My friend Meg said something yesterday about their Appalachian Trail journey that I thought about all day long. Her and Celia's journey has been one few people - if any - have tried to do quite the way they are doing it.
There is no history to replicate. There are no plans; the journey is so ripe with variables how could there be? Meg said, "There isn't any science behind our goal. We're just figuring it out as we go." I could actually picture the 'oh well - that's just how we roll' expression on her face when she said it. I thought about that yesterday - how maybe the biggest gift these two women have as they tackle an unimaginable-to-me feat is how much they DO NOT NEED THE ANSWERS before they run head first into each new mile. In fact, not only do they not need them, they actually thrive on having more questions than answers. How many of us rob ourselves of the fuel for life while we are waiting on the answers we think we need to fully tackle it? How many of us rob ourselves of a life we can love because we are anxiously pressing for answers instead of embracing the beauty in the questions? How many of us do not see the endless possibilities and hope in "we just figure it out as we go." I was messaging a friend yesterday. We had a plan in place that was full of questions - including a lot of me questioning myself. So I messaged that I was going to back out of the plan. The phone immediately rang and my friend basically said, you don't get to back out just because you don't have the answers. Part of life is showing up to discover the answers. The beauty of that exchange? Oh, was I figuring it out as I went. I think sometimes life tries to present itself as a challenge to see who can come up with all the answers first. This morning, I'm wondering if the people who love life most might not be the people who go all in on embracing the questions. When your attitude about life is "I'll figure it out as I go" - well you never have an excuse to not go. Answers can be intimidating. They can convince us we can't live without them. Questions - they are an open invitation. They are constantly inviting us to experience life up ahead. So do go ahead, go ahead and figure it out as you go.
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When it comes to emotions, we have a lot of them. I've learned the last few years that we have to decide which ones we're going to pay attention to - which ones we're going to let shape the direction of our lives.
I love what Dr. Caroline Leaf says here, "if it's not going to matter in 5 years, don't spend more than 5 minutes getting upset about it." Too often, I've let things make me sad or angry or frustrated because those things feel like they are life changers. I mean, if I am not careful, everything can start to feel like a life changer. And not everything is. When I do presentations, I frequently say we're not very good at relationships. I believe that. I think that's because we spend a lot of time getting caught up in things that aren't going to matter in 5 years. Things that steal the spotlight - and the emotions - from things that could be used to build on the things in a relationship that WILL matter in 5 years. I think we've become so good at over-processing the things on the surface of life that we forget there are much more meaningful things in the depth of life. We spend a lot of time getting worked up over the things each other think, and not near enough time getting to the heart of what each other truly feel. We spend a lot of time DEALING with each other at the expense of not getting to KNOW one another. I feel like I'm walking through a world, some days, that is fogged over with emotions over things that will not matter in 5 years. I keep waiting for the fog to clear. I keep waiting for it to clear so we can all sit down and talk about the things that will always matter. Loving one another better. Taking better care of those who need taken better care of. Bringing companionship to those lost in loneliness. How do we lift the fog of temporary emotions to reach people lost inside perpetual hurt? I think it starts by stopping and asking ourselves a little more frequently - will this emotion matter in 5 years? If the answer is no - give it its 5 minutes and move on. Move on to things that will matter in 5 years. Let go of the things that will have no long term meaning in your life whatsoever and find a way to invest in the things that will. Because there are a lot of things out there that WILL matter in 5 years. I think we've just lost sight of them wrestling with the things that won't. It was my first ultra race - September 2018 - the 35-mile Georgia Jewel. I was halfway through. The heat had zapped me. I couldn't take another step.
I quit. I had hit an obstacle I just couldn't get around. Only, a couple of hours later, I realized I'd hit a speed bump - not an obstacle. Speed bumps slow you down, make you pause and tread lightly as you go forward. Obstacles stop you. Seth Godin suggests the difference in the two is often what we decide they are. I remember sitting in a tent after I'd quit. I was waiting for someone to take me back to the starting line. Franklin, one of the race directors, stopped by the tent. He said, rest up a bit, you've got all day - rest up and get back out there. The reality is, by the time he said those words, I COULD HAVE gone back out there. I was rested. But in my mind, I'd already decided I'd hit an obstacle and not a speed bump. I didn't want to go back out there. In the moment, quitting sounded so much better than going. I'm glad I have that haunting memory. Because it does STILL haunt me. Even after I went back and finally got that race done last year, quitting that 2018 race the way I did will always eat at me. Knowing I could have kept going and didn't - knowing that I had a path forward in life that I turned my back on - well, you don't forget those opportunities so easily. Some you never forget. Some memories like that I think are supposed to haunt us. There are some memories that are planted in us as guides more than reflections. They are ugly and stinging reminders not to become our own worst enemies in our search for fulfillment. Because when we start deciding speed bumps are really obstacles, we ARE our own worst enemies. It's Monday. There is something in your life you want this week. You've decided - oh, it's mine. I'm going after it. Nothing is going to stop me. Only, something WILL try to stop you. With anything worth having, something WILL step up and ask you, how bad do you want it? And that something, it will be a speed bump or an obstacle. It will be "get out of my way" or "I'm done." The beauty is, more often than we think, we get to decide which it is. I encourage you this week, when you get to those moments when it looks like it's all about to de-rail - stop - ask yourself - is this a speed bump or an obstacle. And then you decide - it's a speed bump. You decide - oh, it's mine..... Bob Goff once said, "everyone's got an opinion; be an example."
Living in a social media world, I think if the world has a surplus of anything, it's opinions. Never in our lives has it been easier to share an opinion. Never in our lives has it been easier to be overwhelmed by opinions. Never in our lives has it been easier to have our blood pressure sky-rocketed by opinions. Of course, all of that is just my opinion. Being a dad has taught me one thing about opinions. In the grand scheme of things, the opinions of a dad really don't matter when they are stacked up against the example of a dad. If you are the right example, your opinions aren't necessary. And if you aren't a good example, well your opinions become nothing more than toxic hot air. I've had to face that truth in challenging ways. I spent a lot of my dad life giving my boys opinions on love and relationships, all the while I wasn't living out the greatest example of either. It may be the most startling wake up call you can receive, waking up one day and realizing it's ultimately your example they'll follow and not your opinions. You realize opinions are far easier to dish out than examples. You can keep dishing out opinions all your life without ever having to make a change. But being a better example - being an influence on your kids - on people in general - well sometimes that requires making earth-shattering changes. That's why I scroll by most opinons on social media. They don't require any work. The stories that draw me in - the stories I stop and read every time - well those are the stories of people making earth-shattering changes in their lives because they're tired of their opinions being in opposition with their example. They're tired of throwing opinions into a world that needs far fewer opinions and far more examples. Opinions are easy. I can literally type one here and get up and go about my day and have no responsibility to it whatsoever. But an example, well you're obligated to that sucker all day long. Because all day long people are watching how you live out a subject far closer than they're listening to what you think about one. The world will always have plenty of opinions. They aren't without value. But nothing is more valuable than a good example. And sometimes, being a good example is the hardest choice to make. I've lived long enough to know that a lot of the things I thought would make me happy when I got them - they didn't. The 'when' in "I'll be happy when" has come and gone in my life more times than I can count - and more times than I can count - 'when' forgot to leave behind the happiness.
I've experienced this a lot in my professional life. So many times I thought happiness was in the bump - in the bump in responsibility and the bump in notoriety and in the bump in pay. And so many times, after the bump, life was less happy than ever. I've figured out - that's because happy doesn't come from what the world pours into us, it comes on the other side of the goodness we pour into the world. When we realize that, we quit waiting on happiness and start pouring out goodness. Six years ago, I interviewed for a part-time job at a local college helping students make healthy decisions around alcohol and drugs. In the interview, I told the director the job wasn't about the money for me, it was a mission. I told him I'd had my own battles over the years with alcohol - this job was a chance for me to give back. I was making it clear up front - for him AND for me - happiness in this job wasn't about the paycheck, happiness was about having the freedom to pour my story into the students' lives. Six years later I'm still doing that job. More days than not I'm happy doing it. And more days than not - when I'm NOT happy - it's because I've forgotten the job is about pouring out goodness and not about waiting on it to come through with happiness. I would say the same about my writing. I used to think writing would make me happy when I'd have a chance to quit my jobs and sit on a cabin porch in Montana and spend my days leisurely writing. And because I couldn't do that, writing was often a source of my unhappiness. Then I just started writing every day. My intention with the writing isn't to be happy, it's to write goodness into the world. I quit waiting on writing to make me happy and started using it to pour goodness. And you know what's happened? As I sit here writing this morning, writing is one of my primary sources of happiness. Today, if you find yourself mapping out 'when' it is you'll be happy - mapping out what those circumstances will look like - take it from someone who has been there and done 'when' - there's a really good chance that 'when' isn't going to make you happy. Today, if you find yourself feeling frustrated that the things you know you need to have fall in place for you to be happy just haven't fallen in to place yet - take a break from that. Take a break and pour some goodness into the world. You might discover happiness doesn't come 'when' - it can actually come right now. Yesterday morning, I got up and I did what I always do when I first get out of bed: I went to the bathroom, splashed water on my face, and then stood on the scale.
I was standing there, my weary eyes looking down, when the digital number lit up. And when it did, an overwhelming disappointment swept over me. Maybe a fear of sorts. I was staring at a number that was larger than I'd seen in some time. I made my coffee and sat down. I thought about that number for a minute. Then I pulled out a little day planner, and for the first time in a long time, I wrote the number down. I wrote it down big and bold with a sharpee so I could see it. I wrote it down to signify - this would be the day I'd make some changes. I committed to eat differently today. I committed to run not once, but twice today. I was on the treadmill for my second run. I was listening to Rangon Chaterjee interview Gabor Mate'. Chaterjee casually mentioned how he loves the work he gets to do helping people make lifestyle changes. I was watching this interview on YouTube - and I'm glad I was - because I don't think I'll ever forget the look on Mate's face when he heard the word 'lifestyle'. It was if he'd just heard the most vulgar and distasteful word he'd ever heard. He clearly knew his role there. He was the guest. So he had to quickly figure out how to process the distastefulness of it all. When he finally spoke, he gently said, I'd like to suggest we be careful with the language we use when we're trying to help people. He said, most people don't need to change their lifestyles; they need to change their lives. Lifestyles, he went on to explain, are always a reflection of the life. If you want to change the style of your life, you first need to change your life. Many lifestyles are adopted to hide the pain people feel, he said. Wow. Boom. Did you hear the explosion that went off in my mind? The echoes are still out there if you listen closely. The number on the scale had nothing to do with how I was eating, or how many miles I was putting in. That number was a reflection of me. It was the story of my life, not a story of what my life ate for dinner last night. I thought about it on the treadmill, how much of my life I've adopted lifestyle changes to avoid dealing with changes in my life. There has been: I need to give up alcohol, eat more plants, run more, go to church more often, watch less trash on television, and so on. Lord, are there a lot of so on's.... There have been dozens of reinventions of my outsides that have failed to even scratch the surface of what I have going on inside. There have been dozens of new styles of me I've presented to others while the same old me keeps showing up for me. I have been slowly but surely figuring this out the last few years. The bomb Mate' set off yesterday wasn't a grand revelation. For me, language has always been huge. So to hear the exact right words put out there for me to grab hold of and use to tackle my life with - that was a bomb of a gift. It was a gift to be reminded that the right thing to consider yesterday in the wake of the number wasn't what was going on outside me - food and miles - it was what is going on inside me. It was a gift to be reminded I'm not working on making better lifestyle choices, I'm working on making a better me. I'm not working on building a me that is pleasant for the world to see, I'm working on building a me that is pleasant for me to be. This world is built on encouraging us to adopt one lifestyle or another. Our commerce is built on it. Let me encourage you to adopt something completey free. Adopt the you that you want to be. The you that you know you are meant to be. Your lifestlye will follow suit. My friend Beth Royal bought a tiny little teardrop camper. She's been fixing it up, preparing it for its maiden camping voyage. She will admit that this purchase and the process of getting it ready for adventure has taken her a bit out of her comfort zone. Yet, like she does with all things in life, she has found beauty in the journey.
Beth wrote yesterday, "in the preparation, in the readying, in the planning, there is an excitement that is a rich part of living... Along the way, on the road to the big, great, epic things - are all the little great moments that line up and make a life good." I read what she wrote yesterday morning and thought about it all day. I thought about how easy it is to miss the 'rich part of living' when our eyes are focused on the end of the journey. Beth suggested we miss the rich parts because we don't take the chance to celebrate anticipation. She said, "anticipation sometimes looks like a lot of work. It's disguised as something that could be seen as a bother." Chances are, if something looks like work, we aren't going to celebrate it. Running has taught me that. I sign up for races months in advance. They become the epic event I'm pointing to at the end of a journey. The training runs I do on the way to that event - well they can be seen one of two ways. They can be seen as a bother, a necessary evil I need to put myself through to perform my best at the epic event. Or, they can be seen as beautiful steps to celebrate on the way there. In running, there are literally hundreds of thousands of steps to celebrate on the way to the big event, or an equal number of opportunities to wish those steps away in favor of just getting to that starting line. I think of my faith the same way. I believe in heaven. I believe at the end of this life journey, there is an eternal paradise. But I don't believe for a second that God wants me ignoring the chance to experience and create a paradise in THIS life while I cling to the promise of something epic in some next life. In fact, it's my belief, that if we don't get good at finding joy in the anticipation in this life, we may not be very good at joy in the next one. The truth is, ALL of life IS anticipation. If you're breathing right now, you are in a state of preparing for something that is next. As long as you are alive, there is ALWAYS a next. The question is, are you missing the chance to celebrate that anticipation because it looks too much like work? Or are you celebrating every step, recognizing that these little steps on the way to something big IS where the excitement is? Anticipation IS the richest part of living. Today, you are on your way to something. Stop for a moment - forget the something - celebrate the way. That is anticipation. I was mindlessly scrolling Facebook last night when I saw these words a friend shared from The Female Hustlers FB page:
"To all the doors that closed on me: I'm coming back to buy the building." I commented to her - those words just fired me up. I think it's because we all love a good comeback story. Whether it's in the movies or your team makes a second half comeback or a sick friend or family member experiences a miraculous recovery. We all love a good comeback. There are three different races I've run that I started and failed to finish. After each one of those failures, I've said I'm coming back. Some of them it was a year later, a couple of them a few years later, but eventually I did go back and finish what I'd started at all of them. I'm convinced I felt more fulfilled at the finish lines of those comeback races than I would have felt had I finished the original attempts. I think it's because I knew I didn't HAVE to go back. I knew I had a choice on the other side of those failures. I had the choice to be a move on story or a comeback story. My friend's post last night was a timely reminder that on the other side of a closed door - on the other side of a setback or a failure or a lost opportunity - we get to choose the story. We get to decide if we are going to walk away from that closed door, or if we're going to write a comeback story. I think the reason we all get goosebumps and maybe tears in our eyes when we watch a good comeback story reach its exciting comeback finish - is we are all one way or another trying to make our own comeback. Whether we are trying to make a comeback from a race or from a lost job opportunity or from a failed relationship or from our childhoods - we are all dreaming of our own comebacks. When I read these words last night: "I'm coming back" - I was reminded just how powerful it is to say those words out loud. It's Monday. It's the perfect day to decide you're coming back. What door has closed on you in life? What have you decided to do about that? If it's a door that's important to you, don't settle for getting another chance to open the door - decide you're going back and buying the building. Decide yours is not a moving on story, but a two thumbs up comeback story. Because we ALL love a comeback story. Especially when it's our own. I've believed in God for as long as I can remember. Belief in God is to 'feel sure about the truth' of God.
I'm not as sure about my faith in God. Faith in God is having 'complete trust or confidence' in God. I found myself wondering if that makes much difference to God. Does he care if I don't completely trust him as long as I know he is God? In my wondering, I asked myself if it would make any difference to me. Would it make a difference to me if my two boys believed I was their dad, but they didn't have complete trust or confidence I would be there for them in the ways I've said I'll be there for them? The answer is yes. In fact, being their dad would mean nothing to me if they were sure I was their dad but unsure if I'd be there for them when they needed me. I'd feel like my integrity was being challenged. It's made me not take so lightly the challenges in my life I try to take on without leaning on God. It's made me not take so lightly the days I find myself wondering if this is all going to turn out OK. It's made me not take so lightly the fact that God has shown up in every dark place in my life with light, and I have no reason to doubt that he will do it again. It's made me stop saying I have questionable faith and start saying God feels like I'm questioning him - and as a father of children myself, I don't think that's a great feeling for God. As I was walking through the woods yesterday, the trees and the rocks and the wildlife reminded me - I have always believed those were God. I have never doubted that. Walking through those same woods, I spent some time reflecting on the wilderness periods in my life. And how if I just spend a little time thinking about them, I can be equally sure God has always been there too. Because he has. When I realize that, I know I don't have reason to challenge God's integrity. I know I have every reason to believe this is going to be OK. I was riding in the car with my 12 year old Ian yesterday. The boy was rambling on and on about this, that and the other. At one point, I remember thinking, this boy really doesn't care what he says. If he thinks it he's going to say it. And if it involves any doing, you can be sure he's going to DO it.
Ian is a happy kid. Maybe the happiest I personally know. I told my buddy Solomon at one of our Olive Garden chats early in the year, this is the year I work on being more authentic. Looking back, I think what I was really saying was, I'm tired of the things I think and the things I say and the things I do not always matching up. It's exhausting. And really - it's generally a really unhappy place to live. I think about Ian - and a lot of kids really - and how they are often seemingly more happy than adults. I wonder if it's because they aren't running around in life burdened by the wrestling match that happens when the things we think and say and do don't agree with one another. Ian hasn't reached a point in life where he feels a need to conform to any societal ideas of what Ian should be - he just runs around freely being Ian. Ian's never been harshly punished in his life, so he has never decided it's easier to just lie about what he's doing than being an open book. Ian has always had someone wanting to hear what he's thinking, without control and without criticism, so he just goes right on thinking out loud. I mean, the reality is, for the most part - Ian hasn't discovered a down side to being Ian. What a gift, right - when we don't believe there's any down side to being who we are? I'm afraid too often, as we grow from kids to adults, we start to imagine there's a down side to being who we are. So we start living as someone we're not to prop up that down side. We start saying things that line up with what the world is thinking and not what we are thinking. We start doing things that are popular with the world but unpopular with the conscience we go to bed with at night. We present the world with someone who is likable so we don't let them in on our biggest secret - the reality that we don't much like ourselves. We start believing we'll be happier living as someone we feel pressured to be and not who we were created to be. I think that's why, more and more, I come here in the mornings and tell you what I'm thinking. Most days I am telling you who I am, but there are days, I suppose, when I'm telling you who I really want to be. There are days, I'm sure, that the wrestling match between what I think and say and do is happening right here - in real time - for all of you to read. And I'm OK with that. I have to be if I'm ever going to find true happiness. I have to be if I ever want everything I think and say and do to be the same thing. |
Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
May 2024
CategoriesAll Faith Fatherhood Life Mental Health Perserverance Running |