It seems like a lifetime ago, but once upon a time, I was in the Army. One of the places I was stationed for training was in Monterey, CA. It was beautiful. It was dreadful. It was a place for learning lessons – lessons the Army paid me to learn, and lessons no one should ever have to learn, about themselves and about the world we live in.
I decided long ago that I would move back to California someday, because the beauty far outweighed the pain.
However, tonight, almost seventeen years after my time in California, I believe I learned a lesson I should have learned a long time ago.
When I was stationed in California, we used to have to do these battalion runs. I think they were about three miles long, which shouldn’t be horrible for someone who does PT (physical training) every day. But running was never my thing. I even had a profile (waiver) against running, I was that bad at it, and it took that much out of my body. So when we would do these runs, I think once per quarter, I would trudge along for about 2-1/2 miles, and would either finish at a walk, far behind the rest, or I would be picked up by the medic van and brought back to the formation. I never finished, not once.
I was thinking about that tonight, and about how often in my life I’ve given up, just trudging along until I quit or until someone picked me up and brought me back to where I was supposed to be. It’s not a very satisfying feeling at all. My whole life, I’ve taken the easy out, the fail, instead of looking for a way to push through, a way to succeed against all odds. I’ve always just told that voice in my head that I was “afraid” of success. What a load of crap!
I was never afraid to succeed. It was just easier to fail.
So, maybe you’re wondering what made me think of this lesson tonight? It’s simple, really. I’m 16 days into a 21-day detox/cleanse. It’s called the Ultimate Reset. It’s supposed to clean out all the gunk we habitually load into our bodies. We wonder why we feel like crap, have no energy, fall ill. It’s all of the toxic garbage we put into our bodies, whether we’re eating it, drinking it, or inhaling it. Slathering it on our skin. Toxins come from everywhere. Most people don’t realize that. Most people don’t care. They’ll keep going to the doctors, taking more medications, damaging their seemingly fragile yet impossibly strong bodies beyond belief. But I digress.
Tonight, I was hungry, and bored. Probably more bored than hungry. I was ready to eat anything I could get my hands on. I looked at the calendar, grabbed a glass of water, because I am allowed to have that, and thought about it. Since I knew I wasn’t really hungry, I got over the craving for junk. And I thought about the 16 days I’ve already gone through – the headaches, the cold, hot and cold flashes (mostly cold), the endless supplements and gallons of distilled water. I thought about all of the good foods that I’ve been introduced to, the proper eating habits, how good I actually feel. I thought about the fact that I only have five days left until the cleanse is over.
And I thought about never finishing a single battalion run while I was in California.
I’m not afraid of success. I’m not taking the easy fail. This is one run I’m going to finish.
Lost in Translation 