Don't Like It? Get Better.

Week 2: Raison d'etre

Welcome back to Week 2!

And thanks to all the new folks who joined since last week! You rock! Actually, you all rock!

That is quite enough exclamation points for now.

So here we go!

Philosophical Dad Stuff

I always said that the smartest thing I’ve ever done is say hello to the pretty girl in the Ohio State sweater in a parking garage in Washington, DC that one night (still true and not as creepy as it sounds).

When I told her of my new insane dream to run up some mountains in France doing the UTMB, she didn’t laugh in my face. No, instead she one-upped me.

She said that sounded like an interesting adventure, wished me luck and then said great, “We’ll take the kids, work remote if we can, and go live in France for half the summer. You can get acclimated to the altitude, I’ll drink the French wine, the kids will love it, everyone can come visit, it’ll be great.”

When I picked my jaw up off the floor, there was newfound purpose in everything I considered about this journey. I have no illusions about the difficulty of qualifying for such an event, and the process of doing so requires a powerful “WHY”.

And just like that a new worthy life goal was unlocked.

LFG

Leadership

It was a “slap-across-the-face” kind of email that really shook me out of my funk.

Last week, I got one of those, and it didn’t make me feel good. It did make me mad however.

The right kind of mad.

The kind of mad that makes you step back and look at what you’re doing objectively.

Voltaire once wrote that, “We are free the moment we wish to be”. Like Stoicism, a great deal of French Enlightenment thought can still be broadly applied to our modern lives.

After my initial frustration subsided, it struck me why I’d been putting off getting started with the next round of creative goals. I’d been putting it off because I’d been telling myself I was putting my time and energy and emotions into work and solving problems there.

While there’s nothing at all wrong with this, I now realize it was an excuse.

Because there are always going to be the nastygram emails.

The difference is in what we do about them.

Couch to Ultra-marathon

After getting back in shape a few years ago, I’d once again begun to take it for granted. I suffered running once or twice a week. I told myself silly aphorisms for the motivation to finish a half hour of self-loathing cardio.

Then a month ago, YouTube changed everything by bringing dreams of UTMB into my life.

And I was reminded of the importance of goals.

Because it dawned on me that I’d need to be capable of running 106 miles (170km) in the mountains if I truly wanted to make this happen.

All of a sudden that leisurely jaunt around the neighborhood took on new importance. It was no longer something to get over with or some box to check. It was training.

Complete and sudden attitude shift. I started thinking about hydration, nutrition, and how to cram anywhere from 6-20 hours of running into my weekly schedule. I started listening to podcasts and reading books, articles, and blogs on ultrarunning.

I started looking forward to the long run again.

The ones where you have the time to really sort through your problems and troubles of the day.

We often don’t take the time to think things out these days. Those long runs give me the chance to figure out the tough questions. After all, if you don’t have the answers to your problems after a 2-hour run, you’re not getting them.

In closing, all this new thought and action reminds me of a Carl Jung quote.

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

Live triumphantly. See you next week.