Sunday, September 11, 2011

Perseverance


It is inspiring and satisfying to go through the long transition of doing something you do not want to do, to doing it because you know you should, to doing it because it is the right thing and finally to doing it because you want to do so.

The more I talk to people, the more surprised I am to learn of how there are so many others who seem happy and average, but have gone through some incredible hardship or still deal daily with challenging and debilitation health issues.

I remember when my health and medication problems were at their worst, going through almost a year of barely wanting to be alive, let alone get out of bed and go to work. But I did. Even when I thought it would never get better. But it did.

And on this weekend, the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it is easy to be reminded how many have suffered personal tragedy and loss that most of us cannot even imagine. But they persevere.

But there is a difference between barely dragging yourself through life, day after day, and striving to be the best person you can be.

I have gotten a lot of mixed responses to trying to get fit this year, with plenty of encouragement and plenty of discouragement and criticism. Which makes no difference to me.

Today is Day 1 of the 2nd month of my 2nd time through P90X, which means I have only done it for a total of 4 months worth of days. But over those 4 months, I lost 15 pounds and 4 pants sizes.

But it was 4 months of hard work. How many commercials convince people they can get in shape with some contraption they simply sit in or kneel on and rock back and forth?

"Lose pounds! Get rock hard abs! While sitting on your ass!"

And I am pretty sure every single house in America has a guitar. And 90% sit in a closet or corner with an inch of dust on them.

Because people learned that getting good at it required working hard at it. And that wasn't fun.

You can't get in shape or become good at the guitar in "minutes a day". Nothing good is ever accomplished that way.

No great painting, no great song, no great building, took less than years and years of hard work. Which is good. Otherwise it would not be very valuable.

It is not amazing what we as human beings can accomplish when we have to.

What is truly amazing is what we can create, what we can do and who we can be when we do the hard things we don't have to.