My bike trainer is set-up in the basement of my house. My house is a 120+ year old Victorian farmhouse in New England, which means that the basement is a scary, scary place. It's totally unfinished, with rocky walls, exposed beams and pipes, and lots and lots of spiderwebs. In other words, it's the perfect place to gut out bike trainer workouts. My bike is set-up somewhat in the middle of the basement, next to the furnace (because you really should sweat 4x your body weight when doing Spinervals workouts to do them right), with a TV/DVD in front of it. Off slightly to the left, is our downstairs spare refrigerator, and on that fridge I have a bunch of inspirational cards, magnets and pictures posted. You know, those square cards that Whole Foods carries with the feel good quotes on them? I collect the ones that may be inspirational when Troy is asking for the impossible 2.5 hours into a brutal workout. For example, I've got Eleanore Roosevelt's "Never never never give up" card. "Leap, and the net will appear." "When you are going through hell, keep going." That kind of thing. It does wonders for my psyche - I eat this stuff up.
My current favorite is from Mary Anne Radmacher. I don't know anything about Mary. I don't have a great literary background, and am embarrassed to admit that most of my free time reading is either triathlon books or magazines or trashy chick lit. So maybe Mary is famous - I'll have to look into that.
Anyway, the bit of genius that I love about Mary is the following:
live with intention.
walk to the edge.
listen hard.
practice wellness.
play with abandon.
laugh.
choose with no regret.
continue to learn.
appreciate your friends.
do what you love.
live as if this is all there is.
Nothing mindblowing, when you think about it. It's really just common sense. But ..... then again, how often do you really stick to these prinicples, if you'd like to call them that? At times it's really easy to just go through the motions day after day. You get up, you get your workout in, you get the kids ready for school, you go to work. You come home, make dinner, help the kids with their homework, clean up the house a bit, maybe squeeze in a few minutes on the computer before bed, then you hit the sack. Repeat. And repeat again. Over, and over, and over. You get numb to it all, and don't really see, feel, hear, experience.
But if you remember that last one, especially, that's such a shame. Live as if this is all there is. Oh My GOD!!!!! Going through the motions, not pushing to the limits as often as you can, not doing what you love. That's just CRIMINAL.
So I'm going to do my best to live as if this is all there is. Because, well, this IS all there is. I'm not going to waste it.
What about you?
4 comments:
You should see MY basement!
When you take it apart and deconstruct it, I really like it. "Live as if this is all there is", meaning no wasting time? No doing stupid stuff when you could be doing something worthwhile? I like it!
I also like the one about "Appreciate your friends..." (the second half of that sentence being, "when they get up at 5:00 in the morning when they don't have to just to run on YOUR schedule).
Yes, lots of goodies in there, especially that "appreciate your friends" one. Only REAL friends would get up at 5:00am to do something silly like run, when they don't otherwise have to. And I do so appreciate those friends! :)
okay, I know I'm such a buzz kill here, but I always think, man, if I just went for it-- lived as if this is all there is--made decisions with no regret--would I end up really fucking up?
Do you know what I mean? It's good in theory, but there are so many consequences to the way we need//choose to live--consequences that may involve just ourselves, but maybe also affect our little bambinos and spouses?
yeah, it's one of those days for me. :)
Mary, I hear ya. But I don't think this necessarily means to live with reckless abandon. Sure, you could interpret it to mean "go have sex with every hot guy you happen to meet on the street" if you wanted to, but it could also mean don't take things for granted. Don't waste your life doing things you hate. Don't put off doing something you really want to do, thinking "I'll get to it later." I am interpreting it as the latter, as there are greater consequences to my personal decisions, as you mention.
I guess I see it more as ... don't live in a fog. This is IT. So make the most of it, as much as you possibly can.
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