My kids really liked classic stories and fairy tales when they were little. We would read two different stories every night before they went to sleep. There were all the stories one might expect...The Gingerbread Man...Chicken Little...Snow White...Rumpelstilskin...and of course, The Tortoise and The Hare. Each story has it's own lesson to be learned.Today, I got to the gym...wrote down what I planned to do on the whiteboard...and went outside to run a mile as my "warmup". I love to run and I've been running for years. One stinkin mile at an easy pace is nothin, but today it felt like every step took a concerted effort. I finished up...feeling really tired and run down. I thought to myself... "Maybe I need to rest...Maybe I need to remember that slow and steady wins the race...just like the tortoise did." So, I decided to clean up because it was a real mess in there. I sprayed Lysol and wiped EVERYTHING down with antibacterial wipes. Then, I vacuumed and mopped. It took me almost an hour and my back was killin me. I decided to just go eat some lunch and then maybe take a walk...do some "active recovery".
I went and ate and was pulling in to the park when I had an "AHA" moment. I made a circle and pulled back out...heading towards the gym. I went in...erased what I had originally planned...and started dragging dumbbells and the rowing machine and a medicine ball and a tire and a sledgehammer outside to the parking lot and entryway. I did a fun, but fairly tough workout...tough enough that I was LAID OUT on the ground when I was through. I had no more energy or strength than I had earlier, but I did it for the reasons I am about to explain...
Yeah..."slow and steady wins the race" but ONLY if the other racers are distracted and lazy. We always think we should be like the tortoise...slowly and methodically going towards the goal. But here's a slightly different view that I came up with today. The hare lost, but what if the hare had pushed himself to keep going when he was hungry and tired...if he had...HE would've beaten the slow, steady tortoise. So I asked myself.."Are you a tortoise...or a new improved version of the hare?" I am very tired. I do work hard and I could use a little rest. I can come up with a million excuses that would've gotten me out of working out today and no one would think less of me. I could've been a tortoise and taken a slow, steady walk, but would I feel a sense of accomplishment?...and would I get as much out of it?!? Slow and steady ONLY wins if all the other "racers" don't try their hardest. I'm not willing to take that chance and so I decided to be the new, improved, focused hare today. I'm so glad I went back!
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