You hear about so many disturbing crimes happening these days, don't you? Fearing that I could easily be next and refusing to treat it like someone else's problem, I made sure to take maximum precautions living on my own. One thing I used to do regularly was shout out loud the moment I returned to my empty apartment.

"Come on out!" "I know you're in there!"

Shouting that was my way of intimidating any potential intruder while I checked every room—it had become a habit. Looking back now, it seems ridiculous, but at the time, I was dead serious.

One day, I had a chance to hang out with a coworker I'd gotten close with at work. I wanted to swing by my apartment first, so I asked if we could stop by for a minute, invited her inside, and got ready. Since I was with someone, I felt safe and didn't need to do my check. Besides, I was fully aware of how embarrassing it would be to do something like that in front of someone else. After we left and were out eating and drinking for a bit, my friend spoke up.

"Hey, I hope you don't mind me saying this... but didn't the air in your room feel a little heavy?" "Huh? My apartment? Oh no, did it smell bad?" "No, no! It's not that... It's just, you know."

That was when I learned for the first time that my coworker was spiritually sensitive. And according to her, there was something in my room.

"That's kind of scary!" "Ah, well, even though I say there's something there... how should I put it? Its presence is pretty weak, so you don't really need to worry, but it just kind of bothers me." "Wait, which is it? But nothing strange has ever happened in my room."

As we talked it over, it turned out that my daily habit of calling out into the empty room was a bad idea. Apparently, speaking to an empty room acts as a sort of spirit summoning. Naturally, this wouldn't affect most people, but for someone with spiritual sensitivity, it's a major taboo—a forbidden act. I had been completely unaware of it, but as it turned out, I possessed spiritual sensitivity myself.

"I've noticed for a while now, but you worry a lot about your apartment, don't you?" "Ah, yeah. I get super anxious about whether I locked the door or turned off the lights." "Sometimes that happens because ghosts are calling out to you."

According to my friend, while that kind of anxiety is normally a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder, in my case, spirits might be the underlying cause. In fact, these worries had only started recently, appearing suddenly out of nowhere. Spirits trying to draw me to their side were supposedly influencing me. Since I had wondered myself why I'd suddenly become so paranoid, her explanation made a strange kind of sense. But knowing the cause didn't make my actual anxiety go away. When I asked her what I should do about the fear I was feeling, she gave me a very clear answer.

"When it comes to protecting yourself... nothing beats muscle!"

She rolled up her sleeves and flexed, revealing arms so muscular I wondered if they could really belong to a woman. Since we both worked desk jobs and had nothing to do with exercise, I was all the more shocked. From then on, I started working out with her, and now I can bench press 90 pounds and squat 130. Building muscle turned out to be surprisingly fun; my anxiety faded, replaced by a boost in confidence. My daily life is full of energy now, reminding me just how important muscle really is.

At this point, it might not be a ghost possessing me—I might just be possessed by weightlifting...