Tag: motivation

Posted in Opinions and Thoughts, Travel

Life Is a Grand Adventure

Posted on by M Garcia
Hot Air Balloons in China
Up, up, and away!

I watched Up for the first time recently. I enjoyed it so much that I watched it a second time before returning the DVD to Netflix. It’s about a boy who dreamed of grand adventure and met the love of his life who also dreamed of adventure and exploration. They got married and grew old together without ever going on their big exploration trip. A series of incidents after his wife’s death fills Carl with determination to fulfill their youthful dream and off he goes to South America to explore.

There are a lot of life lessons embedded in the movie – persistence, the power of dreams, good guys win in the end, unconditional love, heroes with feet of clay – any of which would be a good topic for reflection. The life lesson from Up that struck me the most is that life is a grand adventure. But all too often, we get caught up in planning for our adventure that we forget to actually go on our adventure.

Think about it. Were you one of those people who created a bucket list when the movie of the same name came out? If so, where is your bucket list now? How many items on that list have you checked off? How many more items have you come up with that you didn’t add to the list? How many items on that list are left? And why haven’t you done them yet?

Likely you’re waiting until you retire. Or until the kids graduate from high school. Or college. Or medical school. Or until you finish your degree. Or your graduate degree. Or until you’ve paid off your mortgage. Or until you get your dream job with months of vacation and a huge salary. Or until you meet Mr. or Ms. Right. You plan and plan for your grand adventure so that when the conditions are perfect and the time is right, your grand adventure will go off without a hitch.

Conditions will never be perfect. The time will never be right. Adventures aren’t adventures unless they have snags, hitches, hiccups, and the unexpected.

So stop planning already. Life is the grand adventure. Don’t let life pass you by while you’re planning for it.

And the thought processor churns on . . .

Posted in Opinions and Thoughts

Power Lies in Possibility

Posted on by M Garcia

The end of the year is often a time of reflection. A time to think about things you’ve accomplished during the year, milestones you’ve reached, crossroads you’ve come to, and directions you’ve chosen. A time to think about the goals you didn’t achieve, the choices you didn’t make, and the milestones you missed by a little or a lot.

While it’s a good time to reflect, it’s important to think about moving forward, about looking ahead. It’s a good time to think about lessons learned from the past but also a good time to begin planning for the future.

So after you reflect on the year that is just ending, spend some time setting goals for next year, making plans for the months ahead, and thinking about the tomorrows to come.

After all, the power is in the possibilities.

And the thought processor churns on . . .

Posted in Running

The Road to Hell . . .

Posted on by M Garcia

You know that saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”? Well, that’s the story of my life sometimes.

I’ve come to realize that as much as I love my treadmill, I don’t have the right set-up to do a long run on it. I used to run 6 miles a day on the treadmill when I belonged to a gym that had a bank of televisions in front of the treadmill. And I used to do my long runs there from time to time, too. When I did my long runs last fall before my half-marathons, I did them on the treadmill but I moved the treadmill to the living room and watched movies while I ran. When I travel, if the fitness center in the hotel has cardio machines with televisions hooked up to them, not only can I run farther than I do on my own treadmill, I can run faster.

So, knowing that I need to get a little more serious about my long runs because training officially starts next week, I have been mentally preparing for today’s long run. I decided on Thursday that I couldn’t do an out-and-back of 3 or 4 miles (for a total of 6 or 8 miles) because I just wasn’t sure if I could last that long. So yesterday I visualized the best route to run to give myself easy outs if I need to cut the run short – for 6 miles, it’s around the pond (out), halfway to the dump and back (out), repeat once; for 8 miles, it’s halfway to the dump and back (out), around the pond (out), repeat once (outs as indicated), halfway to the dump and back.

But, all the good intentions in the world can’t take the place of actual action. You know where this story is going. Yes, that’s right, I didn’t go for my long run this morning. I got started on a project and by the time the project was done, there wasn’t enough time for the long run before Father’s Day brunch. See what I just did there? I blamed my dad for not being able to do my long run. And on Father’s Day, too!

So I did a quick 30 minutes on the treadmill and called it good. And I have the best intention to do my long run outside next week. 🙂

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there and especially to my own father. And as always, happy running!