Perpetual Becoming
Paying Attention to the ProcessArchive for September, 2010
A Short Story About Failure
I deal very poorly with failure. I avoid it like crazy, and I like to tell myself it’s not in my nature to ever do so. I work hard. I’m a winner. I failed today.
Today was a big day, pretty normal in many regards, but it was a personal make or break. On this first day of my 28th year, I broke. You see, I’ve been planning on running the Chicago Marathon (on 10.10.10 no less). I had a great training season, ran a really strong half marathon in August, and have been training well ahead of last season. Then it hit. I knew it was coming, but I acted like it wouldn’t matter – these two huge trips on my calendar that I’d been ignoring.
First, vacation. And oh let me tell you, it was fantastic. But its funny you see how the maintenance runs I was going to do quickly gave way to 4 hour dinners that went to 12 or 1 AM and mornings spent at the café sipping espresso – while my running shoes stayed in the suitcase. A small set-back, surely I can bounce back right? And I did. I spent the next 2 weeks getting back in the rhythm, doing my runs, feeling good.
Then the other shoe dropped. A trip to Africa for business. It was awesome, I am so privileged to work with this client and the world-changing stuff they do every day. It was also 12 days. A few short runs happened, but the fat lady was starting to sing. The bus driver was warming up the bus in the parking lot. Read the rest of this entry »
Awake My Soul
If you know me well (and since that’s about the only people that might ever read this I bet you do), then you know I’m a fairly passionate guy. I like to joke with my wife that even though I have an uncanny resemblance to my German and Irish parents I must be Italian in spirit (a fact recently confirmed as she read me passages from Eat, Pray, Love – go ahead and revoke my man-card). I can cry at the drop of a hat, get mad just about as easy, and can’t understand anyone who isn’t passionate about food. Some of my friends like to laugh at the all-in-or-not-at-all way that I tend to go about things.
A recent vacation allowed me to step back and realize parts of this passion had grown weak, some even dormant. I’m sure there are a variety of reasons why, like self-neglect, working too much (and no, that’s not backhanded bragging but a confession), and even neglect of others. It’s almost like there have been parts of my soul that have become asleep, atrophying from their dusty place on the proverbial shelf.
It has manifested itself in different ways. I don’t make music like I used to. I hadn’t read a book for fun in months until last week. I quit forcing myself to process and write for something other than work – the result being complete radio silence on this blog. More than anything I think I had been living without really living for a while without realizing it.
Here’s a song that won’t leave me alone. It says it better than I’m trying to, and has me thinking about where I invest my love. Hope it touches you too. By the way, feeling more awake lately, and I think this is a good thing.
