For the past several days I have heard many references to reflecting on the events of the past year. Several famous people passed, including one of my favorite “reflectionists” Andy Rooney, as well as multitudes of less than famous people.

In truth, the only thing that really makes January 1st any different from any other day of the year is the simple fact that we need to have a new calendar. There are, however, a growing number of people who would like to see that necessity eliminated. It seems that there is a movement that would like to do away with the Gregorian calendar that we use today and replace it with a “permanent” calendar where each day of the month would always fall on the same day, ie. January 1 would always fall on Sunday and Christmas would always fall on Sunday as well. Your birthday would always be on the same day of the week each year and schools and businesses wouldn’t have to concoct new calendars of events each year because an event could always fall on the same date, etc. Of course one short-fall of such a calendar is that it doesn’t account for the extra one quarter of a day in each 365 day Earth-trip around the sun. In order to rectify that, you could still add a “leap day” every fourth year, but some advocates of the permanent calendar propose adding a “leap week”, which technically would only have to be done about every 28 years. You think having a birthday on February 29 is tough, imagine having a birthday during “leap week”. Imagine only having to buy two calendars in your lifetime, one that is good for 28 years and one for the years that have a leap week. The average person would only use the leap weak calendar two to three times in their lifetime!

But I digress, and the end of the year would remain a time of reflection even if we didn’t have to change calendars. Nothing wrong with reflection I guess, but a thought has occurred to me. A reflection isn’t accurate! Go ahead, look in a mirror. What you see isn’t what the world sees.

Many times I have heard people comment on how horrible a picture of themselves looks, yet they rarely see anything wrong with a picture of someone else. The reason for this is that in a picture they are seeing themselves differently than they are accustomed to seeing themselves. There are so many life lessons that can be pulled from this simple insight. Rather than me trying to list several, I’ll simply let you think on that and see how many you might be able to come up with that apply to you personally. But for now, I will continue with my rambling.

I have given some thought to the events of this past year. A lot has happened. But as I think about the past 365 days, I have realized that what I’m seeing is a reflection. It isn’t necessarily what the world sees. Things that I may view as good or positive, someone else might have seen from a different viewpoint and seen as bad or negative. And those things that I have experienced as bad or negative may have been viewed as good or positive from another point of view. From my vantage point, all I can see is me and the outcome that I have experienced; whereas, someone else may have seen something totally different.

If we could see a “snapshot” of the past year, would it look different than what we see in reflection? Would we even accept what we would see in the “snapshot”, or would we simply complain about how bad the picture looks, simply because it is not the way we are accustomed to seeing things?

What did the past year really look like? Better question, what does the coming year look like? Are you looking at a reflection?

The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.
~ Francis Bacon

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
~ Samuel Johnson

Reflect upon your blessings, of which every man has plenty, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
~ Charles Dickens

New updates this Month:

• New Dragon drawings by Rebekah
• Drawing of Ashley and Rebekah by Rebekah

It was a perfect day for a run on the beach at Perdido Key today with  the temperature in the low 60’s and hardly a soul in sight. I love running on the beach – no traffic to dodge, and, with the absence of people, plenty of time to think with no distractions. Of course, letting my mind wander unfettered can be a dangerous thing. Some of the topics for these Sparks have come during those moments when my mind was off doing something else while I was running, as is the case today. You’ve been forewarned.

In keeping with the goal of “Grow daily or die gradually”, I have been taking some courses at Pensacola State College. One of those courses this semester is Human Growth and Development, which falls under the Psychology category. I never really cared much for the field of psychology before taking this class, and I have to confess that I care even less for the field now. I find it far too ambiguous.

A recurring theme throughout some of the subject matter centers on competitiveness in one’s environment. It seems that some people are of the opinion that a competitive environment is not a good thing since it fosters notions of “winners” and “losers”. I’ve heard this train of thought before, and it usually sounds something like, “We need to create an environment where everyone is a winner.” I don’t agree. Hey, I hate losing, but the cold hard truth is, not everyone wins.

So what would a world that had no losers look like? Well, for one thing there would be no Super Bowl Champion, because every game would end in a tie. Some would say, “Don’t keep score!” Forget about the Olympics, because that is all about winning. Some would say, “Give everyone the same award!” There would be no successful people, because the connotation would be that if someone was successful, someone else would be unsuccessful, ie. a loser. Some would say, “Redistribute the wealth!” Innovation and business would fall flat, because there would be no “competition”. Some would say, ”Impose laws that insure no one has an advantage!” Without the reward of winning and the risk of losing, stagnation would be the norm.

To put things in perspective, some of the individuals who were promoting the “Everyone’s a winner” ideology were addressing public education classrooms. I agree that self-esteem is an important issue for our youth, but what I found intriguing was that these same people wonder why U.S. student performance is lagging, ranking below average, when compared to other industrialized countries. It seems pretty self-explanatory to me. Let’s be honest, you will never bring all the lower performers up to an elite level, so for everyone to be a winner, you must bring the elite down. In my opinion, when you try to make everyone a winner, everyone loses.

In October, I competed in a triathlon. When I crossed the finish line I received a medallion. It does not say “winner” on it. I DID NOT win the triathlon. I DID NOT even win my age group. I didn’t receive the same reward that the winners did. I was one of the losers.

I don’t feel bad about not being one of the winners. I know that I will never compete at that level, but I will compete. By competing, by pitting myself against another who is faster, stronger, or smarter than me, I become faster, stronger and smarter. Don’t you dare bring the winners down to my level of competition so we can all be “winners”, for if you do, we will all lose.

My medallion does not say winner. It simply contains the words, “Pensacola Beach, SRITRI 2011”. The lanyard that suspends it around my neck simply states, “SRITRI 2011, FINISHER”. I finished the race. In one sense I did win, I beat the course, and since I bested my anticipated time, I beat the clock.

Not bad for a loser, eh? There is a proverb that says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” You, like I, have probably heard this proverb so many times that you don’t even pay any attention to it, but as I thought about it, something occurred to me. The softer of the two metals benefits the most. As the softer metal is brought into contact with the harder, material is removed, and if the proper angle and pressure are applied, a sharpened edge is created.

While the winners receive the rewards, it can actually be the losers who gain the most. You can’t win or lose if you don’t compete. Are you willing to risk being “a loser” so you can become faster, stronger, and smarter, or just plain better at whatever it is you want?

Without winners, there wouldn’t even be any civilization.
~ Woody Hayes

There are winners, there are losers and there are people who have not yet learned how to win.
~ Les Brown

The cry of equality pulls everyone down.
~ Iris Murdoch

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.
~ Bertrand Russell

New updates this Month:

• New photos added to Danielle’s albums, Silence Speaks Photography. (Access them from the Artwork page.)

• Wishing you and your family a blessed holiday season. See you next year!

A couple of weeks ago Pastor Bobby used this terminology in his message. The gist of that message was that when something happens our response should be “Now what?” or “So what!” “Now what” for the new opportunities that are thrown in our paths (many times these opportunities look like obstacles), and “So what” for the things that we should let roll off our backs. This Spark has nothing to do with that. Well…, maybe it does, just a little.

About seven months ago I had a challenge thrown at me: compete in the Santa Rosa Island Triathlon. Before accepting that challenge I actually did a little homework, searching last year’s results to answer questions like, “What kind of a time would I have to have in order to at least have the next-to-last competitor within eyesight when I approached the finish line?” Or better yet, “How fast would I have to be to not be the last one to cross the finish line?”

I have long been a fan of the concept of “Grow daily or die gradually”, but I generally like to choose the areas that I think I want to grow in, and it had been a long time since I had competed in any sport. I hadn’t competed in any track and field events since I was about 14, and I had never competed in swimming or cycling. Nevertheless, I accepted the challenge, and I learned a lot on the way, much of which I have shared through these Sparks over these past few months. Following is a rehash of some of those things.

I learned about goal setting. I’ve read a lot about goal setting over the years, but I’m really just not one of those people with the goal-setting mentality. It always seemed to me that a lot of the goal setting I had witnessed was little more than the art of wishful thinking. I assessed what I knew about goals; they should be simply stated, they should be specific, they should stretch you but be attainable, and short-term goals should be set as benchmarks in reaching a long-term or overreaching goal. I threw all that out the window and set a goal of “To finish well”. Okay, it met the first criterion, but it was very vague, noncommittal, and hard to measure success or failure. But that was my goal, and I stuck by it. As I began to train and compared some of my individual stage times against those from last year’s competition, I refined my goal to where it began to resemble a real goal, “To finish well, by finishing in two-and-a-half hours or less.” Now I had a target and started breaking it down into the three disciplines and the times I needed to achieve in each.

I learned about cadence. I guess consistency would be another way of saying it. Cadence is the primary factor in achieving the desired result. When I first started training on my bicycle I would constantly look at my GPS to see how fast I was going and if my speed had dropped, which it constantly did. I would try to regain my speed by simply pedaling harder, until I wore myself down to where I just had to finish my route at whatever speed I could manage. Then I learned about cadence, monitoring “pedal pace” rather than “MPH pace”. Instead of simply trying to pedal harder to maintain speed, change the gearing, ie. downshift (or upshift if going downhill) to maintain the cadence. I was amazed when on my first training ride utilizing this “technique” I shaved 4 minutes off of my previous best training time. Consistent cadence equaled faster pace. Unfortunately, I was not able to convert this over to running and swimming as effectively, but the same holds true for those disciplines as well. I still have some work to do!

I learned about focus. Keep the main thing the main thing. In this case, cadence was the main thing. Although I quit watching my GPS constantly to check my speed, I still used it to track my mileage and time. And, when I found that my mind had wandered as I was cycling or running, I would compare my pace with my norm. Lost focus equaled lost pace. It can become monotonous to simply count revolutions over and over (I don’t have one of those spiffy cadence monitors) but as soon as I became distracted the results showed.

On October 1, shortly after writing the last Spark, I competed in the Santa Rosa Island Triathlon. I was surprised as I looked up at the timer suspended over the finish line when I crossed. My finishing time was 1:59:27. I had achieved my goal, decisively!

NOW WHAT?

For the past several months I have had at least a portion of my life focused on this event. I might almost say that I had obsessed over it, although if that was the case I probably would have trained a lot harder, especially on the run and the swim. Nevertheless, I devoted a considerable amount of time, resources and attention to this event, and now it is over. So now what? Some might say, “there is always next year”. I have thought about that, and I have already begun to consider new goals. Goals that are far less vague than “To finish well”. But there still seems to be a void where the Tri used to be.

And maybe that is the final lesson. Growing daily requires new input, new experiences. New challenges. I don’t know what the next challenge will be or when it will present itself, but…… now what?

Growth is the only evidence of life.
~ John Henry Newman

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
~ Frederick Douglass

Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.
~ William Butler Yeats

New updates this Month:

• The original website has been moved to a WordPress blog. Email us if you have any problems.

• Look for new updates and additions next month!

The Code oftentimes doesn’t make much sense to outsiders. Captain Barbosa sheds some insight on this matter when he informs Miss Swan that “You must be a pirate for The Pirate’s Code to apply.” Even pirates seem to have differing views on The Code. To some, The Code is “more what you would call guidelines than actual rules” while to others The Code is “The Law”.

There are many different codes out there. There are Dress Codes, Codes of Conduct, Codes of Ethics, and, if you have ever received a traffic citation (that’s a fancy way of saying a ticket) you are all too familiar with your state or local Traffic Code. Some of these codes are viewed more as guidelines; some as a set of rules to be followed; and others as the law which carries stiff penalties for infractions.

I had to report for jury duty last week – the reason? Some individuals were accused of “Code” violations. I say accused because I don’t know that they were guilty. Each had entered a plea of “not guilty” so as a prospective juror I was to follow the Juror’s Code that stipulated I must view these individuals with a presumption of innocence, meaning that they didn’t commit an infraction, and since I wasn’t selected for any of the juries (deep sigh of relief) and none of the verdicts made the news, I guess I must still presume that they are innocent. But, it did raise some questions and thoughts about Codes.

The following is just one of the conundrums that have rattled through my brain.

It seems that on a regular basis I see news articles involving the posting of The Ten Commandments in various forms and in various places, but the most common theme among these news blurbs is when the space they occupy is on public or government property. So, the question is, “Should The Ten Commandments be posted on public or government property?” Most of you reading this won’t hesitate in saying “Yes”, and saying it most adamantly. But here are some things to consider (please don’t show up at my front door with a new rope until you hear me out).

The first thing to consider is that The Ten Commandments is a code, the law, given to a specific group of people, namely the Israelites. And The Ten Commandments are just the tip of the iceberg. There are pages of code that follow those ten laws. These laws, this code, became the basis of the Jewish religion. So here is the first conundrum: I am neither an Israelite nor a Jew, so does this code apply to me? I’m not an Iranian so do the laws governing Iran apply to me (unless of course I find myself on Iranian soil)? To take this a step further, I’m not a Muslim, so does the Koran apply to me?

But, but, but….. The Ten Commandments are as American as baseball, hotdogs and apple pie. Are they? The foundations of Christianity lie in the Jewish faith, and many Americans call themselves Christians, and many more call themselves Jews, but is this nation a “Christian Nation”, or even a “Judeo-Christian Nation”? We know that some of the founders of this nation were Christian. We also know that some were agnostic and quite possibly even atheist, so where does all this lead us?

While there are references to God in our nation’s founding documents there is also something called The Bill of Rights and the First Amendment, which reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Since there can be no religion established by our government, we cannot be a “Christian Nation”. The Code that we follow as a nation is The Constitution, The Bill of Rights and all the many laws that have been passed throughout the years, but not The Ten Commandments.

It would be truly phenomenal if we could all agree to follow one code, but who would decide which code we would follow. And even if we could all agree on one code there would still be those who would view it as “simply guidelines”. It seems that even pirates can’t all agree to one code. In the cases of those individuals who were at the courthouse last week, I’m guessing each one of them have a code that they follow, they just may not follow the same code you or I do. But that is part of the problem isn’t it - we all want everyone to follow the same rules we do, but we don’t necessarily want to follow the same rules they do.

Just to set the record straight, I do believe in absolute right and wrong that is established not by frail humans but by the Almighty God. I believe that His Code is superior to any other and I wish that all mankind would embrace and follow it.

I also wish that the individual who turned in front of me on the red arrow would follow the code.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
~ Oscar Wilde

If moral behavior were simply following rules, we could program a computer to be moral.
~ Samuel P. Ginder

If it was necessary to tolerate in other people everything that one permits oneself, life would be unbearable.
~ Georges Courteline

There are three things that I don’t like about that definition: 1) prolonged, 2) pain and 3) hardship. I can handle the exertion part. I have to exert myself regularly while working, and with doing some  moderate training for a triathlon, I have been exerting myself beyond what might be considered “normal” for some people.

I can even handle the pain part, at least once in awhile. Again, it is that prolonged word that gets me. I guess, in a way, I am pretty fortunate. Many times when I have injured myself I didn’t even know it until I discovered that I was leaving traces of blood, or in some instances, when someone would ask me, “What did you do to yourself?”, and then point out a wound I didn’t realize I had. I remember roughly twenty years ago when I broke my ankle playing softball. I would never have guessed that it was broken except for the fact that when I tried to stand up my leg wouldn’t stay centered over my foot. Even the pain I experienced after the surgery to put my ankle back together was minimal.

I do however remember an instance or two when the pain I was experiencing was so excruciating that I was unable to sleep or do something that might otherwise be considered a normal part of everyday life. Fortunately, I have never had to endure that kind of pain for a “prolonged” period of time. And of course, not all pain is physical. In fact, the nonphysical pain may very well be the most painful.

I suppose that brings us around to the word hardship. That is a pretty ambiguous word. What I might consider to be a hardship, someone else might see as just another part of daily existence.

Living along the Gulf Coast I can’t imagine life without air conditioning. I spend a good deal of time outside, but I relish being able to climb into a vehicle with AC, or come home to an air-conditioned house at the end of the day. But not too many years ago it wasn’t so. In fact, my guess is that much of the development of these southern states is due in large part to the advent of air conditioning. To live here without AC would be a hardship in my book, but people lived here for many years without it. Even now there are some older homes around without AC, but not my house!

A couple thousand years ago a guy named Paul wrote the following statement, “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”. So try this out for size - insert the definition of endurance into that statement and it would read like this: “Let us run, with the ability or power to bear prolonged exertion, pain or hardship, the race that is set before us.”

Too many people are looking for “Easy Street” in life. Well I have news for you - Easy Street is a dead end, and I have the proof!

Imagine how our neighborhoods, cities, states, countries, or even our whole world might be different if we cultivated an endurance mindset. Paul’s words imply that life isn’t meant to be lived on Easy Street.

The interesting thing about endurance is that it doesn’t just happen, it has to be built up. In order to build endurance I must exert myself, even to the point of pain. We all know the cliché “No pain, no gain”. Of course pain doesn’t always signify gain, sometimes it just means that I got injured; however, pain is a natural part of sustained exertion, so if I am to bear prolonged exertion I must also endure the pain that comes with it.

Another way to build endurance is through hardship. Aha, a circle. In order to build the endurance required to endure hardship, especially prolonged hardship, we must endure hardship. Hardship is one of those things we all try to avoid. Let’s face it, when I go for a run or bike ride I don’t go looking for the biggest hill to run or ride “up”, yet running or riding up that hill would build my endurance so that come race day I would have the endurance for whatever hardship might come my way.

I still don’t like those three words any better now than I did a few minutes ago when I started writing this, but I guess what I like really has nothing to do with it. Easy Street sounds like it would be a pretty fun place to live, but the reality is that it is a dead end street.

I wonder if there is a street out there named Endurance?

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.
~ John Ruskin

Endurance is patience concentrated.
~ Thomas Carlyle

Not in achievement, but in endurance, of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the infinite.
~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin

The whole premise behind these monthly Sparks, and our website in general, is to share things that have sparked something in our lives and hope that they may provide a spark for you. As I reflected on this, the afore mentioned material seemed to not fit, hence the delete button.

I began to think about some of the things that have sparked something in our family over the past few months and it kind of surprised me that it wasn’t major earth-shattering events that have prompted us to move ahead or make changes; it was little things.

While Patience was working on her accounting degree, one of the classes she took was Music Appreciation. This course requires students to attend concerts then post thoughts on a discussion board. Both Alex and Dani had taken this class so we were accustomed to attending the concerts and usually did so as a family. I figured it was one way to introduce everyone, including Beka and Tori, to a little bit of culture and the fine arts. Patience ended up attending one of these concerts by herself last semester, and as she sat listening and watching, she had the thought that she wanted to be more than just one of the audience; she wanted to be up there playing.

Since she was already considering continuing her education so she could further her degree, she asked if it made sense to change her major to music. My answer, “Why not?” So, Patience is now working on her degree with a music major. A concert provided a spark of change.

Over the past couple of months I have shared my experience and some things I have been learning from an event as simple as deciding to participate in a triathlon. A little thing in the grand scheme of things, but something that has sparked several things for me personally. The most recent spark in this little adventure has come from Alex, and instead of me looking to purchase a new road bike, we are working together to rebuild my 44-year-old Murray. My bike is what Alex would call vintage – what does that make me? In truth, competing in the triathlon was a spark from Alex; if he hadn’t decided to do it and encouraged me to do it with him I wouldn’t have given it a thought.

One of the courses Patience is taking over the summer is Astronomy and she shared an interesting tidbit from her textbook the other night. In an atom, the distance of the electron(s) from the nucleus is the equivalent of more than a football field if the nucleus was the size of a grape seed. That means that the chair you are sitting on is mostly not there. As small as an atom is, it is mostly full of nothing, but it is the little things that are keeping your seat from hitting the floor!

Sometimes a spark can make a mind-numbing, life-altering difference in our lives. Sometimes it may provide a minor course adjustment or simply a different way of seeing things. But even minor course adjustments can mean the difference between a ship making port or ending up on the rocks.

It’s just a little thing, but I hope you’ve been sparked!

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway.
~ Mignon McLaughlin

Friendship isn’t a big thing – it’s a million little things.
~ Author Unknown

It seems obvious that training is the next step, but where to begin? Well, let’s start with swimming. I knew I had some work to do in this area, but I had no idea just how much until I hit the pool at Pensacola State College. When did it get so difficult just to swim the length of the pool? I can remember spending day after day at the local pools when I was in Jr. High and High School. Shucks, I even completed the Senior Lifesaving course with all the swimming that entailed when I was a freshman. But then, that was over thirty years ago.

One night as I was floundering back and forth over the length of the pool, a guy in the lane next to me was there assisting a young lady with some physical therapy lap swimming and he also gave me some pointers. First, he told me that my stroke looked awkward and unrhythmic. Honestly, I wasn’t offended in the least, because at that moment I was simply relishing in the fact that I had made it back to the shallow end where I could stand up and take a breather, without drowning! He gave me some tips on how to work on the mechanics of my stroke, particularly developing a rhythmic stroke. I think it has helped, but limited pool time makes the progress seem abysmal in light of the task before me.

So how about running? After all, I’ve been doing a little of that over the past few years just trying to get more physically fit. Unfortunately I don’t seem to be making much progress in that area either. It seems that the more I try to increase my speed, the slower I go. There have been a few times that I felt like I must have had a really good run (because I was totally wiped out and ready to fall on my face) only to discover it was one of my slowest! It just doesn’t seem to make sense. How can I try harder and run slower?

On a visit to Books-A-Million I came across a runner’s journal on the $2 clearance shelf that contained training articles from various award-winning runners and trainers of award-winning runners. I figured for $2 I couldn’t go wrong. Besides, it had some funny cartoon illustrations. Reading through the articles, it has become clear that most of my running falls into what the book refers to as “Quality Junk”, meaning that running in itself is quality because it does have physical benefits, but that my running fell into the junk category as far as training for racing is concerned.

One of the things that stuck with me from this book was a section on cadence. It seems that regardless of how fast or slow I am running, my cadence, or my strides per minute should be the same. Speed would therefore be determined by the length of my stride. So in order to run faster I must first work on my cadence, and cadence over distance, then start working on my stride and pace. Whew, it seems I have a long way to go!

Finally, there is the biking portion. Here, at least, I feel I have made some progress over the past few weeks. I’m not setting any world records by a long shot, but I’m getting faster! The triathlon has an 18-mile biking section so I have been trying to do at least one 18-20 mile ride every week. Sometimes I’ve done a 30+ mile ride but I find that I’ve only got a twenty-mile seat, if you get my drift.

Once again, I had no idea how to really train for the biking portion, so I simply went out and rode trying to increase my speed, which tends to be relative to the terrain I’m riding. In order to gauge my improvement, I found that I needed to ride the same route for comparison. Some routes seem to be better for strength training and others for speed training, though I guess it all works to the same end.

As I was perusing an internet site that contained some training tips for triathlons, I came across a Q&A forum where someone had posted a question about how fast a cadence you should shoot for in riding a triathlon. I don’t remember the answer, but there was that word again, cadence. On my last bike training ride I took my wrist GPS to track my mileage and time as I usually do, but this time, instead of constantly watching it to see how fast I was going, I pushed the start button then ignored it until I knew I was near the 18-mile mark so I could note my time. My entire ride, which totaled about 35 miles, I focused on one thing – my cadence,or how fast I was pedaling. It took me a couple of miles to warm up and settle into a steady cadence that was giving me a workout but not exhausting me, then I simply tried to maintain that cadence. When my cadence would slow because of an incline or increased wind resistance I would downshift until I was able to continue at the cadence I had set. When I was going downhill, or with less wind resistance, I maintained the same cadence in the higher gear. The result? When I clocked it at the 18-mile mark I had beat my best previous time by more than 5 minutes!

I know that there are a lot of variables that can explain a 5-minute improvement, but could it truly be something so simple as focusing on just one thing? In all three of these areas, people who know more about these things than I do have directed my focus to one thing, cadence, or in the case of swimming, rhythm, which in my mind is just another way of saying cadence.

I’ve read many books by many different authors who attribute success to focusing on one thing. One author refers to it as “Keeping the main thing the main thing.” Maybe the hardest part is figuring out what that one thing is. I have been focused on trying to increase my speed and endurance, thereby improving my times, but it now occurs to me that all of these things have been distractions. I have been focusing on results rather than on what creates the results. Many people would tell me that I need to set goals so I would have something to aim for, something to focus on. But I am thinking that if I focus on a goal, I would actually lose my focus. The one thing is not the goal, it is what gets me to the goal. The goal is simply the result of focusing on the one thing.

So, I have a goal of finishing, and finishing well, in the Santa Rosa Island Triathlon. I know it is a pretty ambiguous goal but that is okay because that really isn’t what I will be focusing on. I will be focusing on the one thing – cadence.

Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.
~ Tony Robbins

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.
~ Alexander Graham Bell

Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.
~ Greg Anderson

I can be calloused, uncaring and hard hearted, at least that’s what Patience tells me (though sometimes in jest), and she’s pretty smart. I’m the type of person who, if someone is hurrying on the stairs and takes a tumble, is likely to say, “I guess you shouldn’t have been running on the stairs.” Depending on the circumstances, I may be laughing so hard that I would be unable to offer any immediate assistance. When people start talking about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, I think “athlete’s foot”.

Today when I got out of our van after parking at Wal-Mart, a man walked up to me and asked me if I could give him a couple of dollars so he could get something to eat at Burger King. This seems to happen to me on a fairly regular basis in this particular area of Pensacola, whether it is at Wal-Mart, Home Depot or Lowe’s. My standard reply is that I’m not carrying any cash, which is usually an accurate statement. I have no desire to engage in a foot race because someone snatched my wallet out of my hand and took off on a bike. On occasion, I have dug the little change I might have in my pocket out and said, “This is all I’ve got, you can have it if it will help.” I have yet to have anyone turn down even seventeen cents.

Patience faces this dilemma from a little different perspective. One of the courses in her college classes posed the question of moral and social responsibility to the “less fortunate” of our society. Since then she has started to carry packages of peanut butter crackers in the van so she can offer them something in lieu of cash. The response has been interesting to say the least. It seems that those who are truly less fortunate are grateful even for a twenty-cent package of peanut butter crackers, while others will scoff with an attitude of “you’ve got to be kidding me”. I wonder if the scoffers would turn down the twenty cents.

The idea of empathicalism is, of course, derived from the word empathy which is defined as: the ability to identify with and understand somebody else’s feelings or difficulties. So how would I feel if I asked someone for assistance and they offered me a package of crackers? I guess it would depend on my expectations and needs. If I were truly hungry I would likely be grateful. If my real desire was to gain some cash for whatever purpose, then I might scoff with a “you’ve got to be kidding me” attitude.

Since our childhoods, we have been taught about empathicalism. The Golden Rule says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Then there is the saying alluded to earlier, “Before you criticize someone you should walk a mile in his or her shoes.” At least you would be a mile away! But seriously, the problem with what we’ve been taught about empathy is that it stems from what I feel. A more empathic form of the Golden Rule would be, “Do unto others what they want done to them.”

There are some things in this life in which I can empathize with others; I have experienced those same things myself. But there are a multitude of things about which I have no idea what others are going through and what they are feeling or experiencing. I recently read an article about a high-school-aged Latino girl in California who, for a research paper, pretended to be pregnant for the past eight months. The only people who knew that she wasn’t really pregnant were her family and the school principal. She experienced what it was to be an outcast, even among her best friends. It was interesting to me that in the end when the secret was revealed, others blamed the alienation on her change of behavior, that somehow her “pregnancy” had changed her, rather than their perception of her.

Obviously, when something happens that turns our world upside-down, we change. Personal loss or the reception of bad news will change the way we think, the way we act and the way we react. Quite possibly the hardest part for me in empathizing with someone during these times is that I just don’t know what to say, and rather than taking a chance on saying the wrong thing, I will say nothing at all. To the other person this may seem that my behavior toward them has changed.

In my mind, I have tried to put myself in the same place others find themselves. This is at least the beginning of empathy. But no matter how I try, my responses are imaginary and probably far different than what my actual response might be.

I think that empathicalism may be more about my response to others than actually feeling what they are feeling. If I can lay aside my own blinders of perception long enough, I just might find myself sharing in the experience and understanding the accompanying feelings. And as the inevitable changes occur, they end up being shared.

For some, empathy seems to be a part of who they are, part of their DNA. For others, like myself, it does not seem to be something that comes naturally, but is rather something to be learned, and it seems that the learning only comes through experience.

So, the next time you take a tumble down the stairs, I will refrain from chiding you and, as soon as I stop laughing, I will offer you a helping hand and defiantly stand beside you if anyone tries to denigrate you in any way.

True contentment comes with empathy.
~ Tim Finn

Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. In those transparent moments we know other people’s joys and sorrows, and we care about their concerns as if they were our own.
~ Fritz Williams

Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn.
~ Alice Miller

For those of you who bake bread you know that after three hours my dough would be useless, at least for bread, so I let it finish its first rise, punched it down, dropped it in a plastic bag and put it in the refrigerator, hoping that the refrigerator would stay cool enough throughout the power outage to stop the yeast from rising uncontrollably. Then we were off to find someplace outside the area affected by the power outage to get something to eat.

I was frustrated to say the least, but as we were driving to find some fast food at a place where we could sit out the outage, I thought about the people over in Japan and how drastically their lives have been altered over the past few weeks. Then I thought about just how dependent we have become on something that less than one hundred years ago was considered a convenience, even a luxury. I guess the same thing could be said about many things in our lives, but electricity seems to be at the heart of it. I’ve come to the conclusion that if someone wanted to cause the greatest amount of mayhem among humankind he or she would simply have to cut off the world’s electrical supply.

Sometimes sitting by candlelight when the power goes out is kind of fun. But if you think about permanently losing electricity it can be unnerving. Most of the things we do involve electricity at some point, whether it is cooking our food or keeping it from spoiling. The fuel for our vehicles is pumped with electricity, and the traffic lights that annoy us and control the flow of traffic use the same stuff. We use it to heat our homes and cool them, our water supply is pumped by it and you don’t even want to think about getting on a commercial flight if the air traffic controllers don’t have it.

I have to wonder if maybe the Amish, as misguided as their reasoning might be, don’t actually have the upper hand in some ways. They would never even know there was a worldwide power failure until they went into the nearest town and saw the mass chaos.

So, it seems we are all held captive, to either a greater or lesser extent, by the movement of electrons along strands of metal, and what was once considered a convenience has become a necessity.

For what it’s worth, at least I can still survive with a “dumb phone”.

We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.
~ Oscar Wilde

The necessary has never been man’s top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief traits of human uniqueness. Unlike other forms of life, man’s greatest exertions are made in the pursuit not of necessities but of superfluities.
~ Eric Hoffer

Only useless things are indispensable. 
~ Francis Picabia