The original intent of Motivation Monday was to help motivate me and you in terms of physical well-being, both diet and exercise. Since I began it, however, I have strayed from that original intent. Today, I’m announcing that I am … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Running
Do, or do not…a little less conversation, a little more action
Each Monday (or at least this was the plan back at the beginning of 2010) I write a post for a theme I call Motivation Monday, usually based off a quote from Dr. George Sheehan, especially from the book titled Dr. George Sheehan on Getting Fit & Feeling Great. The book includes three books: How To Feel Great 24 Hours A Day, Running and Being and This Running Life.
Today’s quote comes not from George Sheehan, but from George Lucas and once upon a time was a quote I tried to embody:
Do, or do not. There is no try.
Of course, the quote was spoken by Yoda to his young Jedi student, Luke Skywalker, in my favorite of the Star Wars series, The Empire Strikes Back.
For me, it’s not lifting a sunken Starfighter from the Dagobah swamps. For me, it’s just lifting one foot in front of the other.
Lately, it’s become a necessity for me not to try that, but just to do as we just took our one and only car to the salvage yard last week (more on that later in the week). Until we get another car, which might be as soon as later this week, thanks to the generosity of my parents, I am “forced” to walk to the library where I work. I also am walking everywhere else: to the senior center, where I volunteer, and also the Samaritan House, a single-guest hospice, also where I volunteer. On Tuesday night, I will be walking to a school board meeting that I will be covering for a newspaper for which I’m a correspondent. The meeting is held in a room at the high school, which is about a mile away.
However, I have decided, with rare exceptions, that even after we get another car, I am going to walk to places within town that are a mile or less from our house. That might not seem radical, but considering that I am taking on this challenge just before winter arrives here in northcentral Pennsylvania, it is a bit of one. The thing is, though, I’m tired of trying to get motivated. I just need to quit talking and thinking about getting motivated and just do it.
Posted in Body, Motivation Monday, Running
Tagged do or do not, Empire Strikes Back, motivation, Running, walking, Yoda
I don’t see Jupiter rising
Each Monday (or at least this was the plan back at the beginning of 2010) I write a post for a theme I call Motivation Monday, usually based off a quote from Dr. George Sheehan, especially from the book titled Dr. George Sheehan on Getting Fit & Feeling Great. The book includes three books: How To Feel Great 24 Hours A Day, Running and Being and This Running Life.
So today’s Motivation Monday post is a companion piece to my alter ego’s post that was put up earlier today called The worst part of waking up in which Unfinished Rambler wrote about his father’s addiction to coffee. It got me thinking about what gets us motivated, in the morning, afternoon or evening. For some of us, it might be coffee; for others, trying to lose weight and maybe for others, stress and trying to relieve it.
Lately, and by lately, I mean, the last six months to a year, not much has motivated me to get out the door morning, afternoon or evening. Tonight, though, I was motivated by a friend’s message on Facebook in which he talked about seeing Jupiter rising (see end of article) — even though, according to linked article, I was a few days late anyway. He suggested that I walk up to a park nearby where I live so I could see the night sky since I couldn’t see Jupiter from my backyard because of trees in our neighbors’ yards and couldn’t see it from the front of the house either because of streetlights. So I did and couldn’t see anything up there either.
Of course, after all this, he told me that
Btw – you waited too long. Gotta catch it when it 1st rises.
Well, thanks, Jeff, for that information, after the fact, but thank you for at least getting me out the door.
Speaking of Jupiter rising, I was reminded of this song:
So what motivates you morning, afternoon or evening to exercise?
Posted in Body, Motivation Monday
Tagged Coffee, motivation, Motivation Monday, Running
Pausing before I reverse direction again
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us…
Hebrews 12:1
When runners reach the turning point on a racecourse, they have to pause briefly before they can go back in the opposite direction. So also when we wish to reverse the direction of our lives there must be a pause, or a death, to mark the end of one life and the beginning of another.
From the book On The Holy Spirit by Saint Basil, bishop
In today’s Scripture and reading in The Office of the Readings in The Liturgy of the Hours, these two sections spoke to me once again on the subject of running and life as it did when I wrote on these two sections last year.
In fact, what I said in that post then:
As a runner, I have not been persevering in running the race that lies before me. In fact, I haven’t been even running and barely walking. I’ve been ignoring that first part: “let us rid ourselves of every burden…” My burden: being a night owl and not getting up early in the morning to run. I get addicted to Facebook and Twitter, which I gave up for Lent, but then substitute them with another application called blip.fm (I will not provide the link lest you get trapped too, I say half-jokingly) and am up until all hours of the night…
still applies now, to some degree. Even though I didn’t give up Facebook and Twitter for Lent this year, I still am burdened by my proclivity toward being a night owl and letting myself get distracted by games on Facebook. I’ve just traded Mafia Wars for Bejeweled Blitz and still surf on blip, to no end.
So two seconds ago, I just deleted my blip account, and as of this moment, I also have removed the Bejeweled Blitz application and another game, which I just have started to play. Last week, I wrote about Increasing The Time I Am Living My Own Life and mentioned a couple of quotes from the late George Sheehan in that regards, including this:
“We cannot add a new activity to our life without taking something else out.”
He also went on to explain that it isn’t easy to decide what is to be thrown out, because often we have to decide between good things, not good and bad. Such is the case here. It’s not as I’ve mentioned in the past that I think Facebook games (or applications like blip for that matter) are intrinsically evil. It’s that I need to make room for running, for writing (both for myself personally and also for my job as a freelance writer) and for reading.
I will end this post as I ended last year’s post:
At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it. So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed.
Hebrews 12:11-13
It’s time to pause, then keep on moving and keep the faith.
