and the places we do them at. Let's be responsible, let's be proud, and let's leave a good legacy.

definition of pride, found here - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pride