Musings

I admit, there is a problem that has haunted me my entire life. Well, ok, a few. But one in particular has been on my mind of late. I have always wanted to push myself, usually too hard, too fast, too much. When I was a kid and our driveway would be covered with snow, I’d drive my parents nuts because I’d always go grab for the biggest shovel we had. In school I wanted to get straight As, then I wanted to be valedictorian (mostly succeeded on the former, not on the latter).

My latest adventure, which you may have heard or read about if you hang around me much, is that I wanted to try to do a marathon. Twenty-six miles. I knew my time would stink. I knew it would probably be mostly walking, but I wanted to see if I could start at the starting line and end at the finish line while remaining alive. Bear in mind, I’ve never been an athlete before. I’ve been training since January, rather aggressively. Even as it became apparent that a half-marathon would still be a heckuva challenge, I kept working at it.

A few weeks ago, I started waking up with this pain in the arch of my left foot. It went away after a few minutes, so I didn’t think much about it. Then last week it didn’t go away all day, and by this weekend I could barely walk on my foot. I’m still limping around. The common response to this predicament has been almost unanimous. I pushed myself too hard. Trying to go from 0 to 26 in nine months is ridiculous. Had I done it, it would have been miraculous, of course. But having tried it, I have now taken many steps backwards.

Kind of silly, right? But I think we all do this in one way or another. Are you working 17 hours a day and sleeping 2 hours a day so that you can build your business? Are you trying to write a book in 3 months, sacrificing what used to be your exercise time or your relaxation time? Are you trying to get all of your speaking engagements done by such and such a date so you can do something else?

I bet you are. And my left foot would like to tell you that this is most decidedly not a good idea. Eventually, it catches up with you. It might not always be something as relatively benign as plantar fasciitis either. Check out this story from Tinu Abayomi-Paul, which I found thanks to Shelly Kramer and Allen Mireles. She pushed herself too hard and ended up with a serious case of pneumonia that landed her in the ICU.

You don’t want that, I’m fairly certain.

We all need to slow down and look at the big picture. Today, my advice is for myself as much as it is for you. Embrace the day, don’t race the day.

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One thing that Jamie Sams teaches (and I think a lot of other philosophers teach this as well) is that during our own particular journeys in life, we meet people as we’re supposed to meet them – as we need their help. They might not have any idea that they are helping us in that regard, and indeed, if the lesson we have to learn is unpleasant we might not think of it as very helpful either. But if you start thinking about it, we all seem to happen upon new friends or new enemies at just the right moment in life. Similarly, we weave in and out of other peoples’ lives to help them with their lessons. All we can do is hope that we serve everyone well. Since we don’t even know what it is we’re supposed to do, this can be a lot to live up to, but I think it’s possible.

Have I ever noticed that I met people when I was supposed to? Yes, actually. When I was going through the hardest time in my life, I was a bit loose-lipped about some of the health stuff I was enduring at the time. There was one friend in particular who I really felt deserved an explanation for my clearly crazy behavior, so I opted to write one of those confessional emails that you kind of wish you could pull back as soon as you hit send. A few hours later I checked my email and guess what? They had an almost identical issue. From that point until we sort of drifted away from each other, there was an unspoken undercurrent to our friendship. We didn’t have to talk about it or ask how the other was doing. It was just an understanding. At that time, when I felt quite isolated, that person helped fill a giant hole.

In the online world over just the last two years (how is that POSSIBLE?) I have met all kinds of people just at the right time. I learn from these people every day, it seems like, and I can only hope that I serve the same purpose for other people. I hope I can offer guidance by example like Gini Dietrich does for me. I hope I can offer good counsel like Sam Parrotto, Sherree Worrell,  and Jill Manty do. Folks like Geoff Livingston, Danny Brown, and Olivier Blanchard have shown me how to hold your own in the online world and be sure of yourself – most certainly needed that after my first year online. Ken Mueller , Jack Steiner and Bill Dorman have shown me how to mix great wisdom with great humor. Lily Zjac, Ellen Bremen, and Brian Vickery all helped me on my running journey just at the right time. And there are people who have taught me lessons the hard way too (oddly I’m not going to name them), but those lessons were valuable. Painful, but valuable. I might even say necessary.

I hope that I have come into your life at a good time if you read here regularly. I hope that you have met people who taught you happy lessons more often than you met people who taught you lessons the hard way. But I want you to give some thought to the people who are woven into your life. What lessons have they taught you? What might you have taught them?

It’s a good way to remember that we are all connected like puddles in a pond, for better or worse. What we do makes an impact. We can only choose to make that impact for good or for ill.

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Over this last weekend I watched the movie 50/50, starring Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I won’t give away too much about the film except to say that it can be a tear jerker, but the general idea is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been diagnosed with a cancer that has a 50/50 survival rating. The movie traces his struggle with that news along with how the people around him react.

The movie, however, just barely touched on a point that I think would have made a good movie into a truly great movie. See, the fact is, every day we all have a 50/50 chance of survival. We’ll either make it or we won’t. You might think that’s overstating it, but truly, life is that fragile and that unpredictable. You’ll either wake up or you won’t. You’ll be able to go to bed comfortably or you won’t. The same holds true for your friends, your family – every one you see.

Given that, we should be far more grateful when we wake up every day, don’t you think? And given that, we should be far more grateful when we crawl into bed. We made it through another day. We were lucky.

In the movie, Adam, the main character, contemplates things he’s never done. I’m thinking when we wake up, our first thoughts should be things we want to accomplish today, and it shouldn’t all be work or tasks. “I want to spend some time reading outside.” “I want to spend some time just lying on my back listening to the locusts and tree frogs and crickets that have all started their late summer songs.” And just before we go to sleep, I think we should take a step back and see what we can be grateful for, apart from the fact that we made it through another day. Does everyone we love know we love them? Have burnt bridges been rebuilt? Have we said something that needed to be said? Did we enjoy our lives, even if it was a poopy day?

Every day, our chances are 50/50. It’s like the comedians say – life is a sexually transmitted disease for which there is no cure. At some point, our roads will end. Isn’t it great that our roads haven’t ended yet? We have a whole day stretching out before us when we wake up. A day full of opportunities, time, chances, and who knows what else. And when we get ready to sleep, we can reflect on all of that and think, “Geeze, what a miracle.” We can do all of that, but I’m not sure we really do. I don’t, not enough.

Your chances are 50/50. What are you going to do about it?

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Over the last year or so especially, as Instagram has really taken off, I’ve noticed a phenomenon. Maybe you’ve seen it too. It goes something like this.

You’re scanning your Twitter or Facebook feed and you see an update like, “Out to dinner with my wonderful spouse to celebrate our anniversary.” And then there’s a picture. Then a few minutes later there’s another picture showing the appetizer they got. Then another picture pops up with the updater’s main course and that of their spouse. Then pictures of dessert.

To be honest, these kinds of things really make me sad. They really do. Because what it signifies is that the person who is doing all of that posting is really not focusing on that special person they’re with. Every time you see a tweet or a Facebook update with a picture, that’s a moment where that special someone is sitting there while the updater is looking at his or her phone. It means that the person doing those updates is thinking about the social network more than the person they’re with. If you’re out with a truly special person, I feel like these actions really must be hurtful to that person, especially if it’s an anniversary.

We all love to share these days, and I get that. But I make a conscientious effort to keep my phone buried in my purse when I’m out with someone. I have never (to the best of my knowledge) taken and posted a picture of food while I’ve been out with a friend or a family member. In fact, and you’re going to think this is really wacky, I sometimes go out to eat with a person and don’t even take a picture of us together. Why? Because when I’m out with a person (and I don’t want you all to take this the wrong way) I’m actually wanting to be WITH that person. I love you all but feel certain you can survive a brief absence on my part.

With all of that being said, I have an experiment I want you to try. Are you ready?

The next time you go out to eat with a friend or family member at a restaurant, I want you to keep your phone in your pocket or in your purse. In fact, if no one will likely need to reach you for an hour or so, leave the phone entirely at home. Don’t think about how good that martini would look with a tinted Instagram look to it. Don’t think about how awesome a time you’re having and how you should probably tell your 5,000 closest friends about it. Enjoy the person you’re with. Converse with them without interruption. Enjoy the food not as it looks on your phone, but rather how it tastes in your mouth. Go a whole meal without posting to your networks.

I suspect you will find that you enjoy yourself much more than usual.

If you do this experiment, come back and tell me how it went. Did you survive a whole meal without your phone? Was it fun? I’m looking forward to hearing about it!

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Back in the dark ages of the medical profession, it was believed that if you were sick, the best cure was to have leeches suck your blood. Somehow, the leeches, I guess, would know the infected blood and leave the good blood, and kaboom! You’d be better! This very seldom worked, of course, and today we think it’s kind of a preposterous idea. So far as physical ailments go, I’d have to agree. But when your heart is sick or hurt, sometimes bleeding is the only way it can heal.

Five years ago, a relative of mine died suddenly. Well, it was sudden for all they left behind. It turned out they had been fighting cancer for probably a year. Their death struggle was in fact prolonged and extremely painful – and very secret. This loss was a great blow, but I didn’t really want my heart to bleed, so I hardened it. I got angry at this person. Why did they not give us a chance to help? Why did they let me walk away from what turned out to be our last meeting? Why would they lie to everyone they cared about? I didn’t want to think about this relative of mine. When I spoke of them it was only bitter words that came out. Where they were concerned, my heart was scabbed over and infected.

That all changed on my birthday last year. This relative, for all of our differences, had always been sure to be the first to wish me a happy birthday. Through all of my years in college and grad school and beyond,  I’d get an email from them right around midnight as my birthday arrived. We’d go out for sushi and catch up. This wave of thought was quite different from what I had been letting myself experience. It poked the stab off. My heart bled, but afterwards, and ever since, I have been able to think of my relative with more fondness and love. My heart is on the mend where they are concerned.

We are very protective of our hearts, even when it’s just ourselves. When something bad happens we’d much rather get mad or just pretend it never occurred. Anything to avoid knocking that stab off our hearts. But if you keep building up scar tissue over that most mysterious organ, your heart will eventually become a stone. Even people who have nothing to do with your sadness will suffer at the feet of your walls.

As hard as it is, as uncomfortable as it is, if we want to heal, we have to bleed. We have to knock that scab off and really face what we’re trying so hard to run away from. We have to face it and say, “Man, I really hate this.” We have to be sad. We have to be upset. It’s messy. But it is the path to contentment. It is the path to understanding. And when you are through, you feel lighter and the world seems somehow to be just a bit brighter.

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Lately there’s been a video circulating of a man talking with his 12-year-old self. He had the foresight as a 12-year-old to make a video as if he was talking to a version of himself in the future, and the now 32-year-old picked up the thread. You can watch it here (and I recommend it!).

I didn’t have the foresight when I was 12 to make a video of myself talking to…myself. But I wish I could go back in time and talk to the 12-year-old me. I think I was in sixth grade when I was 12 – somewhere around there. It was my second year in the public school system, and my first year was awfully rocky. By rocky, I mean that my homeroom teacher had what I would call a nervous breakdown. She really enjoyed playing us the Titanic movie in reverse so that she could save all of the people. Yeah. I had a lot of health problems going on and I had really no self-confidence to speak of. It was a rough time.

When you’re 12, you feel like you’re *pretty* much grown up, or at least I recall feeling that way. Of course, I was scared to death of middle school, not to mention high school, but I felt that being old enough to be afraid of that stuff meant that I was mature. I didn’t know how young 12 was. Twelve felt old.

If I could go back and talk to Margie v. 12.0, I’d tell her to shift focus. I’d tell her that stressing about the health stuff is a waste of time. It doesn’t change anything. I’d tell her that yes, people WOULD continue to make fun of her, but she needs to realize, truly, that it’s about them, not about her. I’d tell her that she is a lot more capable than she thinks she is. But most of all, I’d tell her not to rush growing up. I’d tell her to play outside more. I’d tell her to be a kid. I’d tell her to listen to Grandpa when he’s telling his long and winding stories rather than going off and being bored till Mom is ready to go. I’d tell her to eat the sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving cuz as it turns out, I like them. I’d tell her to soak in all of that family time. I’d tell her how good she has it.

It’s important to reach out to the kid versions of ourselves now and then. Check in and say, “Hey, that was a rough time and you came through it!” Say, “That was a great time. You should have soaked it in more.” You know now how the story evolves. What advice do you wish you’d have known when you were a kid? When you were 12? You’re likely to find you can still use that advice now.

So what would you tell the 12-year-old you?

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