faster, higher, stronger: It always comes back to The Wonder Years

Monday, August 20, 2007

It always comes back to The Wonder Years

I love the old TV "The Wonder Years!" You guys remember that show with Fred Savage (as Kevin Arnold), Danica McKellar (as Winnie Cooper), and Josh Saviano (as Paul Pfieffer)? I think the reason I love The Wonder Years so much is because that show came out when Kevin Arnold started 6th grade...that was the same year I started 6th grade. Anyway, I feel like I kinda grew up with that show and it strikes a very real chord with me. I still try to watch the back-to-back episodes every week night on Ion Television from 10-11PM. I just finished watching it and so I'm feeling kinda sentimental tonight for this week's post.......

As much as I write in my posts about my determination to push myself and my desire to live a life full of passion...I never write about where that stuff came from. As tonight's 2nd episode came to close, a montage of past episodes came across the screen with that light acoustic guitar in the background and the narrator's voice talking about friends and family, time moving on, memories, and how all that stuff sticks with you. I thought I'd talk about that tonight.

Throughout the course of my life, I have been blessed with an unbelievably supportive network of family and friends. I never had someone telling me I wasn't good enough to do something, or that I what I wanted to do was impossible for me. I wrote a paper about it in college. I think I came across as arrogant, but my intent was to show that the environment in which I grew up was one of possibility, positivity, and willingness. It was that environment that made me feel like I could do anything.

I look at my entire family (who has been with me since the beginning) and I look at how it always supported me. When it comes to family, the support of my mom and dad go without saying, but my mom and grandpa coached my tee ball team, my grandma used to come and travel to many of my gymnastics meets...all my life, my family has told me that I am capable of doing the things I set out to do. I look at my school friends (I didn't really hang out with too many kids from Middletown but the few that I did were so important to me. I had guys I played sports with (Reed, Dice, OG, Blazi, Mupes, Matty G)were always so positive that they made me believe I could succeed all the time. I also hung out (mostly) with the girls (as I am sure many of you are NOT at all surprised). These girls (KT, Keri, Liz, Keefer, Whistler, Jen) were girls that made me feel very comfortable talking about what I wanted to do with my life, what I wanted to be, where I wanted to go, etc and they never laughed at what I told them! They, too, were always super supportive! Then there was my youth group friends (Jam, Court, E, T, Diadato, Bicker, Budge) and they made me feel like I had a place and friends that I could lean on and ask for help if needed. That was a HUGE confidence builder.

Ya see, I look back at the people I had around me, pushing me, enabling me, supporting me...and I know I would not be where I am (or the person I am) today without all of their love, support, and understanding. Growing up in that environment gave me the confidence to get through physical therapy after knee surgery, to go all the way to Florida for my college education, to teach in Baltimore, to leave teaching for Youth Ministry, to turn down a full-time teaching position to follow an opportunity to become a college baseball coach....the list goes on and on with examples of the empowering effect the love and support my friends and family have had in my life.

I see where I am now, I look at the things I am doing, and at those around me (now and the not-so-distant past) (Chard, Molli, Knill, Schiavoni, Chaz, J Wood, Jackson, JJ, Shifflett, Kelly K, Class) and recognize how they all make/made me feel empowered to continue to try new and different things, feeling secure in knowing that if I do indeed fail, I have a huge network of friends (old and new) and family to catch me...

What a great feeling! This post may have bored you, but I guess it was my turn to tell some people how much they have meant to me. I thank you all for helping to build me in to me and instilling in me the confidence to go out and make the most out of this life (for which I am totally not deserving but only through His grace).

Thanks for reading
SEE YA ON THE HILL!
Michael

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SOME GOOD QUOTES

***"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinkingso that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously giveother people permission to do the same.As we are liberated from our fear,our presence automatically liberates others."-Marianne Williamson***"The only people for me are the mad ones ... the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.-Jack Kerouac*** "Citius, Altius, Fortius" A latin term, it means "Faster, Higher, Stronger." ***"Running, one might say, is an absurd passtime upon which to be exhausting ourselves....but if you can find meaning in the kind of running you have to do to stay on this team, chances are, you can find meaning in another absurd passtime....LIFE."-Bill Bowerman***"Be on fire for something."***"Anything you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon must, absolutely must come to pass."

What does "See ya on the hill" mean?

When I ran my first marathon (the LaSalle bank Marathon) in October of this past fall, I raised money for the foundation started by my favorite athlete (and childhood hero): Walter Payton. Walter Payton was (and still is) my idol because of the way he played the game of football. He was never the biggest guy, never the fastest guy, and never the strongest guy, yet he found ways to kick and scratch for every yard on every run. He never gave up easy, never just ran out of bounds, and never slid to avoid a hit. In the off-season, he would embark on this hellish training program that always included hill running. He would run hills until he could no longer walk, and then muster up the courage and strength to keep running. He would invite other football players to come and run hills with them and then laugh as they utterly destroyed themselves just trying to keep up with him...all the while he was just warming up. I think life is a lot like runninig hills. Running hills is hard. Running hills will really test you. There is no way to rest while running uphill. Hills, to me, are like those challenges we face in life: job challenges, financial challenges, personal challenges, relationship challenges, emotional challenges, etc. We can avoid'em and pretend they don't exist (at which point we'd be stuck standing at the bottom of the hill), or we can put our heads down and get running. That's not to say that if you just put your down and run, that you'll conquer every hill...sometimes the hill is just too steep. But to me, the analogy of the hill is more about your willingness to climb than it is how many hills you've conquered. Cuz we all know by now in our lives that once you've conquered one hill (or failed), there will surely be another hill ready for you. So I see this running as a hill for me, a challenge that tests me, and challenges me. That's why I finish my blogs with "SEE YA ON THE HILL," cuz I figure if I see you on the hill, that means you to, have accepted whatever challenge has been laid before you, as opposed to just standing at the bottom, unwilling to climb at all.

WHY RUN A MARATHON?

I have been asked that question many, many times since I started running 2 years ago. I can't honestly say that I've yet to come up with a viable, concrete, understandable answer to the question. I should admit here that I HAVE NEVER ENJOYED RUNNING, NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN ANY GOOD AT IT. I played soccer in high school and I was a fullback, so I did the minimal amount of running. Anyway, I started running cuz I was fat. In 2004 I was going through some life/relationship issues and I wanted to make some changes...I felt little control over what was going on in my life and I was searching for something I could control, my weight was something I could control. I started running a mile before I would do my lifting routine (I would go to a memeber of my family's home and workout in their basement-gym ((BIG shouts out and a big thanks to Karen and Steve)). Then I began running a mile before and then another one after lifting. At this point, I must admit, I was just excited when I finished my mile in under 10 minutes (now thats my super-easy pace). At some point in 2005, a friend of mine (BIG shouts out to OG) asked me to run in a 5k (3.2 miles) with him. He had already paid the entry fee for another runner who had cancelled on him and he didn't want his money to go to waste. So I ran it and finished in 25:41 (not bad). After that, I figured-what the hell-if I can run 3 miles today, I can do it again tomorrow and then the day after, and try to get rid of some of this fat I got goin' on. As the 3 miles became easier and easier, I bumped my runs up to 4 miles, then 5 miles, and so on all the way up to 8 miles before it finally got too cold to run outside and I packed it in for Christmas. I began to wonder what enjoyment I got out of doing the act of something I didn't actually enjoy. After much thought, I found that I enjoyed the challenge of going farther than I ran yesterday...knowing that with every step, I was now running 1 step farther than I had ever run before in my life. That Christmas, in need of something in my life to make me feel a lil'more worthwhile, something to take my mind off my struggles (still in the midst of personal/relationship issues), I set upon the goal of doing (what I felt at the time was) the impossible: run 26.2 miles. I looked forward to the training, the focus (cuz my focus would be on something other than what it had been focused on for the year prior) and the determination it was gonna take to get me to the finish line. I set my goal, I did it, and now I wanna go again and improve upon my first attempt. That's why I run. Those personal issues I had are now long gone and have been totally dealt with. Now I am left only with the challenge of being better than I was the last time out...of making myself a better man, a better citizen, a better human being. Come along for the ride! Encouragement is always welcome!

faster, higher, stronger

Monday, August 20, 2007

It always comes back to The Wonder Years

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