What are you searching for?
“It’s like, you hear a song by a band, but then you hear somebody do the cover song better, right? And you’re like, woah….. And so, there’s nothing new out there, there really isn’t. And I’m not talking about anything new, it’s just how I see it. And I feel like I’ve got something to share about it, and that’s all I’m doing.”
- Brian Mackenzie, from “The Four Percent Podcast” 10/19/17 ________________________________________
Is it all connected or am I just connecting all of it? Is it both?
Do you believe in fate?
If I never fell in love with playing soccer on DAY ONE and started playing competitively as a little girl, I probably would have never gone on to play in college. If I never played college soccer, I would have never run college track (with a few cross-country meets sprinkled in there, too). And if I hadn’t run track, I probably would have never gone right into getting my MA in Communication, as I used my fifth year of NCAA eligibility to compete for one more year with track. Both shins and feet may have had stress fractures by the end of that collegiate career, and no, I never went pro. But my competitive fire – to this day – has never died. Would I have started coaching or teaching without this path? Would I have ever started CrossFit?
This could go on and on and quite possibly, in a million different directions. I’m already exhausted just thinking about it, so I won’t. (You’re welcome.) Yes absolutely, all of my past experiences – achievements, failures, and everything in between – have shaped me. It’s the same for everyone else. But I’m on a mission to focus more on feeling good in the present and building from there.
(Who am I kidding? This is totally one of those things I’m saying aloud as a reminder to myself.)
For the majority of my life, you could divide it into just two categories:
- Soccer
- Not soccer
You laugh… but it’s so true. For the longest time I referred to myself as a “caged animal” if I went a day without playing soccer. These days, I think my spirit animal is really just a puppy – as long as I can MOVE everyday, eat good food and get a little love and attention, I’m good.
(Busted again. I’m still a “caged animal” on rest days. But it’s not AS OFTEN, okay?)
That competitive fire though… I’ll tell ya. It’s simultaneously the best and the worst. (So very Dionysian/Apollonian. And now you know.)
So here’s the realization, and it only happened this year:
Everything I’ve ever applied to soccer/sport for the better, can and should be applied with the same intensity to everything else in life that matters. To take it a step further, it can be JUST AS EFFECTIVE AND FULFILLING.
I know… it sounds so simple it’s a little ridiculous. But think about it. Can you acknowledge, feel, and genuinely act on that… beyond whatever your “soccer” is in life?
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For the longest time, I worked my life around being an athlete. I isolated myself. I ruined days of vacations with my family because I needed to get a workout in. I left vacations early. I missed graduations, birthdays, anniversary parties and other special life events. I told myself I was a cop-out if I didn’t give my very best effort to see how far I could go as an athlete. Have I mentioned I’m hard on myself? It hurts to think about. God bless my family for loving me anyway.
These thoughts and this realization did not happen last week. These are years and months in the making. What did happen in the past week, was building the courage to start sharing these thoughts. So, what am I really searching for? ………. until next time.
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Two quotes to leave you with:
“I realized that my central idea – which, at a young age, was attacking music with a really religious type of intensity – was OK to a point. But there was a point where it turns in on itself. And you start to go down that dark path, and there is a distortion of even the best of things. And I reached a point where I felt my life was distorted. I love my music, and I wanted to just take it for what it was. I didn’t want to try to distort it into being my entire life. Because that’s a lie. It’s not true. It’s not your entire life. It never can be.”
- Bruce Springsteen, 10/9/17 Rolling Stone article
“I now see that cultivating a Wholehearted life is not like trying to reach a destination. It’s like walking toward a star in the sky. We never really arrive, but we certainly know that we’re heading in the right direction.”
- Brene Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”